The Renaissance Man was in charge

Retired police chief Norm Stamper at a recent Ted Talk

by Greg Saville

I first met Norm Stamper twenty years ago when he took over as Chief of the Seattle Police Department. He was a thought-leader with a PhD, an author, an advocate for community policing, he had decades of police experience in the San Diego Police. And now he was leading a major city police agency!

The Renaissance Man was in charge.

All this was a decade before troubles brewing in Seattle Police led to a federal government Consent Decree to repair a department that had gone wrong. You may remember Chief Stamper when he retired in 2000 shortly after the Seattle WTO protests, the so-called Battle of Seattle. We quickly forget how the loss of a great leader costs us all.

Norm will be the keynote speaker at this year's annual conference of the Police Society for Problem Based Learning. His message resonates now more than ever.

Norm's recent book, To Protect and Serve: How to fix America's Police, and the mandate of the PSPBL, provide the ideal recipe in a profession that so badly needs new ingredients. This year's PSPBL conference Stepping Into Innovation, Aug. 16-18 is in Tucson, Arizona. It will host a roster of talented speakers with tactics for success in training, education, emotional intelligence and problem-solving. Norm Stamper will keynote.

If you care about 21st Century policing, this is the conference to see.