“Leadership isn’t about authority — it’s about service. My vision is a Sheriff’s Office that leads boldly with heart, acts with integrity, and stands with our community.”

Community First — The Heart of Our Service.

Community is — and always should be — at the heart of everything we do in law enforcement. Every member of the Sheriff’s Office is part of the same communities we serve. We raise our families here. We coach youth sports, shop at local stores, and share the same neighborhoods and values.

Throughout my career, and as your next Sheriff, my commitment is to keep community at the center of every decision and action we take. I will continue to ensure that every member of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office embraces those same values — through youth engagement, community events, mentorship, volunteerism, and being present and accessible to those we serve.

For me, these aren’t just words — they represent a career built on action, connection, and genuine engagement. I believe in creating space for conversation, understanding, and collaboration — because strong relationships build safer communities.

OUR PRIORITIES

The fact is, Washington County is rapidly growing and we can’t solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s ideas.

    • Open communication through regular town halls, community listening sessions & social media. Office of the Sheriff open hours to speak with the Sheriff.

    • Expand data transparency creating public dashboards on crime trends, response times, and outcomes.

    • Strengthen accountability systems while highlighting positive outcomes by deputies and staff.

    • Continue to expand mental health resources available to community through the creation of a mental health co-responder program county-wide to provide immediate services and support.

    • Committed to engaging with the community around new technology, gaining community support and feedback prior to implementation.

    • Expand the use of real-time data tools to deploy resources effectively. Invest in new technology to increase transparency. Streamline reporting systems to keep deputies in the field.

    • Use calls-for-service, workload, crime, traffic, and geographic data to better understand when and where resources are needed and inform staffing and deployment decisions.

    • Develop personnel and capabilities for investigating cybercrime, online fraud, digital evidence, technology-facilitated crimes, and other emerging threats.

    • Make routine sheriff’s office services easier to access online when appropriate, such as records requests, permit information, crime reporting, civil-process information, public data, community resources, and appointment scheduling.

    • Provide understandable public information about crime trends, calls for service, traffic safety, response activity, and other appropriate measures while protecting confidential and personally identifiable information.

    • Test major technologies on a limited scale before making significant investments. Establish objectives beforehand and evaluate whether a pilot actually improves safety, efficiency, service, or employee effectiveness.

    • Explore emerging tools (drones, Al-assisted reporting, LPR, search & rescue) with clear privacy safeguards.

    • Before implementing new technologies, allow for public input and discussion. Additionally monitoring the use of any data collection prior to the agreement to implement a new technology.

    • Consistent enforcement, focus on violent crime and repeat offenders. Targeted enforcement based on crime trends and intelligence gathering.

    • Communicate clearly with county residents and visitors - those who seek to victimize our community and break the law here in Washington County, WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

    • Enforcement and prevention do not have to compete. Combine accountability for criminal behavior with targeted efforts designed to prevent victimization and reduce repeat offending.

    • Measure success beyond arrests. Invest in investigative training, evidence collection, digital forensics, report quality, and coordination with prosecutors so cases are thoroughly investigated and appropriately presented.

    • Make supporting crime victims a core component of public safety. Improve follow-up communication, provide clear information about the justice process, connect victims with services, and ensure victims know the status of their cases when appropriate.

    • Maintain safe and orderly correctional facilities while connecting people leaving custody with appropriate treatment, identification, housing, employment, and other services that may reduce repeated involvement with the justice system.

    • Apply expectations internally as well as externally. Establish clear standards for employee conduct, supervision, complaint review, recognition of strong performance, and corrective action when policies are violated.

    • Support deputies and staff with clear policies that prioritize both public safety & constitutional policing.

    • Work closely with local, state, and federal agencies to better improve community outcomes. Strengthen ties with prosecutors and courts.

    • Conduct joint training among law enforcement agencies and, where appropriate, fire, EMS, dispatch, corrections, and other partners. Besides reducing costs, training together helps personnel work together more effectively during real emergencies.

    • Analyze crime and calls-for-service across municipal boundaries. Criminal activity does not necessarily stop at jurisdictional borders, and broader data can reveal patterns individual agencies may not see independently.

    • Improve information and service coordination among jail operations, probation, courts, treatment providers, social services, and community organizations to support safe transitions from custody back into the community.

    • Treat nonprofits, neighborhood organizations, businesses, schools, healthcare providers, victim-service organizations, and other community groups as important public-safety partners where their expertise or services are relevant.

    • Ensure our staffing meets the needs to support partner city police agencies during times of understaffing or overload call volume.

    • Continue to partner on task forces with the federal government, however, federal immigration enforcement is not the role of local county Sheriff’s offices. But as Sheriff, I will not tolerate any assault or unlawful actions toward any member of our community or any level of law enforcement, the law is the law.

