From The Blog

KICA Welcomes New Director of Safety & Security

KICA recently consolidated its safety and security functions into a single, streamlined department and is pleased to welcome Adam Shubsda as its new director of Safety and Security. Adam joined the team last week, bringing over three decades of experience in law enforcement and emergency management.

 

AN EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONAL

Adam started his career in law enforcement with the New Jersey State Police, where he served in roles ranging from Trooper to Bureau Chief/Captain of the Emergency Preparedness Bureau. From 1985 to 2010, he was involved in everything from the foundational day-to-day work to the response to the September 11th terrorist attacks. He was the incident commander in 2009 when Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson. “I was on the New Jersey side of the river, coordinating assets for the state.”

From those experiences, he took away essential skills in the security field: risk and threat assessment, emergency response, crisis management and the ability to bring a team together and work cohesively. He’s a practitioner of servant leadership. “I try to approach every day and each situation with humility and gratitude.”

After retiring from his law enforcement career, he ventured into education, where he served as director of public safety or campus safety four times. In his previous role, he was nominated by his colleagues for the 2025 Director of the Year by Campus Safety Magazine.

 

SAFETY & SECURITY – A RESTRUCTURED DEPARTMENT

Adam’s experience in education is analogous to the new combined department he will lead at KICA. Envisioning a more specialized department, Director of Operations Jody Forrest moved some functions from the Livability Department to the Security team. The department was renamed the Safety and Security Department. It will focus on regulatory compliance, commercial access, enforcement of KICA’s rules and regulations, incident response, emergency management, and coordination with law enforcement and EMS. Already the association’s biggest department, a trifecta of managers will focus on specific aspects. KICA promoted longtime employees Kim Grafing to Service Experience Manager and Darryl Smalls to Security Manager. The search for the new Safety Manager position is underway now. 

The trend of housing safety and security operations under a single banner is familiar to Adam, as he’s led several combined departments in the past. “Safety and security are related, and this enables us to work more closely with each other. In a comprehensive department, we don’t have people working in silos; we can be more agile and proactive.”

There are other areas where KICA is leading the way. “In the security industry, turnover is really high, and KICA is an outlier. Turnover at most places is 100% over a year; at KICA it’s 30%. You’ve got people who have been here for 20 years and more. I want to celebrate as many of those people as we can and keep building the culture.”

 

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

By design, Kiawah has only one access point for vehicular traffic. The Main Gate has two competing roles to perform: getting authorized traffic through as quickly as possible, while catching and turning around unauthorized vehicles. Because Kiawah is a private island, all visitors, guests and commercial customers must be properly authorized. It’s an important balance.

“We’re integrating technology and approval processes, and one of the most important challenges is maintaining consistent standards so people in the community know what to expect.” By his third day on the job, Adam had already spent time looking into the ABDI system that KICA uses to manage member and guest access.

 

FAMILY MAN

Family is the most important thing to Adam. His relocation to the East Coast from Irvine, California, means more time with one daughter in the area. Two of his three granddaughters and another daughter are in New Jersey, just over an hour away by plane. He anticipates lots of trips back and forth to visit. His son, a Citadel graduate, is a Navy Commander in Coronado, CA .

 

MEETING PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE

When asked about what he was most proud of in his police career, he noted (after prompting) the bigger incidents and many successes he experienced over a long career. But those didn’t matter as much as “the people I worked with, the ones who followed me and were successful in their careers.” His dedication to relationship-building is something that he’s already bringing into his new role.

Prior to our interview, Adam had just been riding around the island with patrol supervisor Allen Nelson. “I wanted him to take me to different places and gain his perspective because he’s spent a career here and knows everyone.” It’s a genuine interest in his new team. People are key for Adam, something he’s learned throughout his career. “It’s building trust in the team and confidence in our residents that is paramount. Just like I will do here, I am intentional in developing positive relationships with everyone. It’s meeting people, and also meeting people where they are.”