New Training Aims to Improve Safety, Build Leaders
Published on October 05, 2026
Two Tuesdays per month, Tom McDermott finds himself running around the Allegheny County Jail a bit frazzled.
McDermott, the ACJ’s facility training and accreditation manager, seems to always be scrambling to find a camera, track down a Welcome Committee volunteer, pick up a late arrival or lead an orientation session himself.
Transforming the New Hire Orientation process to make it more welcoming and user-friendly is one of McDermott’s top priorities, along with teaching the ACJ’s Leadership Academy, which he developed in concert with former Deputy Warden of Administration Karen Kollar and her predecessor, Blythe Toma.
But before anyone can think about becoming a leader at the jail, they have to learn the rules, regulations, protocols and procedures. That’s where the new orientation process comes in. Employees who have little contact with the incarcerated population will still have the chance to undergo the one-day security training every two weeks.
Those who have increased contact with the incarcerated population will participate in an additional three extra days of security training to help acclimate them to the unique, new environment.
“New Hire Security Orientation is about helping people get onboarded, stay at the jail and helping the entire facility stay secure and helping those individuals stay safe,” McDermott said. “That way, they don’t just feel like they’re being thrown to the wolves.”
When combined with the county orientation process, it makes for a five-day week for some hires, which will take place monthly. McDermott worked closely with the jail’s training commission to develop the new process, and he credits the many trainers who participate in the orientation process for its success. It can take time to become accustomed to working inside a correctional facility, but McDermott and the training commission hope it is just one step in a career journey that might one day have them attending his other project, the ACJ Leadership Academy.
“The Leadership Academy is about growing people and creating leaders who are going to also grow leaders, and that should make the organization stronger in the long run,” he said. “Everybody can lead, and there's different ways to gain influence. And there's no perfect leaders. There are no perfect personalities. Everybody can do this. And there are plenty of people who illustrate that all the time.”
Leadership development has become a point of emphasis for jail administration as it seeks to expand its programming opportunities and change some of its organizational structure.
“If we don’t have leadership, we don’t have vision, and if we don’t have vision, we keep doing the same thing over and over and make the same mistakes over and over,” Kollar said. “We need to move into modernization and into the future. This is the quickest way to do it.”
McDermott began developing the curriculum for the Leadership Academy with Kollar after he was hired in 2024. A former instructor at Pittsburgh Technical College and the holder of a master’s degree in organizational leadership, it was as natural fit for McDermott to spearhead the project.
“He’s a great teacher (and) he’s a great researcher,” Kollar said. “He’s good at building relationships in front of the classroom to get people involved in the topic.”
His first two sessions focus on personality styles and the importance of leaders learning to be self-aware. The flip side is that leaders also need to be able to recognize the different personality styles of those they supervise and learn the best ways to manage those unique personality styles.
The next two sessions focus on building trust between leaders and those who follow.
“Leadership is about relationships, and relationships are about building trust,” McDermott said. “No one’s going to want you to be the leader if they do not trust you.”
The curriculum covers concepts like empathy, listening, honesty, communication, fairness and inclusiveness. McDermott focuses on how communication influences relationships, including the concept of “Radical Candor” that is the focus of the fifth session. Radical Candor focuses on how leaders can “[say] honestly what [they] honestly think while genuinely caring about the person [they are] saying it to,” per the Radical Candor book website.
McDermott also acknowledges that there is more than one correct way to be a leader.
“I'm trying to talk about leadership concepts so they can kind of discover the way they want to lead,” he said. “And I'm trying to help them to lead in the most positive way. But again, I'm not telling them you have to do it this way because as I said, there are many different ways to gain influence.”
Feedback from participants has been almost universally positive. The main common concern is that the one-hour sessions don’t allow McDermott and the participants to dive into the material as deeply as they would like.
“I envision that the one-hour sessions every once in a while, will become one session for half a day, and that everyone takes those skills and practices them,” Kollar said. “It’s all about application. It’s not about sitting in a classroom and hearing about leadership, it’s getting some tools in your toolbox so you can actually be a leader.”
Thus far, participants have included the ACJ administrative team, the ACJ captains and the leaders of different jail programming departments. But, if McDermott can make it happen, he hopes it will be one smooth path from New Hire Orientation to the Leadership Academy as the ACJ continues to innovate and evolve.
Media inquiries may be directed to Jesse Geleynse, Public Information Officer for the Allegheny County Jail
jesse.geleynse@alleghenycounty.us or by phone at 412-350-1267 or 412-760-4790 (cell).