Officer Jose Dominguez has been moved by his warm welcome.
Donahue Academy has a new face on campus and staff, faculty, students, and families have been eager to welcome him. Officer Jose Dominguez joined the school as its full-time security officer in late September. He works for Palm Security, a company employed by the Diocese of Venice to facilitate safety and security at its school campuses. Donahue Academy now has a dedicated, full-time security officer, and this change has been welcomed by the community. “I’m amazed by the heartfelt welcome I’ve received from the staff, parents, and the children. The school is amazing and the genuine care and love the staff gives these kids is wonderful to see. Donahue truly is a great school!,” said Officer Dominguez while supervising the pick-up line during one of his first few days on the job.
Officer Dominguez’s path to Donahue, and to Ave Maria for that matter, has been marked by a persistent desire to serve. “I was born in Cuba and came to the United States with my family as a child. My desire in life has always been to seek a profession where I could serve. I joined the US Army and became an Emergency Medical Technician because I believed that I had to do something to repay this country for giving me and my family the same opportunity, protections, and liberties that it gave its own people. I also became a Voluntary Firefighter for our local fire department before deciding that the greatest way to serve was to become a law enforcement officer,” he adds.
Officer Dominguez then became a sheriff’s deputy in his home town in Louisiana 2004 and served the department in several different capacities, even teaching in the Police academy! In 2017, his wife’s job brought them to Naples and he decided to retire. Though he soon too took up a new job, it didn’t focus on the kind of service he had dedicated his life to. “My family began to pray, asking God that He lead me where I needed to be,” he says, recounting how he then found the job posting at Donahue. “It was an answered prayer,” he says, and the rest, as we say, is history!
