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Campus Mailroom upgrades security procedures

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In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and mindful other potential terrorist activities, Fresno State's Mail Services has boosted its security measures to protect employees and the university community.

Mail Services now has an X-ray machine, two metal detector body-scanning wands and a device dubbed a "sniffer" that can detect explosive materials.

The $9,000 X-ray machine on rollers is used when a package looks suspicious and fits an established profile for potential problems. The machine, which is five feet tall and about three feet square, can detect metal or strange objects and identify organic substances.

Employees are trained to detect and recognize what may be suspicious objects in packages by using a briefcase full of various fake bombs.

The $20,000 sniffer uses cotton pads like those you may have seen at airports when security personnel examine inside and outside luggage and your shoes and clothing to detect residue from explosive materials. After the pads are swiped over the package or materials being tested, they are placed in the sniffer to detect any explosive residue.

Wands, which have long been used in the Mailroom, are used first to detect the presence of metal objects in packages. If the presence of metal is suspicious, then the package is X-rayed.

All Mailroom employees have been issued Nitrile gloves and filtration masks are available for handlers who wish to wear them. Employees have viewed training videos from the U.S. Postal Service and law enforcement agencies.

Another protection measure is that the 25 Mailroom staff and student assistants who deliver campus mail now wear reflective orange vests to identify themselves.

Often accompanying the mail delivery persons are special education students. For the past three years, the Mailroom has been working with the County Office of Education in a job-shadowing program. A group director brings the students to campus, where they are supervised full time and issued identification badges with photo ID. The jobs give the students an established routine and an opportunity to develop life skills such as learning to follow instructions.

A suspicious package incident that caused concern among campus officials occurred last October, but was handled properly and safely. A former Fresno State professor sent an out-of-print book to one of our faculty members. (Sadly, the professor who sent the book died before it got here.)

The return address was from Tata, a very large region in India. The package was addressed to Professor Emeritus, California State University, Fresno, Clovis, CA 93611.

The package was suspicious because of the unusual way it was addressed and because it felt "mushy."

Also, the bill of lading had an invalid account number with UPS, had come through a third party and through a third country.

Because of these concerns, Mail Services staff immediately called Environmental Health and Safety. University Police also were called to the warehouse and everyone was evacuated.

Officials called the Fresno bomb squad, which disassembled the package in its portable bomb unit and discovered it contained a book.

Since that time, a couple of suspicious envelopes have come from Kuwait and other locations in the Middle East.

The Mailroom procedure includes calling the department addressed to see if it is expecting a package or normally receives mail from that particular location.

The main Fresno branch of the United States Post Office is the initial screener before mail gets to University Mailroom Services, which functions much like a small post office. From 3,500 to 5,000 pieces of mail go through our mailroom every day.

The only campus mail the university Mailroom does not handle is for housing, Kennel Bookstore and the Madden Library.

If you have any questions or need further information regarding the handling of mail on campus, please contact John Hoyt, manager of Support Services, at 8-2740, or Lenora Tapia, mail services supervisor, at (559) 278-2941.

Back to University Journal, 05/20/02 Issue