Service clubs can be quite mysterious and even misunderstood.  Unless a person is a member of a service club, he or she might not even know what one is all about. After being educated about the benefits of belonging to a service club, I am hopeful that you might consider joining one in your community. In general, police officers are very giving people.  They dedicate their lives to serving others and give back to their communities more than most people. I had heard bits and pieces about service clubs but didn’t understand what they did until Chief Bobby Moody joined the Marietta Police Department in 1996.  Chief Moody was a Rotarian and encouraged members of the Command Staff to join a service club.  He even offered to pay for it! There were several service clubs in Marietta.  The Kiwanis Club and Rotary International were probably the two most significant.  Other service clubs included Optimists (I kind of like their name!), Lions and Civitans. Captain David Beam joined Rotary International, Captain David Lee joined Kiwanis, and I joined Rotary International.  As luck would have it, there were two Rotary Clubs in Marietta.  David belonged to one and Chief Moody, and I…

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about common processes used to hire police chiefs today.  In that post, I touched on some of the public methods being used.  While doing my research for that post, I ran across some survey instruments being used during these public processes.  I thought it would be helpful to examine a few of them. Some of the surveys have a deadline on their availability due to the timeliness of the information.  If you happen to read this at a later point in the future and the link to one of the surveys doesn’t work, I apologize. General Information Eugene, Oregon is close to selecting their next police chief.  On March 13th, they will hold a community panel with selected community members.  A community forum open to the public will follow the panel discussion.  Feedback and input can be submitted via email at epcrecruit@ci.eugene.or.us Many police chief searches today solicit input from citizens through a similar process using a dedicated email address. Surveys About Community Expectations of Next Chief While searching for their next police chief, the County of Albemarle designed a survey instrument on their website seeking input from the public with six specific…

I thought it would be a great idea to write about a number of successful police chiefs across the country and provide their view of law enforcement and leadership.  What better way to do that than through their quotes.  The first guinea pig for this project is Chief Charles Ramsey. Most aspiring law enforcement leaders are probably familiar with Chief Charles Ramsey.  For those leaders that are not familiar, let me provide some of his background. BACKGROUND Chief Charles Ramsey started his career with the Chicago Police Department.  He join the department in 1968 and spent 30 years with the department, rising to the rank of Deputy Superintendent before retiring in 1998. After his retirement, Chief Charles Ramsey was appointed Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia until 2007.  In 2008, he became Chief of the Philadelphia Police Department until his retirement in 2016. Chief Ramsey graduated from the FBI National Academy.  He has his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Lewis University.  Chief Ramsey has served as President of the Police Executive Research Forum as well as the Major Cities Chiefs Association.  In 2014, President Obama selected Chief Ramsey to serve as Co-Chair of the President’s…