Combat veteran turned professor finds Santiago Canyon College a perfect fit
By Nicole Gregory, contributing writer
While serving in Afghanistan, Justin Gardiner managed to take college courses between his duties as an infantryman. “We only had a couple of computers that had internet access,” he said, “so I’d run up to there and download everything onto a thumb drive, then come back and then work on my stuff on my laptop all week.”
Under these difficult circumstances, Gardiner kept taking classes whenever he could, and it paid off in ways he could not have imagined.
Today, he works as an adjunct professor at Santiago Canyon College and is the code compliance manager for the city of Cathedral City, positions he is thrilled to hold. From infantryman to college professor at Santiago Canyon College and city manager has been “a nonstop crazy journey,” said the 37-year-old veteran.
Born in the San Fernando Valley city of Northridge, Gardiner was home-schooled until he attended Cathedral City High School. He joined the Army as an infantryman and was stationed in Germany with the 173rd Airborne. Whenever he could, he took college classes on his computer.
He deployed to Afghanistan from 2007 to 2009. “As an infantryman, I was assigned to the personal security detachment,” Gardiner explained. “We were essentially the bodyguards for the command sergeant major and the battalion commander. So anywhere they went, we went.” Still, he said, “I was pumping out college classes while I was downrange.”
Gardiner sustained a serious injury to his left ankle and was awarded a Purple Heart. He returned to Germany for several years and then came home to California.
Eventually, he earned his associate degree in criminal justice, and after he got out of the Army, he was hired on as a police officer. He continued to take classes, working around his job schedule.
“I was going to National University to earn my bachelor’s,” Gardiner said. “We met once a week on Tuesdays and then all day on Saturdays. I would schedule my break or lunch hour around when class was supposed to meet,” he said. “I’d have my radio on and all my equipment — I’d be in full police gear — and I would sneak into the back of class, and I’d radio in that I was taking my break, and if an emergency happened, I was available. There were times when I had to pop up, and take off and run out, and say, “Sorry, professor!”
Despite the obstacles, Gardiner earned his bachelor’s degree in homeland security and emergency management with a minor in criminal justice administration. When an opportunity came up in Riverside County in the code compliance department, Gardiner applied for the job and was hired.
Code compliance was an exciting new challenge, “especially coming from my background in the military and law enforcement,” he said.
Code compliance, he said, is “essentially holding property owners accountable to the city standards and ordinance and municipal code.” The purpose is to create safe, clean neighborhoods in which people can thrive. “And if we’re providing that, then it’s going to entice other people and other businesses to come to this city, invest their money here, and raise their families here,” Gardiner said.
This means identifying abandoned vehicles parked all over properties, property maintenance issues such as green pools of water that are mosquito breeding grounds, visual blights, and accumulated rubbish throughout a property.
Gardiner eventually went to Cabazon in unincorporated Riverside County, working as a code officer, where he excelled. “Within my first year I was elected to the Board of Representatives for the California Code Officers Association,” he said.
Gardiner still needed to earn his certification for code enforcement officer status, so he enrolled at Santiago Canyon College because it offered every class he needed. He met Sergio Verano, the program administrator for the code compliance courses.
“What I liked about Santiago Canyon College was that in the code compliance courses, I wasn’t dealing with college professors, but with subject matter experts in the field who were sharing their knowledge,” he said.
His training as a police officer and the fact that he had also trained others in his career, gave him a good foundation for code compliance work. Several SCC administrators noticed Gardiner’s enthusiasm and experience and reached out to see if he would be interested in becoming a part-time code compliance professor.
“I was totally shocked,” he said, and after a few interviews, he was hired.
Another reason SCC felt like a good fit was the college’s Veterans Center. Gardiner said it is the best he’s ever encountered. “I’ve been to quite a few higher education facilities, and I’ve dealt with quite a few veterans centers. None of them can hold a light to Santiago Canyon College.”
What makes SCC’s Veterans Center special? “Their attentiveness to the veterans and the welcoming vibe that they have,” said Gardiner. “They work above and beyond to make sure that their veterans are getting taken care of.”
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