The American Institute for Public Service bestowed its Jefferson Award to a Wheeling Jesuit University alumnus, praising his efforts for making a difference in his San Francisco area community.

Jonathan Bean, a 26-year sergeant and veteran of the San Rafael Police Department, who has devoted much of the past 15 years to training emergency responders cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other life-saving techniques, received the Jefferson Award. The American Institute for Public Service established the award in 1972 to honor community service.

The San Francisco Chronicle, CBS5-TV and KCBS-AM, all Jefferson Award media partners, recently profiled the Bay Area resident.

By the time he graduated in 1973 with his degree B.S. in business degree from Wheeling Jesuit University, Bean had already worked for two volunteer fire departments where he developed a taste for rescue work. After graduating, he joined a publishing company, which transferred him to California in 1977. But Bean says he always had a hankering for police work, and he had even taken police entrance exams before he left the East Coast. After he arrived in California, he received a job offer from the Suffolk County police department in New York. He turned it down, but ended up taking another police job -- in San Rafael.

In 1979, he joined the department, and soon realized it was lacking in medical training, particularly given that police are often first-responders so he learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid. In 1990, he became a certified emergency medical technician and began teaching the techniques. He later raised $50,000 in order to equip each of the department's police cars with a defibrillator.

Bean is now the lead coordinator for the department's training program in lifesaving techniques. He also spends about eight hours a week volunteering to educate community groups, teachers, employers and private citizens who want to learn how to save a life. Over the last 15 years, he has trained 945 people in emergency response.

Bean was born and raised in Long Island, N.Y., where he attended Catholic schools. His father was a Manhattan dentist; his mother was a homemaker who now lives in Baltimore. His wife, Mary Kay, is also involved in emergency-response training.