Secret Service Agent
Professor
Michael D. Miskinis, a Secret Service agent who had served on presidential details, died of complications related to lung disease, August 10 at the home of a daughter in Garrett Park, Maryland.
A resident of Sandy, Utah, he was vacationing in the Washington DC area when he died.
Mr. Miskinis was born in New York and served in the Marine Corps from 1956-1959. He later graduated from St. John's University. In 1966, he joined the Secret Service and served there until retirement.
He was in the detail that accompanied President Richard M. Nixon on his visit to China in 1972. During Gerald Ford's Presidency, he was posted in San Francisco and helped provide protection for the President in an attempted assassination in California. In Washington in 1981, he helped secure George Washington University Hospital when President Ronald Reagan was taken there after an attempt on his life.
In addition to Washington and San Francisco, Mr. Miskinis was posted in New York and Reno, NV, where he was agent-in-charge, during his Secret Service career.
He received a master's degree in criminal justice/forensic investigations from the George Washington University. In 1987, he moved from the Washington area to Brockton, MA and taught criminal justice at colleges in that area. He moved to Sandy, UT in 1993 to teach at the Salt Lake Community College, Department of Criminal Justice.
As program coordinator, Mr. Miskinis was instrumental in expanding the criminal justice program by establishing on-site education centers at police stations and other community sites throughout the Salt Lake valley.
He also worked with other state colleges to form a statewide distance education criminal justice consortium.
He developed an interesting array of special topic courses such as assassinations, terrorism, serial killers and school violence. He was successful in applying for state grants to expand the criminal justice program's internet education program. Mr. Miskinis recruited many experienced federal and state law enforcement agents to add to the depth of the program's faculty. He was recently appointed an Associate Professor. As his illness progressed, he continued teaching on-line courses.
Mr. Miskinis became a state authority on school violence and was a regular guest speaker at conferences and on local news and radio programs on the topic of school shootings.
He was a member of the Utah chapter of the Federal Law Enforcement Association, a member of the Association of Former Agents of the US Secret Service, the Utah Association of the Chiefs of Police and the American Society of Industrial Security.
His 15 year marriage to Marianne Sheeran ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 20 years, Fran Orfino of Sandy, Utah; three children from his first marriage, Michelle Miskinis Crecca of Washington DC, Dianne Hilligoss of Garrett Park, MD, and Christine Brandt of Olney, MD; and five grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on Friday, August 22 at 9:00 a.m. at the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, 9800 South, 1700 East, Sandy, UT with a reception to follow at the Blessed Sacrament parish hall.