Bert Williams, CCJS ’96

Bert Williams’ advice for current students is also what he hopes to achieve as the new president of the University of Maryland Alumni Association’s Board of Governors: Build genuine connections.

“I think a lot of us come through college in our early years hearing people talk about how important it is to network, network, network, but it’s really all about building real relationships, not just who you’re connected to on LinkedIn,” said Williams, 1996 graduate of the department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJS). “Be intentional about building genuine connections and relationships, and the rest will follow.”

This advice proved true for Williams in the early days of his decadeslong career in the security field, the majority of which involved managing executive protection, emergency plans, incident response, threat assessments, intelligence gathering, special event security planning, and more at Fannie Mae.

It all started with the relationship he developed with the manager he had as a freshman student worker in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) “Stay in School” program, which paid Williams to oversee the travel arrangements and schedules of the FAA managers who visited different air traffic control towers around the country.

The manager Williams worked with most closely—and who Williams said to this day is one of the people who’ve had the biggest impact on his career—helped Williams secure a paid, in-major internship during his senior year with the FAA’s Office of the Chief Council.

“When I was looking for other internships, a lot of people were saying they didn’t have a budget for a student worker, so the manager I had at the time said, ‘Start looking for an internship in the agency that’s interesting to you, and tell them that your current boss will keep paying you out of his own budget.’ He did that for me, and so even though I didn’t have any desire to be an attorney, I was exposed to the legal realm and got to review affidavits and learn about some of the cases that were going on with the federal government on top of getting paid and getting credit.”

This was a critical opportunity for Williams, who was responsible for paying his own way through college. Being the one paying for his own education is actually part of the reason why Williams landed in CCJS.

“Like a lot of my friends at that time, my parents were like ‘you have to major in business,’ but ultimately the decision was mine,” he said.

So, Williams came to his “dream school,” the University of Maryland, from nearby Eleanor Roosevelt High School with his major undeclared. And he stayed that way until his junior year.

“I sat down with an academic advisor and she said a good place to start would be to look at the majors that would give me the most credit for the classes that I had already taken, and criminology and criminal justice was one of them,” Williams recalled. “My initial thought was ‘OK, is this for pre-law people?’ but I read more about it, and after the very first class I took, CCJS 100, I was like ‘I’m in the right place.’”

Further solidifying his decision to major in CCJS was the reputation of the program itself, and the professors leading his classes.

“The program was the number one in the nation at that time, and I was taking classes from professors who had authored the textbooks that we were studying from and that others students at other colleges were studying from. I realized that was a special opportunity,” Williams said.

Williams also said he appreciated the fact that he could build relationships with faculty rather easily. He specifically remembers talking to Lawrence Sherman, the head of CCJS at the time, about different concepts and opportunities that a CCJS major may lead to, and taking Senior Lecturer Tom Mauriello’s forensics class.

Williams also recalls making an impactful connection with Katheryn Russell-Brown, a former CCJS professor who is now the University of Florida’s Levin, Mabie & Levin Professor of Law. Williams participated in a focus group that made its anonymized way into a book she wrote, and also presented Russell-Brown with an award from a student group he was a part of.

“All of these people were very relatable, very reachable, always willing to talk, and very influential in my academic advancement,” Williams said.

Today, as president of the Alumni Association’s Board of Governors, Williams hopes to achieve many goals in line with the association’s strategic plan—which he helped to develop in his previous role as an at-large member of the Board of Governors. However, helping alumni make meaningful connections to each other, the university, and to students is among his top priorities, if not his personal mission.

“We have other 400,00 alums and not nearly that representation in terms of active, registered association members. There’s a lot of growth opportunity there, but it’s not just growth opportunity from a numbers or business perspective, it’s growth opportunity from a connection perspective,” he said. “The membership stats will follow if the foundation is genuine connection and creating a genuine sense of home and belonging that says ‘We want you here. We are happy to have you here.’”

Learn More about Bert Williams’ Involvement with the Alumni Association