It’s Not All in the Resume
Selecting Fort Worth
’s New Chief of Police
by Maureen Sullivan
The Fort Worth Police Department is an extremely complex organization that has been serving our community well for many years. Chiefs Mendoza and Windham have become household words to Fort Worth residents. So, choosing a new Police Chief was a task not to be taken lightly.
I served on the civilian interview panel and want to share my thoughts and notes from that experience to help you get to know our new Chief of Police, Jeff Halstead . During the days prior to City Manger Dale Fissler’s announcement to the City Council, each of the candidates for Chief were commonly referred to by the city where each is currently employed. Jeff Halstead quickly became known as Phoenix .
At a small reception introducing the Chief candidates to interview panels participants I was impressed that the candidates fielded some tough questions in small conversation circles. Phoenix handled these spontaneous interviews quite well never dodging a question. Mayor Mike Moncrief lined the candidates against the wall for their final comments before they headed to Jon Bonnell’s restaurant for dinner. Phoenix displayed a very strong image and message that he could handle the job of Chief.
Leaders earn respect but first impressions are important. Phoenix projected the image of a leader who is confident and one who won’t back away from an issue. I visualized him in total control before any camera or interviewer.
The following day was eight hours of individual candidate interviews with several panels. In our civilian panel interviews, each candidate was asked the same set of questions that our panel members had submitted. Our panel was free to explore in depth any of the questions or ask additional questions during the interview. I will recap from my notes some of the questions and answers that were especially meaningful to me.
Q - Being active in the Code Blue Citizens on Patrol and within the business community (and a bit outspoken at times on issues of importance to me,) will you listen to these groups?
A - Halstead said he works with every community organization because the Police Department must be embraced by everyone in the community. These organizations include community, Citizens on Patrol, faith based, etc.
Q – Fort Worth is growing and needs are changing. What will you do to support these changes?
A – We must look at new demands over the next 5 years and build foundational growth with community support.
Q – What large project have you successfully planned and executed?
A – Halstead served as the Phoenix Police Department’s lead planner for Super Bowl XLII earning him four awards for his service. His duties included staffing 60,000+ man hours, budgeting/finance, contract negotiations, decision making, and serving on the Executive Steering Committee. This was a year long project.
Q – How will you react to complaints or requests from citizens? Will you communicate with them?
A – Halstead will be look at community complaints. Most importantly, he stressed he is a patient person and will take time to listen and evaluate situations whether coming from citizens or officers. He emphasized that he listens to the root causes of a situation and is an effective communicator. He supports a visible Chief and feels that open communications are critical and , although he can’t talk to everyone himself, he will know the best contact for each situation. He wants to improve communications.
Q – What about morale within the department?
A – Halstead stated that morale is critical. He will work with officer input. He will value and respect that input.
Q – What keeps you up to the job?
A – Halstead says his strength, in addition to patience, is the ability to create balance in his life and his work. Halstead meets the demands of the position he is in. He has the drive to make it happen. He keeps himself mentally and physically fit – a necessity, I am sure, to maintain his dedicated hard working pace as described by a member of the Phoenix Police Department. That Phoenix connection also says that the Phoenix officers hate to lose Commander Halstead. (This is good to hear for those in Fort Worth who are not comfortable with change.)
Q – What is your style of leadership?
A – Halstead’s choice is situational leadership because you must use many different leadership styles all within a single day depending on the situation.
Q – What about tornadoes?
A – No problem. Monsoon type rains and flooding are common to Phoenix . Also, Halstead worked closely with the Fire Department to select, train and create the first All Hazards Incident Management Team (TypeIII) within Phoenix for FEMA requests.
My additional comments from the interviews with Jeff Halstead …
- He is very aware of predator presence and addressing the issues.
- He could teach Probable Cause 101 to all of us!
- He created “Silent Witness” communication input program targeting criminals and gang members providing creativity to listen and then create deployment.
- He took on the job of opening an at-risk youth program center. This targeted hardened gang members and got them out of that situation.
- He wrote the program that reduced red light deaths in Phoenix .
Communication appears at the root of Jeff Halstead ’s successes in Phoenix . He is strong on community partnerships and knows that the Police Department must continue to have community support to succeed.
Welcome Chief Halstead!
© 2008 All Rights Reserved, Maureen Sullivan – Do not reproduce this document or its contents without written permission from Maureen Sullivan . For reprint permission, please call 817.239.7533 or email maureen@ourfortworth.com.
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