The feds’ loss is the Jesuits’ gain in Roland J. Corvington leaving the top job at the FBI in St. Louis for a newly expanded chief security post at Saint Louis University.
“I am terribly sad to see him go,” said Richard Callahan, U.S. Attorney for Eastern Missouri – executive prosecutor to Corvington’s top cop in St. Louis’ federal crime-fighting community.
Both recently having returned to St. Louis, Corvington and Callahan worked together a little over six busy months.
“I never sensed Roland was worried about his career,” Callahan said. “We were somewhat similar, in that we were near the ends of our careers and our only agenda was to do the best job we can for the community.”
A 23-year veteran of the FBI, Corvington became eligible to retire last December, and his retirement would have been mandatory in seven years. He left his family behind in St. Louis when he was promoted from the FBI field office in St. Louis, which he directed 2005-2007, to a leadership position at headquarters in Washington, D.C.
So his new position as assistant vice president and director of public safety and security services at SLU locks him into a lucrative job in the city where he would most likely have chosen to retire.
“This was a great opportunity for post-retirement,” Corvington said.
Though quick to point out that SLU both employs and educates non-Catholics, Corvington said he is Catholic and that this also influenced his decision to work for the Jesuit institution.
“I was baptized Catholic and grew up Catholic and went to a high school run by Carmelite brothers,” Corvington said.
For his Jesuit-educated counterpart in the U.S. Attorney’s Office – Callahan went to Saint Louis University High School and then Georgetown University for undergraduate and law school – this softens the blow.
“I’m happy for the Jesuits, as well as Roland,” Callahan said.
‘A leadership change’
The odd man out in this story is Sam Simon. On Sept. 7 Corvington will assume a position that is a more executive version of the SLU director of public safety position held by Simon until very recently.
“The university decided to make a leadership change,” a SLU spokesperson said of the dismissal of Simon.
Corvington said that SLU President Lawrence Biondi reached out to him personally in the process that resulted in his coming aboard at the university. Simon said the same thing, thanking Biondi personally when he was suddenly hired at SLU over the same weekend he resigned from his City position in October 2007.
Unlike Corvington, by all appearances, Simon was fleeing scandal in his previous position as director of public safety for the City of St. Louis. Simon was an appointee and family friend of Mayor Francis G. Slay, who was squared off at the time against then-Fire Chief Sherman George.
Before resigning his position with the City, Simon issued an order for George to make a contested set of promotions or he would face his first discipline in 40 years with the department.
Immediately before his resignation, a letter surfaced in which Simon ordered a vendor to remove all of the St. Louis Fire Department’s airmasks without notifying Chief George of this order or checking to see if the chief could replace the airmasks overnight.
After Simon resigned, Charles Bryson was promoted to director of public safety and immediately said he would enforce Simon’s threat. In the end, Bryson demoted George, who then resigned.
Corvington has helped to lead a criminal investigation and prosecution team that yielded two high-profile indictments that touch on City government in recent weeks. One of Bryson’s staffers in Liquor Control was indicted for allegedly soliciting bribes for a liquor license, and a developer for whom the City helped settle a civil law suit was indicted for alleged bank fraud.
Corvington is certain that the team will proceed with its work without him.
“Like I told you when I came back to take the position as Special Agent in Charge, the priorities of the FBI are in essence the same,” Corvington said. “They are going to move forward and do exactly what we do.”
