Head of security quits after six months

Melani Boumans resigned from her position as manager Safety & Security at TU/e just six months after her appointment. Martin Boers, director of the Internal Affairs Department, does not want to comment on the reason of her departure and speaks only of a “personal decision.” As of this week, Frank Kuipers of the COT Institute for Safety Security and Crisis Management will serve as manager Safety & Security on an interim basis.

Melani Boumans took up her position as manager Safety & Security last May, after having served at the Avans University of Applied Sciences in Breda. She succeeded Peter Bloemers, who exchanged the campus in Eindhoven for that of Chemelot in Geleen only two and a half years after entering into service. When Boumans started in Eindhoven, the university went through a dynamic period during which both the incident reporting center and the fire station were relocated.

Just before summer, Boumans talked enthusiastically about her first impressions of the university, and of the collaboration with several different parties within her field. But this week, it was announced that she will leave TU/e so soon already. Departmental directors were informed about her departure yesterday by Martin Boers.

Boers does not want to make any statements about Boumans’ decision to leave, except that “she made a personal decision to do something else.” He also doesn’t want to say when Boumans informed him of her decision and only states that she made it known to him in a “perfectly appropriate” manner.

As of this week,Frank Kuipers of the COT Institute for Safety Security and Crisis Management will fill in the position of manager Safety & Security. Boers says that Kuipers is “very familiar with TU/e and with security affairs at other universities.” Among other things, Kuipers was involved in the drawing up of the so-called ‘Threat Assessment Higher Education.’ He was also responsible for the report ‘Integral risk profile and assessment TU/e,’ which was issued last February. Kuipers will be working for TU/e for three days a week.

In the meantime, the university has started a procedure for finding a permanent successor through an external recruitment and selection agency, Boers says. He can’t say how long it will take before this successor is found, or how long the search should ultimately take as far as he is concerned, “that depends on the market and on the recruitment process.”

Boers says that the personnel change and the period of temporary replacement will not have an impact on safety and security on campus. “We try to keep everything operating in the best way possible with everyone working within the domain.”

Melani Boumans was not available for comment.

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