Bill Whalen
Chief Bill Whalen (Ret.) is a 32-year law enforcement veteran, who retired in 2021 as the Chief of Police of a mid-sized Southern California Police Department. Throughout Chief Whalen’s career, he has spent considerable time conducting robust organizational audits in an effort to provide efficient, community-based, law enforcement services. Chief Whalen has advocated for progressive use of force policies and practices that enhanced transparency and accountability in the communities he served. As Chief, he helped form and worked closely with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee and has pushed for better relations with minority communities. Through these tough conversations, he has increased awareness of bias in policing and has published an article on Implicit Bias in Policing. He has commanded a variety of different specialties, including patrol, emergency management, traffic, detectives, SWAT, and internal affairs. He has extensive experience in conducting and supervising personnel investigations. Chief Whalen is a California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) certified use of force instructor and has reviewed hundreds of use of force cases during his career.
Chief Whalen is a graduate of the prestigious California POST Command College as well as the Police Executive Research Forum Senior Management Institute for Police. He has attended the POST Executive Development Course, POST Management School, POST Supervisory School, and the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute. He graduated summa cum laude from California State University – Long Beach with a Master of Science in Emergency Services Administration. He also has an undergraduate degree in business management from the University of Phoenix and a certificate in Public Employee Leadership from California State University – Fullerton.
As a former Chief of Police, Chief Whalen has a unique understanding of the needs of the law enforcement executive and what details are needed in the Report of Findings and what the decision-makers need to know in order to take action.