From: “Governor’s Press Office”
Date: December 10, 2013 at 5:21:21 PM EST
To: jeanne.hitchcock@maryland.gov
Subject: CORRECTIONS SECRETARY TO LEAVE STATE SERVICE
Reply-To: gov.presslist@info.maryland.gov
Media Contacts: Nina Smith
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Office: 410-974-2316
Cell: 410-533-0363
CORRECTIONS SECRETARY TO LEAVE STATE SERVICE
Innovative leadership responsible for double-digit violence reduction at DPSCS
ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 10, 2013) – Governor Martin O’Malley announced the departure and replacement of Secretary Gary Maynard of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS). Governor Martin O’Malley appointed Mr. Maynard as Secretary in 2007, bringing more than 30 years of wide-ranging experience in administrative corrections to the State of Maryland. Prior to his appointment, Maynard served as Director of the Iowa Department of Corrections. Maynard has also served as Director of the Department of Corrections in both South Carolina as well as Oklahoma.
“Gary’s tireless work over the last six years to make our correctional institutions safer and more secure has paved the way for stronger, safer communities across the State of Maryland,” said Governor O’Malley. “From the closure of one of the most dangerous prisons in the country in just 12 days, to planting over a million trees to help with Bay restoration, Gary Maynard’s resolute leadership and better choices have led to better results for Maryland families. We are extremely grateful for his faithful service to our state and look forward to working with Deputy Secretary Gregg Hershberger as he assumes his new post as Acting Secretary.”
Maynard’s tenure is marked with successful programmatic upgrades and managerial accomplishments, including the successful closure of one of the most violent prisons in the nation in just 12 days. His oversight of the deconstruction resulted in five million dollars in savings for the State. Mr. Maynard also streamlined the DPSCS command structure into regional divisions and established a new model for reentry covering treatment, training, education, community and state partnerships. Together, these efforts helped to drive down Maryland’s recidivism from just under 50% in 2007 to 40.5% in 2012. In addition, under Maynard’s leadership, DPSCS implemented strategies that drove down serious assaults on staff in Maryland prisons by almost 60 percent since 2007.
Upon his departure, Mr. Maynard will join the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) where he will serve as Senior Vice President. CJI is a private, non-profit national firm with more than 35 years of professional experience providing services to federal, state, county and municipal criminal justice agencies. Established in 1978, CJI specializes in consultation, research, and information dissemination services for prisons and jail systems. The firm has regional offices in Hagerstown, Md.; Reno, Nev.; Middletown, Conn.; and, Flat Rock, N.C.
”These past seven years have been the most challenging and rewarding of my entire career. The dedication of the employees of this Department is remarkable. They have taught me so much, and as a team we have met many challenges. They have done the impossible and deserve great credit,” said Secretary Maynard. “I want to thank Governor O’Malley for the opportunity to serve the citizens of Maryland. His faith in my and this Department made it possible for us to have as much success in the last seven years as we’ve had.”
Gregg Hershberger currently serves as the Deputy Secretary for Operations for DPSCS, and will take over the department with more than 31 years of experience. Mr. Hershberger joined the Department after graduating from Elizabethtown College in 1976. He began his work with the department as a Correctional Officer at the Maryland Correctional Training Center (MCTC), before becoming a Classification Counselor, also known as a case manager, in the fall of 1983. He worked at the MCTC in a number of capacities before he was promoted to Case Management Supervisor in October 2001.
Later, Hershberger accepted a position as Facility Administrator at the MCTC pre-release complex in December 2005. In December 2006, he was elevated to Assistant Warden, then Warden at Roxbury Correctional Institution (RCI) in July 2009. Among the other positions he has held within the department, Mr. Hershberger also served as a hostage negotiator and defensive tactics instructor.
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State Public Safety And Corrections Secretary Stepping Down
Announcement comes on eve of legislative report on jail corruption
By Ian Duncan and Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun Dec 10, 2013
State corrections secretary Gary D. Maynard announced Tuesday that he will step down, saying his department had “stabilized” the Baltimore jail in the wake of a gang corruption scandal there.
Maynard, who moved his offices into the Baltimore City Detention Center to oversee reforms, said in an email to staff that he felt ready to leave for a job at a research institute. The scandal involving the Black Guerrilla Family gang has dominated headlines this year, and Maynard held onto his position amid calls for his ouster.
Maynard’s departure comes as state lawmakers prepare Wednesday to issue recommendations on corrections reform. The legislative commission was convened after 25 defendants — 13 of them corrections officers — were charged last April in a federal case that involved allegations of rampant drug smuggling and sex between inmates and officers.
In the email to staff, Maynard wrote that he had considered leaving for his next job before the scandal broke but decided to remain at the helm of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
“After the federal indictments at the Detention Center came down, I could not leave,” he wrote. “Now that the situation there has stabilized, and new leadership there continues to work with the vast majority of BCDC’s dedicated, hardworking and honest employees on the job every day, I can move on.”
Maynard arrived in Maryland in 2007 and quickly won praise for shutting down the notorious House of Correction in Jessup, executing a stealthily conceived plot to ship hundreds of inmates to other facilities.
