BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY---COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. HEIDINGSFIELD

Michael J. Heidingsfield is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission in Memphis, Tennessee. He assumed that post, after a national search, in June of 2000. Prior to his appointment, Commissioner Heidingsfield served from 1991-1998 as the Chief of Police and Director of Public Safety for the City of Scottsdale, Arizona. Following his three years’ initial law enforcement service with the University of Texas System Police, Commissioner Heidingsfield served with the Arlington (TX) Police Department from 1978-1991, leaving there as the senior deputy police chief after having been selected through a nationwide recruitment to lead the Scottsdale Police Department. At the time of his retirement from the City of Scottsdale, he was accorded the title of Chief of Police Emeritus.

Immediately prior to his current appointment at the Crime Commission, Commissioner Heidingsfield served for two years as the Director and Faculty Chair for Law Enforcement Programs at Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona, overseeing the creation of the first distance education nationwide baccalaureate degree for police practitioners.

Prior to the start of his law enforcement career, Commissioner Heidingsfield served as an active duty Air Force officer during the Vietnam War era and retired in 2004 as a full colonel in the US Air Force Reserve assigned to the Security Forces Directorate at the Pentagon. Commissioner Heidingsfield was called to active duty in the wake of the attacks of 9/11 and served as a senior team chief in the Air Force Crisis Action Center in the Pentagon. His force protection assignments took him to Europe, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf and his Inspector General responsibilities covered a variety of military locations within the United States.

He received his BS degree in Criminology from Florida State University in 1973 and his MA degree in Liberal Arts from Texas Christian University in 1990. While at Florida State University, Commissioner Heidingsfield was an Air Force scholarship recipient and a distinguished graduate of the ROTC commissioning program.

He is a published author, speaker and consultant in the fields of criminal justice public policy, policing, leadership and ethics, and has presented before the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association, the Police Executive Research Forum and at Oxford University, England. Commissioner Heidingsfield has provided advice to the Israeli National Police on the issue of violence de-escalation and has served as a trainer for the Ministry of Public Security in Costa Rica. He received three gubernatorial appointments for criminal justice posts in the State of Arizona including the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission and has served as a consultant to the Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba on the security of Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees and as an instructor on leadership for the Indonesian National Police executive corps.

While on a 14 month leave of absence from the Crime Commission from 2004-2005, Commissioner Heidingsfield served in Baghdad as the Contingent Commander for the US Department of State’s Police Advisory Mission in Iraq. His role was leading the effort to retrain and reconstitute the Iraqi Police Service, overseeing 500 US police advisors in doing so and traveling throughout Iraq. Commissioner Heidingsfield survived five attempts on his life during that mission. Most recently he was selected to serve as a member of the Congressionally-mandated National Commission on the Progress of Iraqi Security Forces, again traveling to Iraq.

Commissioner Heidingsfield is a graduate of the Senior Management Institute for Police, generally considered the most advanced police executive training in the country with faculty drawn primarily from the Harvard University Schools of Business and Government. He is considered an expert on leadership, community policing, education for police officers and integrity as a foundational value for law enforcement organizations and speaks, consults and instructs nationally and internationally on these and other topics.