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    • Peter Sachs uses his drone to take aerial photographs of campus.

Peter Sachs: Private Investigator, Attorney, Photographer

Aanya Panyadahundi ’23
Hopkins students see Peter Sachs every day on campus.
Working as one of the campus security guards, he spends the majority of his day in either the Knollwood or Forrest gate house. As of now, Sachs has worked at Hopkins for seven years. He came here through a private detective agency he has worked at for seventeen years. Sachs was trained as a lawyer, and he started in the private detective business as an attorney. However, practicing law was not his “favorite thing in the world” so he trained to be a security guard, keeping his position as a private detective.

Sachs describes his job, as “ensuring campus safety and security for all the people on campus.” A typical day in his job lasts from around 7:00 a.m. and goes
until 6:00 p.m., consisting of rotations between the two parking lot gate houses. It is a priority of theirs to “make sure everyone coming on and off campus is invited, a student, or is an employee.” To enforce this, they do their best to maintain access control to prevent people who are not supposed to be at school from being there.

In his interview with The Razor, Sachs motioned towards a computer screen in the gate house which displays live feeds from cameras placed all around campus to the gate house. He and his colleagues monitor these throughout the day.

In addition to the camera system, there are also frequent patrols around campus and within the buildings. Sachs’s job also consists of greeting and instructing visitors on where to go, as he is often the first person new people see when entering Hopkins. He said, “We get an awful amount of visitors for interviews or shadow days.” It is his job to help answer any questions they may have as well as monitors the departure of visitors. Sachs’s duty is to also participate in investigations of any security issues that arise (if they are necessary).

Growing up fairly close to Hopkins, Sachs spent most of his childhood in Orange and attended Amity High School in Woodbridge. After high school, he moved to Florida where he obtained his helicopter pilot’s license and worked in an aviation field. He then moved to California to work in Hollywood. He enrolled in college when he was twenty-seven. After his graduation, Sachs returned to Connecticut to attend Quinnipiac University School of Law. Around the same time, in the mid 90’s, he also started an internet service provider company and worked with it for around ten years before going into the private detective business.

Sachs credits his father with being the most influential person in his life. While he was inspired by both parents growing up, his father inspired Sachs’ career interest. “He too was an attorney and was probably the reason I ended up going into law.”

Sachs enjoys photography in his spare time. He was inspired by a relative and started at the age of fourteen. Sachs’ passion for photography carried on throughout his life, eventually leading him to work at 20th Century Fox for a couple of years. To this day, Sachs always keeps a camera by his side in the gate house and is on the lookout for the Hopkins wildlife, including the occasional bald eagles. You can find his pictures scattered throughout the Hopkins webpage.
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The Razor's Edge reflects the opinion of 4/5 of the editorial board and will not be signed. The Razor welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to decide which letters to publish, and to edit letters for space reasons. Unsigned letters will not be published, but names may be withheld on request. Letters are subject to the same libel laws as articles. The views expressed in letters are not necessarily those of the editorial board.
     
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