Keene State has welcomed new additions to the construction and safety programs this academic year: Daniel Perrucci and Michael Behm. The two have prior experience in education and plan on implementing that into their courses here at Keene.
Behm became a Certified Safety Professional in 1995. He has a PhD in Public Health from Oregon State University, and from 2012-2019, he held the position of Coordinator of the Working Commission on Safety and Health in Construction at the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building in Construction, in the Netherlands.
For 21 years, he worked at East Carolina University; now, he has joined Keene State College as a safety and construction science professor.
When asked what brought him to Keene, Behm said, “My kids are older. They’re getting on with their lives, and I wanted a change. And I love the area! I love southwestern New Hampshire.” He continued, “There’s some really good progressive thinking here and some strong industry relations and I think that’s very important.”
Behm is also an active member of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Construction Sector Occupational Research and Prevention through Design Councils. Since the 1970s, NIOSH has been working on research to aid in the process of making construction workers safer.
“That’s my thing. Safety through design, how we design the work environment. … We think about how people have to interact with the physical environment and work environment. I do a lot of research in that area, I do a lot of workshops for industries in that area. There’s a course we offer here related to that, and I was talking with the department chair, Brady [Keene], about it,” he said.
On that same subject, Behm explained, “That’s also one of the reasons why it was so easy to come to Keene, because there’s already an interest in that [safety through design]. That’s unique, and not many universities would be interested in that.”
Behm said he would love to work on bringing some study abroad options to the safety and construction program, specifically Australia.
“I’ve got a lot of contacts and colleagues and good friends in Melbourne. That’s something I would love to do. Probably not next summer, but maybe in 2027,” he said.
Daniel Perrucci, the other recent addition to the construction and safety programs, said he has an interest in study abroad opportunities as well.
“I’m hoping we can grow the new program. But I’m also very passionate about travel, and student experiences abroad. I hope in the next year or two to have a couple study abroad in Europe, maybe Asia, South America [to] incorporate global diversity into the program,” he said.
Perrucci’s experience prior to coming to Keene includes working at Alfred State College for over a year, East Carolina University for about three years and achieving a PhD in civil engineering from Vanderbilt University. As of August this year, Perrucci has joined Keene State’s construction management program as an associate professor.
He said, “I did my PhD at Vanderbilt, I did a lot of good research. … It took me from civil engineering more to construction management, so kind of like a merged degree.” He continued, “That’s how I got to Keene. I jumped into construction management at the university level a few years ago.”
“My family is from New England, so that was one of the biggest draws. I wanted to spend more time with my nieces; I have four. But I also wanted to be in a liberal arts community,” Perrucci shared, when asked about what brought him to Keene State.
In addition to family, he went on to say that he was looking for something more student-focused, and the program here was just that. He said, “My past university was a very large research university, so there was a big focus on production and money rather than students. And I’m more student-focused, so I was really happy to find a new position and program that was more towards them.”
Keene’s construction management program is offered as both a major and minor. It offers hands-on internships, as well as construction site visits. Perrucci explained the program in more detail, saying that his goal is to lean more toward the management side with his courses.
He said, “A lot of people think of it [construction management] as hands-on. But it’s got to be a mix between hands-on and management. So a lot of students already have part of that experience at their jobs, their internships … so what I’ve been trying to do, to implement more heavily, is the management experience [and] how you make equal decisions based on data.”
Perrucci said he is looking forward to contributing to the development of the construction management program, as well as his students.
He said, “For me, Keene is an exciting opportunity because it is so new. The courses need development, and I’m excited to bring my experience from past universities to grow and develop and expand the current curriculum so students are more prepared when leaving college. And that preparation can be hands-on or management based or even just a holistic student. A thinker.”
KSC’s construction and safety programs are, as described on the Keene State website, fields of study that require critical thinking, hazard identification, and discipline-based workforce development.
Behm, when asked about his goal for this year, said, “Student success. It’s important that students have mentors, I think it’s important that students have professors that they like and respect and feel comfortable going to. I think all of that goes into student success.”
He continued, “Of course, the output is a happy alumnus who looks back and says, ‘That really helped shape me as an individual and helped my career.’”
Samantha Menard can be contacted at