    • Promote regional strategies for shared challenges such as gun violence, drug and human trafficking.

    • Prioritize recruitment and retention of staff and deputies. Develop a proactive recruiting strategy focused on finding people with strong character, judgment, communication skills, and a commitment to public service—not simply filling vacancies.

    • Invest in employee wellness and work environments such as our 911 dispatchers, deputies, correctional officers, support and professional staff - it takes all of our staff to support our community, they need support from administration.

    • Compare compensation, benefits, leave, specialty pay, and other employment conditions with comparable agencies to understand whether the office remains competitive in attracting and retaining employees.

    • Provide ongoing professional development in areas such as investigations, technology, communication, crisis response, legal updates, leadership, emergency management, and other relevant specialties.

    • Establish meaningful ways for employees to provide ideas and feedback to leadership. Deputies, detention staff, dispatchers, and professional staff often know where processes are inefficient and where improvements could have the greatest impact.

    • Invest in wellness, mental health, and burnout prevention for deputies and staff.

    • Senior Agency leadership working alongside the units they oversee.

    • Provide modern training (de-escalation, crisis response, cultural competency, leadership development)

    • Allow staff to learn and develop new skills to further support career advancement.

    • Implement a standardized practice for every level of leadership to identify each staff members professional goals and creating a plan to support their goals.

    • Tie investments to measurable outcomes (reduced crime, faster response times, improved clearance rates, better employee morale)

    • Pursue federal and state grants to efficiently prioritize use of taxpayer dollars.

    • Identify wasteful spending and create a capital plan for agency replacement expenses of equipment.

    • Conduct recurring reviews of programs, contracts, equipment, subscriptions, overtime, and other major expenses. Identify services that are effective, those that need improvement, and expenditures that may no longer be necessary.

    • Give frontline employees a way to recommend process improvements and cost-saving ideas. The people performing the work every day often know where unnecessary expenses and inefficiencies exist.

    • Go beyond counting arrests, citations, calls, or hours worked. Track measures such as response times, repeat calls, case clearance, service delivery times, overtime trends, employee retention, community engagement, and other relevant outcomes.

    • Review administrative structures and spending to ensure resources are supporting core public-safety responsibilities. When efficiencies are found, consider whether resources can be redirected toward frontline personnel, training, technology, investigations, or community services.

    • Build stronger partnerships with schools, businesses, non-profits, community organizers and neighborhood groups.

    • Treat engagement as part of everyday public-safety responsibilities rather than something reserved for special events. Encourage deputies to make regular non-enforcement contacts throughout the community.

    • Identify locations experiencing recurring calls or quality-of-life concerns and work with residents, property owners, businesses, local government, and service providers on sustainable solutions.

    • Provide residents and businesses with practical education on crime prevention, fraud, scams, vehicle theft, personal safety, traffic safety, emergency preparedness, and other locally relevant issues.

    • Strengthen crime prevention and youth outreach programs, creating pathways to reduce violence or criminal pathways.

    • Address root issues by collaborating on mental health, addiction, and homelessness responses. Supporting culturally responsive engagement across all communities.

    • Establish councils representing residents, youth, businesses, schools, nonprofits, culturally diverse communities, and other stakeholders. Meet regularly to identify concerns, discuss policies, and provide feedback directly to sheriff’s office leadership.

    • Develop performance measures around problems resolved, repeat calls reduced, community partnerships established, victim follow-up, resident satisfaction, referrals to services, and engagement activity.

    • Accountability for judges, attorneys and politicians that stand in the way of keeping our communities safe.

    • Experienced, next-generation leadership that blends traditional values with modern solutions - not more of the same.

    • Develop a multi-year strategic plan identifying anticipated changes in population, crime, technology, staffing, facilities, corrections, and community needs rather than operating solely from one budget year to the next.

    • Regularly review longstanding practices and ask whether they remain the safest, most effective, and efficient way to accomplish the mission.

    • Regularly examine successful programs and practices being used by sheriff’s offices, police departments, corrections agencies, emergency-management organizations, and other public-sector organizations.

    • Incorporate scenario-based training, simulation, emerging technology, leadership development, communication, crisis response, constitutional policing, and evolving legal issues into continuing education.

    • Being forward-thinking should not mean chasing every new product or trend. Require a clear operational need, realistic cost analysis, appropriate safeguards, and measurable benefits before significant investments are made.

    • Make adaptability part of the culture. The ultimate goal is a sheriff’s office capable of evolving as the community and public-safety environment change while maintaining its core responsibilities.

    • Bold approach to change, if we set our focus, we will be successful.