Professional Accomplishments

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Professional Accomplishments

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Twenty-Eight-Year Police Veteran

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As a brand-new patrolman, not quite twenty years old, I identified that proper forensic photography was not being done at any level of investigation. I used my equipment and taught myself forensic photography, which expanded to my photographic and computer skills and then my photography studio. I accomplished my goal to become the youngest Detective Sergeant ever at the Sheriff’s Department by gaining the promotion at age 26. I also helped develop a first-of-its-kind system in our jurisdiction that used the mainframe computer to identify and compare stolen property and items sold at pawn shops with neighboring police agencies. I was promoted to lieutenant and made commander of the Berrien County Narcotics Unit at age 39, supervising 11 detectives and one administrative assistant. I was also responsible for computer implementation, development, and support to make investigations and coordination with other agencies more productive. During this time, I worked as second in command of a tri-county drug enforcement unit involving local, county, state, and federal investigators and cases. By 1998, I’d earned a new title: “Technology Coordinator.” The department established this because the Sheriff’s Department was in the middle of a challenging refit of computer software for the overall management of the criminal justice system. I worked with the County Information Systems Department to get the project on track, make the computer system more user-friendly, and provide training and support to the end-users. In addition to installing hardware and software, I wrote the system documentation and kept it current with ever-changing software, which eventually stabilized. My responsibilities included creating and implementing the first website for the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department, this was one of the first Sheriff's Department sites in Michigan. Two years after this project started, I was assigned to the Sheriff’s Department Records Bureau and the 911 Center. This assignment required evaluating the constant evolution of new software to make the officers’ jobs more manageable and the public safer.

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Owner of Tucker Creative Photo and Teaching

 

Owner of Tucker Creative Photo and Teaching

● Computer and technical software person including technical support
● Owner and Lead Photographer at my portrait photography studio

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Employment

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