When longtime volunteer firefighter and Army veteran Chris Feder looks over his three-decade-plus resume, he says the best job he ever had was serving as a public safety officer for the now-closed Cabrini University.<\/p>\n
This month, the 50-year-old started a new job that has been a lifelong dream and is rooted in that Cabrini experience: He became a Temple University<\/a> police officer.<\/p>\n Feder, a Montgomery County<\/a> native who currently lives in Haverford<\/a> Township, was the oldest cadet in his Temple University Municipal Police Academy class that graduated Friday and served as one of three class leaders.<\/p>\n He took what he estimates was a $25,000 pay cut from his job as director of rescue services for a private company to join Temple at a time when the university, like many police departments around the country, has struggled to recruit enough officers.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Temple University police provide training on swatting incidents following spate of fake calls at colleges this year<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been my life dream to become a police officer,\u201d Feder said last week. \u201cThings have come to me late in life, and I\u2019ve always seen myself vicariously through Rocky.\u201d<\/p>\n As Chris\u2019 wife, Anna, a human resources manager, tells it, \u201cHe\u2019s always embraced unconventionality and he\u2019s spent his life making his own way, against the odds.\u201d<\/p>\n He dropped out of high school and got his GED at 24. He joined the Army at 30 and spent a year in Afghanistan, and now two decades later, he\u2019s starting a career in law enforcement. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Temple should lead a collective effort to make North Philly safer, says long-awaited report<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n Feder is one of four new Temple officers in the latest graduating class.<\/p>\n \u201cThey all bring great experience, education and passion for wanting to be at Temple,\u201d said Jennifer Griffin, Temple\u2019s vice president for public safety. \u201cI think they will be great teammates to our existing officers and the entire public safety team.\u201d <\/p>\n Before entering the seven-month academy, Feder, like other cadets, went through physical and written exams, psychological and medical testing, and interviews. <\/p>\n Feder wasn\u2019t worried about meeting the physical demands, but rather the possibility of getting hurt during training. Having been away from school for a while, he also pondered the difficulty of the academics, which includes 26 exams. Cadets must maintain an 80% GPA.<\/p>\n To focus, he gave up his firefighting role and other positions with the exception of his military obligations. He continues as a staff sergeant for the Pennsylvania Air National Guard.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, I\u2019m at an 87% GPA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A longtime dream of becoming an officer<\/p>\n As a boy, Feder said he got into some trouble, was diagnosed with ADHD and landed at the former Wordsworth Academy for children experiencing emotional, behavioral, and academic challenges. (Wordsworth closed in 2016<\/a> after extensive allegations of abuse there.)<\/p>\n He dropped out before getting his high school diploma.<\/p>\n \u201cI was on this crusade to prove to the world that I could do something without it,\u201d he said. \u201cBoy, was I wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n He got his GED after his sister \u201cbribed\u201d him with a trip to Europe around Y2K, he said.<\/p>\n At 19, he became a volunteer firefighter.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to run into burning buildings,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to break windows. I wanted to be in the fire truck going fast through traffic. Let\u2019s face it, chicks dig it.\u201d<\/p>\n But through those years of service, he matured, became a state fire instructor, began writing articles for industry magazines, and joined the Montgomery County Hazardous Materials team.<\/p>\n \u201cYou start to learn that there\u2019s more important things in the world than yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cI became appreciative of civic duty, community service.\u201d<\/p>\n In his early 20s, he took that job at Cabrini, where he worked for three years, seven months, and 21 days. He said he thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the students and loved his colleagues there. <\/p>\n \u201cBadge number 15,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich I still play when I do roulette.\u201d<\/p>\n He took tests in the late 1990s to become a municipal officer, but competition was keen then, he said, and after a while, \u201cit became a bridge too far.\u201d<\/p>\n He joined the Army in 2005.<\/p>\n His other jobs include working as a federal prison officer and at Med-Tex Services Inc., a private company that specializes in rescue and hazardous material training, where he was most recently director of rescue services. He left that job in April just before he went into the police academy.<\/p>\n He was prompted after seeing an ad for a municipal police officer position in Pennsylvania and noticed there was no age restriction. Recalling the fondness he had for his Cabrini job, he saw Temple was looking. He liked that Temple had a vice president for public safety and had just undergone <\/a>an intensive safety audit by former Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey\u2019s company. (The audit came after a student was shot to death<\/a> outside his residence just off Temple\u2019s campus in 2021.)<\/p>\n