Danny Ball, Acting Director
E-mail: dball@srtbrc.org
A native of Bullitt County, Ky., Danny Ball served 25 years with the Kentucky State Police (KSP), 20 of which was spent in the Madisonville Post as a road trooper and sergeant. While at the Madisonville Post, he served as field training officer coordinator, marijuana eradication coordinator, riot squad leader, sniper for the Madisonville Post’s Special Response Team and post evidence officer. On promotion to lieutenant, he was assigned as assistant post commander of the Bowling Green Post and then as assistant commander of the KSP Data Processing Section in Frankfort.
Danny has served as the Kentucky representative to the National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System, as a member of the steering committee that created the Unified Criminal Justice Information System legislation and as a technical adviser on several subcommittees of the Governor’s Council on Domestic Violence. Danny acted as the project director for the replacement of the statewide Law Information Network of Kentucky and is a graduate of the 167th Session of FBI National Academy.
After retirement, Danny took a position as a project manager with Paradigm4, a technology company that designed and implemented law enforcement computer systems. He served as the project manager for a statewide IT implementation in Florida and as the national director for Public Safety Wireless with responsibility for all Paradigm4’s wireless projects across the United States and in Puerto Rico. After Paradigm4 fell victim to the technology market slump in 2001, Danny consulted on a private basis to local law enforcement agencies in Kentucky and Puerto Rico.
Danny accepted the position of program manager for The Center for Rural Development’s Law Enforcement Technology program in March 2003, successfully completing that project in September 2006. He returned to the SRTB Regional Center to serve as the SRTB Regional Center project architect in April 2007 and accepted the position of acting director in July 2012.
Darian Williams, Technology Training Specialist
E-mail: dwilliams@srtbrc.org
Phone: 866-RURAL-LE (787-2553)
Darian Williams has more than 12 years of law enforcement experience with small agencies. Prior to beginning his career with the SRTB Regional Center in 2006, Darian was the administrative lieutenant for the Hazard Police Department, where he remains active as a part-time officer. He was a member of the Evidence Collection Team and was the evidence/property room manager. Darian also served as a K9 officer, DARE officer and TASER instructor, and as law enforcement representative on the Perry County Drug Court Committee.
Darian currently manages the Aviation, School Safety, Less Lethal Technologies and Critical Incident Deployment programs for the SRTB Regional Center.
Kim Ellis, Program Administrator
E-mail: kellis@srtbrc.org
Kim Ellis was excited to join the team and accept the position of Program Administrator in July 2010 for the Small, Rural, Tribal and Border Regional Center. Kim brings her experience in the hotel industry and 14 years of event planning at The Center for Rural Development to the benefit of our program. Kim’s skills in negotiating hotel contracts, event planning, and a strong focus on customer service make her a great addition to the SRTB staff.
Tod Depp, Project Manager
E-mail: tdepp@srtbrc.org
Taylor “Tod” Depp is a Project Manager with the Small, Rural, Tribal and Border Regional Center (SRTB-RC). In this capacity, Tod works on several NIJ funded SRTB research and evaluation projects including evaluations of License Plate Readers (LPR), aircraft-mounted surveillance systems, unmanned aircraft systems, and the aviation technology, and school safety programs. Prior to employment with the SRTBRC, Mr. Depp served as the Program Manager of Testing and Evaluation with the Justice and Safety Center, housed in the College of Justice and Safety at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. In this role, Mr. Depp worked on a variety of public safety projects from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Depp has worked on the testing and evaluation of several technologies to include Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Aerostats, IP-based surveillance camera systems, GPS offender monitoring systems, Intelligent Video Surveillance systems, and Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems. Mr. Depp holds a Master’s of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from Eastern Kentucky University, and a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Anthropology from the University of Kentucky.
Charlie Brune, Project Manager
E-mail: cbrune@srtbrc.org
Charlie Brune joined the staff of the SRTBRC on September 01, 2009 as a Project Manager for the Federal Surplus Property Program, a program of the National Institute of Justice. Before joining SAT Mr. Brune retired from Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) as a Captain with the Texas Rangers. Mr. Brune has a total of 39 years in state law enforcement which involves several different state agencies. Prior to joining DPS, Mr. Brune served in the United States Army obtaining the rank of Staff Sergeant which included a 12 month combat tour of duty with the 173rd Airborne Brigade and 6 month assignment with the Allied Officers Training Detachment at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He has conducted numerous investigations into public corruption, money laundering, fraud and homicides. Mr. Brune graduated from Schreiner College in Kerrville, Texas.
Richard Bull, Outreach Specialist – Western US
Email: rbull@srtbrc.org
Richard Bull is a retired Chief of Police from Ripon, California Police Department. Richard has thirty-four years experience in law enforcement, public safety and city management, including 25 years as a Chief of Police and/or Director of Public Safety. He was the Police Chief of the Patterson California Police Department, Red Bluff Police Department, and Ripon Police Department. Richard has an A.S. degree in Administration of Justice from the Modesto Jr. College and a BPA in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco. The Ripon Police Department is currently viewed as the technology “best practice” law enforcement agency and the Ripon Police Department has been awarded the 2007-08 and 2008-09 IACP National Chiefs Challenge Technology Award. Richard Bull currently is the Chairman of the California Statewide Data Sharing Task Force, the Chairman of the California Police Chiefs Association’s Technology Committee and an Advisory Member of the US DOJ NLECTC–Small, Rural, Tribal & Border Regional Center Constituency Advisory Group (CAG). Richard Bull was also awarded the 2009 California Police Chiefs Association’s Joseph T. Molloy (Police Chief of the Year) Award.
Lonnie Lawson, President & CEO, The Center for Rural Development
E-mail: llawson@centertech.com
Lonnie Lawson is the president & chief executive officer of The Center for Rural Development located in Somerset, Pulaski County, Ky., a position he has held since 2002. Lonnie is also the principal investigator for the center. The Center for Rural Development is a multi-faceted organization with a focus on improving the socio-economic status of Kentucky’s most challenged counties. Lonnie is passionate about this mission but he is aware that there cannot be socio-economic growth in any area of the country without a sense of safety and security for the citizenry. Understanding this dynamic, when Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District asked what was needed in the district, Lonnie advised that law enforcement in areas comprising Kentucky’s Appalachian Region needed access to the same tools and communications technology as those in the large metropolitan jurisdictions.
This resulted in the most aggressive information technology project for law enforcement ever undertaken in Kentucky. Initiated in 2002 and entitled the Law Enforcement Technology Program, the Center was provided funding by Congress and given the directive to ensure that the counties affected could communicate and do their jobs more efficiently. These affected counties comprise over a third of the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky and consist of the most challenging terrain when it comes to building communications infrastructure. By the close of 2006, all 42 counties served by The Center for Rural Development had access to a wireless mobile data network that allowed them to perform many of the requests for information that typically required the services of a dispatcher, which often resulted in extended delays while waiting for responses. Mobile computers were in 100 percent of the local law enforcement fleet (over 1,300 vehicles) and every department in the Center’s service region had at least one computer.
Lonnie maintains his drive to improve the work environment for small, rural law enforcement, often musing, “People deserve no less than the best protection available to them and it is our jobs to see the brave men and women who fill those roles have the best tools and resources available to them.”
