John F. Timoney

Mr. Timoney, a native of Dublin, Ireland, immigrated to the United States at the age of 13. Now he is the Police Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia. He is recognized as one of the country's leading police executives and is in constant demand in this country and abroad as a speaker and adviser on how to police multiracial urban communities peacefully, yet effectively.

After graduating from high school, Mr. Timoney joined the New York Police Department ("NYPD"). His early years in the Department were spent fighting crime on the streets of New York, first as a patrol officer and then as a narcotics specialist. In 1980, he was promoted to sergeant and began a meteoric rise through the ranks, culminating in his appointment in 1994 as the youngest ever Chief of Department in the history of the NYPD.

A year later, Mr. Timoney was named as First Deputy Commissioner, second in command of the NYPD. In this capacity, Commissioner Timoney oversaw a major reorganization of the Department, including its merger with the New York Transit and Housing Police Departments to create a unified city police department. He is widely credited, both within the Department and more widely, as having been one of the principal architects of the NYPD's success in reducing crime in New York. Commissioner Timoney retired from the NYPD in 1996, beginning a new career as a consultant and adviser on policing to local and national governments and police agencies around the world. In this capacity, he served as Vice Chairman of the Commission on Domestic Violence and as a member of the high level commission set up by Ireland's Prime Minister John Bruton, to review the Irish national police force. More recently, he has advised the British Government's Patton Commission on the future of policing in Northern Ireland.

Commissioner Timoney has a Bachelors degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a Masters degree in American History from Fordham University and a Masters degree in Urban Planning from Hunter College. He is also a graduate of the Police Management Institute of Columbia University. He has long been an outspoken advocate of the importance of higher education for police officers. Within days of arriving at Philadelphia, he commissioned a wide ranging review of the Department's education and training arrangements as a result of which he significantly extended and improved its recruit training program and introduced a large number of new courses for specialists and others. He has also forged new links between the Department and Philadelphia's many higher educational institutions.

In his spare time, he is a strong believer in the need for police officers to keep themselves in shape, as he is an enthusiastic runner who trains regularly and has already completed 14 marathons.