Longtime Public Safety Officer Retires
After nearly four decades of service to Brooklyn Law School, most recently as a public safety supervisor, Claude Callender retired in December 2017.
Known by generations of students, faculty, staff, and visitors as the friendly face of Brooklyn Law School, Callender clearly loved working with people. Over 37 years, under four different deans, he greeted more than 15,000 students and a quarter-million visitors. He never had a serious security incident occur during his tenure, which he attributes to his skill at working out tense situations calmly and quietly. Leaving a legacy, he trained most of the public safety officers who continue working at the school, including his brother Lester.
Callender’s favorite part of the job has been creating lasting relationships with students and other members of the Law School community. “Students and alumni are part of my life,” he says. “It was so nice when alumni would come back to the school and say hi, and the students, faculty, and staff who I saw every day kept me going on a daily basis.”
Later this year, Callender, an avid cyclist, will join his cycling team on a trip to Jamaica and visit several other Caribbean destinations. Until then, he intends to keep his routine of getting up at 4:20 a.m. every day to go to the gym. But he also plans to take at least one vacation that doesn’t involve exercise: a trip to his home country of Guyana for the first time in nearly a decade.