Anthony Pickard was named the new director of Campus Safety & Security for BYU–Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center on March 5. One week later, he was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. His ability to stay calm through adversity like this is what his wife, Laura Pickard, said makes him a hero in the eyes of their children.
“It was definitely something new,” Anthony Pickard said. “We were just trying to figure out how to provide security.” He said the first decision in providing better security during the pandemic was to close the campus to the public.
“The community understood why we were closing the campus, and some people accepted it, but it was hard,” he recalled. “But we are trying to be good neighbors.”
He said being a good neighbor means following the rules on wearing masks and physically distancing.
The most difficult part for Anthony Pickard and his colleagues, he said, was to enforce the rules. “As people come on our campus, we try to ask them to follow the rules, which is difficult because it’s new for some people. We always encourage people, including students, to follow the rules, but we always do so in a professional manner.”
A good foundation
Roderick Graham, who works with Anthony Pickard as a security officer, said his professionalism is apparent. “His attitude makes my job easier. I know how I am going to be treated if I need correction,” Graham said. “Most of the time, we are trying to serve people.”
Anthony Pickard said professionalism started when he was in high school at Kahuku on the basketball team. “It taught me to never give up. If you work hard, you will be able to accomplish your goals,” he said.
Pickard wasn’t a starting player during his freshman year on his junior varsity team. So he constantly improved his game, he said, eventually becoming a starter as a sophomore, and he became an Oahu Interscholastic Association all-star as a senior.
Graham said the way people handle adversity is individualized. “It is no fault of their own; it can be a great blessing. It gives them an opportunity to do something they never thought possible. Sometimes, when you fail, you must learn to keep going.”
According to a BYUH article written on Pickard, he served in the Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission and attended BYUH as a basketball recruit, where he played on the inaugural basketball team.
Serving the Lord
Anthony Pickard said he took this attitude with him while working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even though he said joining was a “huge step.” He said, “Being in the FBI meant we would move around a lot.” But Pickard said his wife was a huge factor in his decision to join the FBI.
“She has always been a great example to me,” he said, explaining the many moves caused by his assignments did not matter to his wife. “We agreed to work as a partnership, and she always stood by me, whatever I did,” he said.
Laura and Anthony Pickard knew each other in high school before they got married. Laura Pickard said when the decision came to join the FBI, “it was not a big aha moment. ... We always agreed to choose the most important things first.” According to Laura Pickard, this was to serve the Lord in every circumstance.
Laura Pickard said because they promised to choose to follow the Lord, they decided to go for it. “No matter where we got assigned, we knew it would work out,” she said.
After Anthony Pickard was given his first assignment in the FBI, Laura Pickard said the family struggled to adjust. She explained how her young family had just moved into a new house after prayerfully deciding which one to buy. She said because the house was in unfamiliar territory, and she constantly prayed to Heavenly Father saying the ward they were living in needed their help.
Laura Pickard said her husband’s attitude helped them and their children to have faith everything would work out. “You just need to make the best you can out of it by giving your best,” she said. Laura said their children have continuously followed that example ever since then.
The ultimate goal
Graham has known Anthony Pickard for 20 years, and he said there is no difference between how he serves in the Church and how he serves as the director of campus security. “In every conversation, he has been the same,” Graham said. “When something happens, he listens. He listens, thinks about the problem, then acts. I don’t see a difference between how he treats me and everyone else.”
Graham credited this to the atmosphere at BYUH. “We are here to build people spiritually, and some people don’t know it because they do not know what to look for,” he said. “You cannot beat the atmosphere on campus.”
Anthony Pickard’s attitude and experience are what Graham said the university is lucky to have because he understands the campus and community since he grew up in it. Graham added how he has never seen Anthony Pickard complain. “Where some people may be too cautious or too hasty, he never overreacts,” he said. According to Graham, he keeps calm even though he has commitments as a father, husband, temple worker and now, the director of Campus Safety and Security.
According to Laura Pickard, her husband’s response to the pandemic shows how much he understands and cares about the campus and community. “He was always thinking about the students first,” she said.
Anthony Pickard said he tries to teach what he has learned about adversity to the students he works with at the security office. With this knowledge and a lot of hard work, he said some of them have gone into law enforcement. “One officer who worked with me here at BYUH came back from recruiting at the Honolulu Police Department to say thank you for the mentoring he received because he felt so much more prepared,” he said.
Anthony Pickard said his ultimate goal is still to keep students safe. “Every department’s goal is to make our campus a great learning environment,” he said. “By following the university’s code of conduct and government guidelines regarding safety during the pandemic, we can achieve that vision.”