He’s a new face here at Northwest. He’s here all day everyday. His job is to keep everyone safe, and with ten years experience he successfully does that. It’s security guard Brian Martin, some of you may know him by his nickname, Boe. Martin isn’t your typical intimidating security guard, walking in the halls you can see he has a big fan base, and just likes to have fun while working.
“I like how I can joke around, everything doesn’t have to be tense all the time. I don’t want kids to look at me and think ‘oh he’s a security guard we better stay away from him’ because I like to have fun, Martin said. Kids can come up to me and we can joke around from time to time.”
When Martin isn’t giving new drivers parking decals, checking who’s in Cave, filling out reports on lost items, or supporting Market Day by eating three bowls of ice cream drinking two cherry limeades and tasting some tacos. Martin is where we see him the most, walking around the commons and hallways making sure every student is getting to class.
“Some days are boring, you’re just wondering ‘am I gonna’ get a call’? “But then that’s like saying we want something bad to happen, and we don’t. Sometimes the job just gets boring if there’s nothing going on. But we also have our busy days too.”
Watching Martin during passing period and at lunch, we can all see that a majority of us are stopping just to conversate with him, and get a few laughs in before we leave to our next class.
“I hope they (students) think I’m a good person. I’m easy to get along with. I hope they see that they can come and talk to me about their problems and we can get the problem solved. Most of them know they can talk to me,” Martin said. “But I hope they see me as a good guy.”
Other than having to carry around all his equipment, which includes his badge, handcuffs, maze, walkie-talkie, and gloves, Martin doesn’t dislike anything about his job. In fact he feels right at home here.
“The administration is pretty cool, and the students are cool too. So it’s good here.”
And although retirement is further down the road for this beloved security guard, he knows exactly what he miss will most.
“I’ll just miss the kids. I’ll miss helping them,” Martin said.
