Seizing the Moment with a Leadership Mindset

Cheryl Michaels is Director of Emergency Management and Associate Director of Safety and Security at Seattle Pacific University. Cheryl walks us through her evolving insights on how great leaders see, hear, and act in a defining moment.

Our conversation during the 2020 pandemic, reaffirms the need for a fundamental baseline for all leaders to ensure we imaginatively and confidently confront anything that happens in our business or in our lives.

Cheryl has worked in the security field for 31 years. In 1990 she joined Raytheon’s naval weapons-manufacturing division in Security Operations, where she oversaw the physical security and classified information protection program. In 2001 she began working for the Office of Safety and Security at Seattle Pacific University. As Associate Director, she is responsible for the Security Operations Center, a 24/7 emergency dispatch center for the campus that also monitors surveillance systems, fire systems, and the campus emergency notification system. For the last 16 years, she has been responsible for implementing the University’s emergency and crisis management plan, which has included training for first responders and the campus community through seminars and exercises.

Finally, she is also responsible for the campus gender-based violence awareness program which includes investigations of crimes and provides threat assessments for at risk individuals. She is a certified self-defense instructor with Rape Aggression Defense Systems.