A former police cadet who found his calling in higher education, David A. DeCenzo has one goal: to provide the kind of presidential leadership that will allow CCU to reach its greatest potential.

By: Doug Bell

David DeCenzo grew up in Clinton, Md., a small bedroom community outside Washington, D.C. He was a good athlete in high school, lettering in football, wrestling, baseball and track. After graduating in 1973, he enrolled in the local police cadet program. During the three years he was with the Prince George's County Police Department, he learned a few lessons that have stuck with him.
"One of the best things I learned was how to talk to angry people," says DeCenzo. "I learned that there are people out there who dislike other people because of a uniform, a badge, a patch on your arm—because of what these things represent. I've been spit at and put in situations that were potentially explosive. I learned to remain calm, to figure out how to defuse a situation rather than inflame it."

DeCenzo's potential was recognized within the department, and his mentors on the force encouraged him to continue his education. In his three years as a cadet he earned two years of college credit, taking evening classes at the local community college. He was interested in business and economics, and during his final semester there he won a Wall Street Journal Junior Achievement award. Then he received a senatorial scholarship that enabled him to go on to the University of Maryland, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1978, specializing in labor economics.

With the nation in the middle of a recession, DeCenzo encountered a poor job market upon graduating, so he applied to graduate schools and was accepted for an assistantship at West Virginia University. Soon after enrolling he learned about a brand new Ph.D. program in industrial relations that combined studies in labor economics, business psychology, sociology and labor law. The program appealed to DeCenzo's interests, and he became its second graduate in 1981.
Upon graduating he took a job as assistant professor at the University of Baltimore where he met his wife Terri, who grew up in nearby Eldersburg. They married in 1982 and now have four children: Mark, Meredith, Gabriella and Natalie.

"It's always been my passion to work with people."

DeCenzo (center) meets with Eddie Dyer and Darla Domke-Damonte to outline a strategic planning process for the university.

After three years on the faculty at Baltimore, DeCenzo knew that higher education was his true vocation, but he decided that experience in the corporate world was necessary to his development as a business professor. He joined Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland as a corporate training/employee development specialist.

"It's always been my passion to work with people," says DeCenzo. "I enjoy developing methods to enhance their skills in ways that benefit them as well as the company they work for."

At Blue Cross, he and a colleague created a management development program for secretarial-level administrative staff. Based on the principle that administrative staffers apply much the same skill sets to perform their jobs as upper-level managers, the program they implemented was extremely well received throughout the company.

While DeCenzo was employed there, the "merging of the blues"—the great merger of the formerly separate Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies into one giant corporation—took place. It was a mammoth administrative/managerial undertaking, and the experience DeCenzo received as a consequence proved very useful to him in his chosen field of study.

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