Derek Poarch serves as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of Derek Poarch and Associates LLC, after serving more than twelve years as the Executive Director and CEO of APCO International, the world’s oldest and largest public safety communications association.
For more than forty years Derek has been a leader helping APCO, public safety agencies and the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau within the Federal Communications Commission achieve award winning levels of excellence and growth. Starting his career at the age of 18, just out of high school as a “dispatcher”; yes that is what they were called in 1977, Derek is excited to help the nation’s 9-1-1 community achieve organizational excellence, improve agency culture and develop the talent necessary for the future while partnering with friends and colleagues in Derek Poarch and Associates LLC.
At APCO, Derek led a team of talented professionals that grew membership from approximately 15,000 to over 40,000 persons in twelve years while at the same time developing the much- heralded APCO IntelliComm criteria based, digital Emergency Medical Dispatch system. During his tenure, the APCO annual conference and exhibition became the premiere, must attend public safety communications conference in America. APCO also developed the Certified Public Safety Executive Leadership Program (CPE) which has graduated more than 200 of the country’s future 9-1-1 leaders. CPE allowed Derek to reunite with his professor from the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville, Dr. Steven Edwards Ph.D., or “Dr. Steve” as he has become affectionately known among CPE graduates.
A retired Chief of Police, Derek previously served as the Chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. The first person in the nation to lead the Bureau, he was nominated by FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin in 2007. There, Derek managed the bureau responsible for FCC activities pertaining to public safety, homeland security, emergency management and disaster preparedness, and represented the Commission on those issues before federal, state, and industry organizations. In his role at the Commission, he also served as the FCC Liaison to the White House Office of Homeland Security and was responsible for Continuity of Government (COG) and Continuity of Operations (COOP) within the FCC.
Previously serving as the Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Derek reorganized the agency and implemented a department-wide community oriented policing philosophy which led to the reduction of Part-One crimes by 33% over four years. The department was the recipient of the IACP/ITT Community Policing Award for populations of 20,000 to 50,000 in 2003. In the Chief’s capacity he commanded a department of approximately 300 full and part-time employees providing police, security, parking, transportation and emergency communications services to a university community of 45,000 persons that had more than a million visitors each year. As part of his portfolio, he also chaired a university committee that gained consensus on campus access that included funding for $85 million dollars in capital projects over five years.
Derek is a native of Lenoir NC and prior to becoming police chief at UNC – Chapel Hill; he worked 21 years at the Lenoir North Carolina Police Department. Beginning as a telecommunicator he ascended through the department ranks to become second in command holding the rank of Major over department operations. In Lenoir, Derek coordinated the day-to-day operations of a 64 employee police department that lowered the city’s crime rate by over 35% in three years from 1995 to 1997 resulting in the city’s lowest crime rate in fourteen years. During his tenure the police department received the first Governor’s Community Crime Prevention Award and won the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Community Oriented Policing two consecutive years.
Derek served as a commissioner with the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission where he served as Chair of the Education and Training Committee from 1999 until 2007. He is a life member of the North Carolina Police Executives Association and a life member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
He is a 1979 graduate of Western Piedmont Community College in Morganton, North Carolina with an associate degree in Police Science, a 1981 graduate of Gardner-Webb University with a bachelor’s degree in social science with a concentration in criminal justice, and a 1988 graduate of the University of South Carolina with a master’s degree in criminal justice. He attended numerous police leadership programs, graduating as a dean’s scholar from the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville in 1992 and graduating from the Police Executive Research Forum’s Senior Management Institute for Police in 2006.
Derek remains an avid student of all things Leadership and is excited to bring his success as a Public Safety Leader to help the first of the first responders, the dedicated professionals under the headset and their agencies achieve organizational excellence by improving culture, developing and promoting the best talent and hiring and retaining those dedicated to the noble profession of 9-1-1.