At 29 Garden, It's Vallier to the Rescue

Herbert J. Vallier Knows what he's up against.

The Harvard Police Department's new administrator must revamp morale among police officers, stop vicious infighting in the security guard unit and boost the department's sagging finances.

"Am I working a lot of hours? You want to ask my wife about that?" jokes Vallier, a former administrator in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences human resources arm. "I'm working 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. days and I do memo-writing when I get home."

Three months into the job, police officers and security guards say Vallier is making headway.

But he already has rankled some officers, such as Lt. Lawrence J. Murphy--the head of VIP protection and, along with Vallier and Police Chief Paul E. Johnson, one of the department's three power centers. Sources say Vallier stripped Murphy this summer of roughly 5,000 compensation hours--extra hours the lieutenant worked without overtime but for which he could later be compensated--that Murphy had built up over the years.

He also is changing the culture of the guard unit, and some say his biggest break so far may have been the illness of Manager of Operations for Security Robert J. Dowling, who is out on temporary disability.

Sources say Vallier and Dowling sparred over alleged inconsistencies in the operations manager's handling of the security unit.

Guards have accused Dowling for years of favoritism and even racial discrimination in shift assignments, on-the-job treatment and overtime pay, but Dowling has denied the charges and a University-sanctioned investigation last year found them groundless.

Vallier, however, challenged Dowling's management, and even nixed the operations manager's plans to promote three guards to new supervisor positions.

Department sources say hiring new supervisors from among the guards in a deeply divided unit would have created even more turmoil. Vallier says that such a move, in a guard service that has lost money in recent years, doesn't make economic sense.

"We're running a large deficit," he says, "and I couldn't imagine adding on to that deficit."

After Vallier reportedly reprimanded him earlier this summer, several sources said Dowling, who is in his 60s, decided he no longer wanted the job. When his disability benefits were approved, Dowling emptied his office, taking even a treasured fish ornament. He is not expected to return.

Repeated efforts to reach Dowling last week were unsuccessful.

Corporate Sensibility

Vallier, equal parts meticulous and affable, says he's trying to create a "corporate" sensibility for the department. He formed his sense of what is properly corporate and professional during stints in the employee relations department at Shell Oil and as the vice president for human resources for a large health care provider.

Vallier also knows Harvard. He has worked in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences human resources arm, and was known for aggressively seeking solutions for lower-ranking employees when they had trouble with professors and top administrators.

"My approach is that you set up minimal standards and you must be very fair about it," he says.

Some of those standards are derived from the Marshall Report, an investigation of guards' claims of discrimination completed during the summer of 1993. While claiming that allegations of discrimination were false, the report indicated that the unit had been mismanaged and proposed 17 different changes.

Vallier says he is working on several of these initiatives, including a draft of a new guard manual.

And over the summer, Vallier shuttled guards through special sensitivity sessions and additional training designed to focus the security officers on customer service.

"Part of our weakness has been a whole lot of infighting and a lack of focus on how to deliver quality service," he says. "We seem to have been dwelling too much on some of our weaknesses."

Vallier has won modest praise from many security guards and police officers. But his close contact with the person who hired him--Vice President and General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall, who oversees the department but is generally distrusted by officers--has caused some to be cautious.

"If he only throws up a smoke-screen for the department and Ms. Marshall, then he's going to do nothing," says one officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Vallier also has upset others such as Murphy, who preferred the more laid-back style of former administrator Brian D. Sinclair '62.

Murphy says he has not been stripped of comp time, but officers say he has privately complained about just such a move. Asked about the Murphy decision, Vallier says personnel matters are confidential. Then he adds:

"Just because we've done different practices in the past doesn't mean they will continue in the future. What I will say is that I'm fair. I realize some people may not like that."

Vallier's ultimate goal is making the department--particularly the guard service--a more viable business. While it is part of the University, Harvard's various departments hire the unit like they would an independent contractor.

In recent years, graduate schools have chosen private security firms over the Harvard guard unit. Last spring, the Law School, citing problems with the quality and cost of the Harvard service, dumped the University guards for officers from Security Systems, Inc. The Business School is now weighing a similar change, sources say.

Whatever the setback, Vallier says he will continue to be firm and fair. There is no other way, he adds, to improve the department's traditionally low morale.

"My biggest concern is morale," he says, "and what I'm looking for is opportunities to improve it.

"My utopia here is to have happy, professional, self-directed work teams," Vallier adds. "That professionalism will motivate us to do better."