David Tankersley and Brad Eilert earned criminal justice degrees mid-career through ODUGlobal, boosting their leadership and setting examples at home.
David Tankersley ’24 and Brad Eilert ’12 followed a similar career arc.
Both moved away from pursuing four-year degrees to raise families and focus on their careers. But after decades in law enforcement, Tankersley and Eilert found their way back to college to level up their professional careers with bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice through ODUGlobal.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that I couldn’t have landed the police chief job without a degree from ODU,” said Eilert, who now leads the department in Manteo on Roanoke Island on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Tankersley had enough education credits to get his current job as a Virginia Beach Police Department lieutenant managing public safety at massive beachside events. But Tankersley wanted to provide an example to his two daughters that he could finish what he started.
“I really wanted to finish for my kids,” Tankersley said. “To show them it could be done, even if you’re older, even if you’re busy. ... It’s not easy, but it’s possible.”
Both embraced the power of persistence and purpose and credited ODUGlobal with helping adult learners turn their experience into academic achievement. And they view their educational path less as a detour than as something that clarified and elevated the work they were already doing.
“What I learned at ODU really reinforced my training and gave me the opportunity to build skills I didn’t have,” Eilert said.
Eilert comes from a law enforcement family. His father spent nearly three decades with the Petersburg Police Department, and his sister made her way through the Colonial Heights system. He seemed destined for a similar life, but he initially struggled in college.
“I didn’t have my priorities in order,” said Eilert, who worked landscaping jobs until the Isle of Wight Sheriff’s Office hired him in 1999. From there, he moved south, working in a string of North Carolina departments before ending up in Manteo, where he now leads the force.
Tankersley’s path started in college at Tidewater Community College in the late ’90s, but he paused his education when life got in the way. He was hired by the Virginia Beach Police Department without a degree and moved through the ranks on the strength of experience and training. But promotion required a return to the classroom. Eventually, he returned to TCC, then enrolled at ODU where he ultimately graduated at the top of the criminal justice class.
Neither man walked into the classroom as a blank slate. They had both already written much of their professional story by the time they started chipping away at a four-year degree. And both said that experience helped them stay grounded in the coursework.
Eilert took advantage of ODU’s experiential learning program, earning nine credits by testing out of courses like constitutional law. He also found the online format a better fit than the traditional campus route.
“They treated me like a full-time student,” he said. “It wasn’t a second-tier experience.”
Tankersley now leads the department’s special events unit, formed to bring order to the chaotic process of coordinating major public gatherings. His team oversees traffic, communications, safety planning, and staffing for events like the Shamrock Marathon and Pharell Williams’ giant Something in the Water festival.
Before his unit existed, these duties were dropped randomly on lieutenants who might never have managed a large-scale event. Now, Tankersley and his team serve as the institutional memory. “It’s down to a science,” he said. “We know what works and what doesn’t.”
Eilert has continued pushing his education forward, getting a master’s degree and now teaching at a community college in the Outer Banks.
As seasoned officers and late-career college graduates, Tankersley and Eilert are now passing on what they’ve learned through mentorship, teaching and the daily work in their communities.
“There’s always room to learn,” Eilert said. “Even when you think you’ve seen it all.”
