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Q&A with Jay Pierson '87
Share a little about your career and what you've done since completing school.
After graduating from Tower Hill, I went to Randolph-Macon College down in Virginia, graduated in ’91 there after graduating from Tower Hill in ’87, and then I lived in Richmond for four years and tried to get a job as a police officer down there. I found that with no real experience and no connections down there it was a little difficult, so I moved back home and worked with the Rehoboth Police as a full-time officer. Then I got hired by New Castle County in 2000, so I’ve been a New Castle County police officer since then. I have spent time in our patrol division. I worked on a violent crime task force for a few years. I got promoted to a supervisory position sergeant in 2012, so I’ve been a supervisor and patrol since then.
Why do you do what you do?
I’ve been told that when I was a little kid that’s what I said I wanted to do, and it never changed from then I guess. I knew a couple police officers growing up, and as a little kid it was shiny badges and buttons on uniforms and cars with flashing lights that interested me. And then when I went to college I took some criminology classes that got me further interested in it. Once I actually got into it, I found that being able to truly help people was what I liked most about it. Interacting with the public and helping those who needed help was more than just an interview answer. Everyone says that when they apply for the job, but you find that you can truly make a difference in people's lives, and that’s pretty neat.
What are you passionate about at work?
Trying to make a difference. The county police’s jurisdictional boundaries put us in neighborhoods, apartment complexes, basically into people’s homes all the time. Mostly through domestic problems. That’s the bulk of our calls. I’ve always enjoyed trying to help people solve their problems when they’re not as capable of doing it maybe as an outsider might be. So trying to help people work through their daily problems, whether it’s marital or boyfriend/girlfriend problems, problems with a child who isn’t behaving as they should. We also deal with a lot of people who are suicidal, and trying to help people in that moment of crisis is something that I really like.
Probably almost equally important to me is that I’ve had the chance to teach new officers, and as a supervisor now I have the opportunity to still teach those newer officers once they’ve graduated from the field training program but are still new and still learning. Teaching what I’ve learned and what’s been passed on to me from others is one of the things I enjoy most about my job. My dad (John Pierson) was a teacher at Tower Hill for about 41 years, my sisters are both teachers, and so I’m the one who strayed from that path, but at times I find that I kind of didn’t; it’s just a different employer where I get to teach. But both of those aspects of the job are what interest me and what I’m passionate about.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Spending time with my family. I work a lot. And I work weird hours because I work shift work, so when I’m not working I like to be at home and play with my kids, wherever that leads us. At this point they’re still young so they’re not fully ensconced in sports outside of school, so primarily playing here at home with them. I try to stay active and fit otherwise, so I like running. I like getting to see friends, and I try to make sure that I still catch up with friends who are not police officers, and most of those friends I’ve known since I was in PreK at Tower Hill. I still have a very core group, which I think outside of Tower Hill is a little unheard of to have friends for that long, but it’s very special to me.
How do you feel that Tower Hill influenced your life and career?
Obviously enjoying the teaching aspect of my job and being able to pass that knowledge onto others. As a faculty kid, I had maybe a little different experience than some, but the teachers who had been there forever at that time — Ed Hughes or Ernie Savage or Harry Baetjer or Steve Hyde or my dad — who I saw just genuinely enjoy the teaching aspect of their job or the coaching aspect. The raising of the children when they were under their care. It sunk in with me, and I think, although I didn’t become a teacher, I knew that I wanted to do some teaching, whether it was training new officers or being a firearms instructor, I knew that I wanted to do something like that because that’s what I had seen those teachers get so passionate about and seemed to get so much enjoyment out of, that I knew that’s what I wanted to do, just not in the school setting. Seeing those people who were just so passionate about teaching, it definitely stuck with me, and I knew it was something I wanted to do in some way once I found my career path.
Tower Hill has always been a special place for me. I’ve counted up the years that Tower Hill has been a part of my life either directly or secondarily, either coming back to see my dad when he was still there, or being on the Alumni Council or now being a Tower Hill parent. I don’t know how somebody who’s not associated with the school can truly understand what a special place it is. I’m very thankful and very lucky that I was able to have had it be such a big part of my life for so many years. It’s always been special to me, and it always will be. My dad went there; my mom went there. My grandfather on my mom’s side went there; my great aunts and uncles went there. I have cousins who went there; I have cousins who go there now, children of the cousins I went there with. It’s just been a part of my family for so long, a different view than most have. My son’s the fourth generation of my family to have gone there. It’s just such a neat place. 100 years in, and I hope when it reaches 200 that people still feel the same way about it.
