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Gordon Crews
Chair and Keith A. Ferguson Endowed Professor in Criminal Justice
Professional Background
Dr. Gordon A. Crews, an esteemed academic and passionate advocate for criminal justice reform, serves as the Chair and Keith A. Ferguson Endowed Professor in Criminal Justice at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). His dedication to the field of criminal justice is deeply rooted in both academic expertise and hands-on experience, making him a prominent figure in addressing critical issues within the discipline. In addition to his academic role, Dr. Crews is the President of the Veritas Consulting Group, where he leverages his extensive knowledge to provide insightful consulting services aimed at improving justice systems and enhancing community safety.
Before joining UTRGV, Dr. Crews made significant contributions as the Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Tiffin University in Ohio. There, he not only taught but also founded the Center for Justice and Social Research, underscoring his commitment to advancing research and understanding in the realm of criminal justice. His previous roles also included teaching positions at Marshall University, illustrating a career dedicated to educating future leaders in the field of criminal justice.
Dr. Crews has cultivated a diverse background that encompasses practical law enforcement experience and academic rigor. Prior to his teaching career, he honed his investigative skills as a bloodhound and narcotics K-9 officer and trainer, field-training officer, and criminal investigator. His expertise extends to corrections, where he served as a training and accreditation manager, and insurance fraud, working as a licensed private investigator. This depth of experience has undoubtedly informed his research and teaching, allowing him to bring real-world context to academic discussions.
Education and Achievements
Dr. Crews holds an impressive academic background, having earned a Ph.D. in Education/Criminal Justice, a Graduate Certificate in Alcohol & Drug Studies, a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, and a Master of Criminal Justice from the University of South Carolina. This extensive education equips him with a comprehensive understanding of various aspects of criminal justice, including theories of education and substance abuse, which are critical in addressing modern issues in criminal behavior and rehabilitation.
Throughout his career, Dr. Crews has made significant scholarly contributions through numerous refereed journal articles and book chapters. His areas of focus include juvenile and school violence, youth involvement with occult or satanic activities, and a wide array of law enforcement and correctional issues. His research not only adds to the academic discourse on these essential topics but also informs policy and practice within the field.
Dr. Crews's work has been recognized on multiple platforms. His expertise has led him to appear as a consultant on national and international programs including CNN, MSNBC, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360°, The Abrams Report, Nancy Grace, and Gloria Van Susteren. His insights have made an impact beyond academia, contributing to public discussions about justice and criminality around the world.
Achievements
Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Crews has built a reputation as a thought leader in criminal justice education. His roles in various organizations and institutions reflect a commitment to excellence in teaching, mentorship, and research. He has received accolades for his contributions to the field, both as an educator and a consultant. His foundational work at the Center for Justice and Social Research has helped foster a collaborative environment for studying key issues related to justice, and his initiatives at UTRGV are expected to do the same.
Dr. Crews’s influence is evident not only in his scholarship but also in his active engagement in community initiatives aimed at addressing social justice issues. His practical experience in law enforcement and corrections provides him with unique insights that enrich his teaching and research, ensuring that students received informed, relevant education grounded in real-world applications.
In summary, Dr. Gordon A. Crews stands out in the field of criminal justice as a dedicated educator, researcher, and consultant. His comprehensive understanding of criminal justice, derived from both academic training and extensive practical experience, allows him to offer valuable perspectives on pertinent issues facing law enforcement and correctional systems today. As he continues his work at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the Veritas Consulting Group, Dr. Crews is poised to drive important conversations and foster innovation in the field of criminal justice.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.