In the following years, the department drove down violence in prisons and cut recidivism rates, according to state data. Gov. Martin O’Malley praised Maynard’s record Tuesday, saying in a statement that he had shown “resolute leadership.”
“Gary’s tireless work over the last six years to make our correctional institutions safer and more secure has paved the way for stronger, safer communities across the State of Maryland,” O’Malley said.
But House Minority Leader Nicholaus R. Kipke questioned whether the state’s troubled correction’s system was ready to lose its widely respected leader. He called Maynard’s departure “disappointing.”
“When all these problems and the corruption indictment surfaced, he was willing to take responsibility,” the Anne Arundel County Republican said, adding that he fully supported Maynard staying in the role.
“I’m disappointed that he’s leaving without having fixed the problem. One of the reasons that I was optimistic about him was his commitment to seeing this thing through. I feel as though the people of the state of Maryland have been misled, and I hope that we get someone who is committed to the long-term.”
The legislative commission was assembled to propose ways to combat corruption and smuggling in Maryland’s prisons. Its report is expected to be released Wednesday.
Del. Guy Guzzone, one of the leaders of the commission, said the report will recommend a number of changes to the department but that nothing in the report “points directly” to Maynard or would give him cause to resign.
“Everybody has to look at themselves and know when they’re ready to move on to other challenges,” the Howard County Democrat said. “If he’s in that place, then we wish him well.”
Gregg Hershberger, the department’s deputy secretary for operations, has been tapped to fill the top job. Hershberger will take over as secretary Thursday, with the final recommendations in hand, although a corrections spokesman said Maynard will stay around through the end of the year to manage the transition.
While many lawmakers praised Maynard’s work, Del. John W. E. Cluster Jr., a Baltimore County Republican on the corrections commission, questioned the timing of the secretary’s departure.
“I’m sure he’s privy to the report,” Cluster said. “I just don’t know that he wanted to withstand all the changes we want to have made in the department.”
But Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr., another commission member who described himself as a personal friend of Maynard’s, said the secretary told him Tuesday he had made the decision to leave himself.
“He assured me that it wasn’t something where he was forced out,” the Baltimore Democrat said. “No one pressured him to resign. This is something he’s been wanting to do for several months.”
The final months of Maynard’s tenure have been overshadowed by the Baltimore jail case.
Maynard and other state officials have faced questions about how much they knew about the alleged corruption under their watch.
But the corrections department has said it had called on the FBI and other agencies to begin investigating back in 2011.
O’Malley was abroad when federal authorities unsealed the April case and wrote to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake that the initial announcement made it appear as though the corrections department was “asleep at the switch.” In reality, he said, the case represented a major, cooperative step against the Black Guerrilla Family gang.
Maynard resisted calls to resign and sat through hours-long grillings by legislative leaders. He moved his office from the department’s Towson headquarters to the jail, laboring to improve security at the Civil War-era jail and weed out corrupt officers.
In an interview shortly after the federal indictments, Maynard pledged to stay in the job “until it’s fixed.”
“I may put a little bow on it and say, ‘This is one of the better running jails in the country.’ And maybe in a year or two, walk away from it,” he said at the time.
In recent weeks, corrections officials have touted their success so far, citing reduced contraband smuggling and violence at the Baltimore jail even as a new round of charges last month implicated another 14 corrections officers in the corruption scandal.
Maynard started in corrections in 1970 as a prison psychologist in Oklahoma and went on to run prisons there, as well as in South Carolina and Iowa, earning accolades for his hands-on approach and willingness to resolve a crisis.
Last year, he was honored by the top award from the Association of State Correctional Administrators.
O’Malley recruited Maynard shortly after taking office, and their first order of business was to shut down the state’s notoriously dangerous House of Correction in Jessup, where a corrections officer had been killed.
Maynard and O’Malley attended a vigil for another guard who was injured, and the governor pledged that his administration would “move just as quickly as we can to create a safer environment.”
Ten days later, officials shuttered the House of Correction, sending Maryland’s most violent offenders out of state and transferred the remaining inmates to other prisons — moving 842 inmates without any advance notice.
Maynard will join the Criminal Justice Institute, a nonprofit that provides advice to law enforcement agencies.
In the email to staff, Maynard recounted his achievements and praised his employees.
“At the same time, it’s very hard to leave this Department,” he wrote. “These past seven years have been the most challenging and rewarding in my entire career.”
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Maryland Secretary Of Public Safety Steps Down
By Bryan P. Sears, in the Daily Record Dec 11, 2013
Gov. Martin O’Malley late Tuesday announced the departure of state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Gary D. Maynard.
Maynard became secretary of the department in 2007. He is leaving his position to become senior vice president of the Criminal Justice Institute, a nonprofit national firm that provides consulting, research and information services to prison and jail systems.
Maynard will be replaced by Gregg Hershberger, the current deputy secretary for operations for the corrections department. Hershberger joined the department as a correctional officer in 1976 after graduating from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.
Maynard’s departure was announced on the day he was scheduled to have chaired a state task force meeting to discuss the issue of representation of defendants at initial bail hearings in criminal cases. The meeting was postponed because of the snow.
The department he headed has been rocked this year by federal indictments of correctional officers and inmates.