KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A JE Dunn executive was appointed Thursday to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced that Thomas Whittaker would join the board, replacing Don Wagner.
Wagner retired at the end of 2022. He had served on the KCPD police board for more than five years.
Whittaker serves as executive vice president and chief legal officer for JE Dunn Construction Company, where he has worked for nearly three decades.
Mayor Quinton Lucas, one of five members of the Board of Police Commissioners, cheered Whitakker’s selection.
“Tom Whittaker is a friend,” Lucas said via social media. “So long as a Board of Police Commissioners exists in our city, Tom is someone who will work to build a more collaborative relationship between the Board and all voices in our community. He also shares my commitment to making Kansas City safer for all.”
Whittaker also serves on the Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission Board of Directors and previously served as president of the Associated General Contractors Kansas City Chapter as well as co-chair of the Labor Management Council for the Greater Kansas City Board of Directors, according to a release from Parson’s office.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in construction science from Kansas State University and went to law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
KCPD is the only major police department in the U.S. controlled by a state board, an arrangement that dates to the Civil War but was reinstated amid Tom Pendergast-led corruption of the 1930s.
Mark Tolbert, the pastor at Victorious Life Church, serves as the current police board president and Cathy Dean, a lawyer, serves as vice president.
Parson appointed Dawn Cramer to the police board in August 2021.
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