He served as a patrolman and supervisor for 15 years out of Troop G in Bridgeport, the one they call the “Super Troop” because it responds to more calls than any troop in the state. He served another six years as one of the ranking officers in the statewide traffic services unit.

From I-84 to I-91 to I-95 — and everywhere in between — Jacobi was part of an elite unit that oversaw presidential motorcades, dignitary protection, high-profile prisoner escorts, highway construction projects and more.

“There were many times when I was working on the side of the highway and a car would go flying by and miss me by inches,” Jacobi said. “One time, I had to dive out of the way of a car on the Merritt Parkway that was sliding out of control in the pouring rain and was going to hit me.

“I dove over the guardrail and the car slammed into the guardrail from me to you,” Jacobi said, pointing about six feet away. “I got all cut up and hit with flying debris from the car. If it wasn’t for that guardrail — if it wasn’t right there for me to dive over — I wouldn’t be here today.”

Fortunately for the Quinnipiac community, Jacobi is very much here today to train public safety officers and protect students, faculty, staff and visitors.

Jacobi began his career at Quinnipiac in 2018 as an armed public safety officer. He worked midnights in those days. It didn’t take long, barely a few years, before Jacobi was promoted to sergeant and shift commander. He’s served in his current role as director of training and professional standards for the last three years.

“I had a lot of really good job offers when I retired from the state police, but Quinnipiac has become a real home for me,” he said. “There’s a lot of really, really good people who work in this department.”

Not least of all, John Jacobi.

On Oct. 20, Jacobi will be honored at the Center for Faculty and Staff Excellence awards ceremony with five peers: Linda Bedard, clinical assistant professor of physical therapy; Julia Fullick-Jagiela, professor of management, chair of management; Priscilla Fonseca, professor of civil engineering, chair of civil engineering; Rosa Nieves, assistant director, academic advising; and Kevin MacDougall, associate director of telephony, cabling infrastructure and admin services.

Jacobi is also a Quinnipiac alumnus. He earned his Master of Science in organizational leadership in 2020. His daughter, Noelle, graduated in 2025 with a Bachelor of Science in nursing. She works in the surgical transplant recovery wing at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Jacobi is proud of his record serving the Quinnipiac community and training its public safety officers. In all, the department has over 400 years of combined law enforcement experience.

“Working for Chief (Tony) Reyes and Capt. (Don) DiStefano, their leadership abilities have really moved this department forward in the last few years,” Jacobi said. “We've done so much on the training side, especially in the last three years. I've built some phenomenal partnerships with the Hamden Police Department. Our armed officers train directly with their SWAT team members.

“In fact, a lot of our use-of-force training and our de-escalation training is done through post-certified instructors provided by the Hamden Police Department at no cost to us,” Jacobi said. “That partnership is phenomenal. Without that partnership and without the cooperation I get personally from the Hamden Police Department, a lot of the training we do would not be possible.”

This past January, the Department of Public Safety and the Hamden Police Department conducted a joint training exercise at The Ledges residence hall during winter break.

As part of the exercise, 26 armed public safety officers and a dozen Hamden SWAT team members collaborated on best practices for building-clearing tactics, interagency team tactics, barricaded-subject response protocols and coordination, and communication procedures and related response topics.

“Lieutenant Jacobi has done similar trainings and exercises off-campus, but he really pushed for this on campus because there’s no replacement for getting familiar with on-scene, especially for our partners,” Reyes said at the time. “To get our partners who are going to be part of the response team for any kind of an event to really get familiarized, in this case with a dorm, is critical. There’s no substitute for that.”

Jacobi said he will conduct a similar joint training exercise at the Communications and Computing & Engineering building in January 2027 during winter break. At the same time, he understands training is never really over. It’s an ongoing process.

Preparation. Experience. Awareness. Instinct. Collaboration. They intersect every day.

“Most people don’t realize how much training goes into this job and the challenges that we face on a daily basis,” Jacobi said. “We respond to all kinds of things here: serious medical events, routine calls, intoxicated students, roommate disputes, fights, property damage, motor vehicle accidents. The list goes on and on.

“So that's why I've done everything I can over the last three years to really step up that training to make sure we're as prepared as we can be,” he said. “It’s not just the armed officers. The unarmed officers have a very critical role in assisting our community in a critical incident.”

Unlike years ago, when Jacobi first became a state trooper at the age of 30, the default response to trauma was to brush it off, to forget what you saw at a fatal car crash or an explosive domestic call.

“Most people don't realize the level of trauma that law enforcement goes through during their career and how much of that baggage they have to compartmentalize and just deal with on a daily basis,” he said. “It used to be, ‘You’re a cop. Figure it out. Go home and process it.’ It’s not like that anymore, fortunately. Our officers see things here that are difficult, too. And we do everything we can to provide them with support services.”

Jacobi takes his role as director of training and professional standards seriously. It’s not just a responsibility to protect and serve Quinnipiac. It’s a privilege.

“I don't just work here. I feel like I live here because I’ve spent so much time here and my daughter went to school here for four years,” Jacobi said. “The safety of this community couldn’t be any more important to me.”