Summer 2012 County Lines Magazine

AAC

F a m ily  F r i e n d s

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It’s a lot of work being retired. My wife and I are building a house, taking care of our property, and my son and I are doing a lot of things that we wouldn’t be able to normally. I’m really enjoying doing all those things.

— Danny Ormand

Former ACIC director, sheriff reflects as he steps into retirement

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By Scott Perkins County Lines Editor

country boy whose parents taught him to always help others, started his journey in a small town called Stamps, Ark. After a career in public service where he excelled at helping people, his journey has brought him right back home.

Danny Ormand, who retired as director of the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC) earlier this year, started his career in the Lafayette County Road Department, but before he would retire, he would serve his county, community and his state in several positions.

“I was interested in anything with a siren on it,” Ormand recalled about the beginning of his career with a down-home smile. “I’ve always been around public service. You’ll never get rich, but you can get fulfilled.”

His mother served as Lafayette County Treasurer for many years and his dad was a postman in Stamps.

“My parents really stressed that ‘you need to do your best to help someone. You need to be helping someone do something,’” he recalled.

Ormand took the reins of the ACIC in January 2009 and his impact on the association and the statewide law enforcement community endures today.

During his tenure, ACIC created and launched the CENSOR project which automated an entire electronic system of sex offender registration and verification.

CENSOR is installed at every law enforcement agency in Arkansas and it greatly reduced the paper trail and cumbersome workload for maintaining sex offender data. Ormand also spearheaded changes to the database concerning information available to local law enforcement agencies about sex offenders. Those changes and the CENSOR system simplified the process of registering sex offenders and verifying their addresses.

“All the credit goes to the staff of the ACIC,” Ormand said. “We wanted it more automated because the workload was just too much. We were able to build this system from scratch with a federal grant of less than $300,000. It’s a valuable tool.”

ACIC embarked on the sex-offender program in 2009 and saw it come to fruition two years later.

Ormand says he is proud of many of his ACIC accomplishments but the sex offender program stands tall in his mind.

“Law enforcement always had difficulty keeping up with sex offenders,” Ormand said. “It was all paper being shuffled between local law enforcement, Department of Corrections and ACIC.” 44

n Danny Ormand n Born in Lafayette County n 1985: Hired as deputy sheriff in Lafayette County n 1988-2002: Became the Area 4 coordinator for the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. n 2002-2007: Lafayette Co. Sheriff. n 2007: Accepted the position of deputy director of Arkansas Department of Emergency Services n 2008: Arkansas Crime Information Board hired him to be director of the agency n 2012: retired from ACIC. Information Network of Arkansas (INA) assisted the ACIC on getting the sex offender site up and running.

“INA was a huge asset in getting it online for a cost we could afford,” Ormand said.

One of ACIC’s overall goals under Ormand’s leadership was to “help the locals.”

“Law enforcement agencies always have funding issues and lack of staff, and our goal was to help them as much as possible,” Ormand said.

Some of Ormand’s other ACIC accomplishments include publicly promoting the Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE) system, and he developed and implemented the ACIC mobile classroom that allows for training to be provided throughout the state.

He also completed several building and organizational improvements and a new inventory system to more effectively track ACIC equipment that is located across the state.

The path to sheriff He began his experience in the Lafayette County Sheriff’s office as a dispatcher and jailer, and in 1985, he became a deputy sheriff. He soon graduated from the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy and his duties included patrol, civil service and jail administrator.

In 1988, he joined the Arkansas Office of Emergency Management, now the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, as the Area 4 coordinator.

“In emergency management, you see a lot of opportunities to help people, “Ormand said of his 14 years in that position. “Some of these Continued Page 47

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COUNTY LINES, SUMMER 2012