Keynote Speaker Biographies
Philip J. Baca was appointed as the Chief of Police for the Commerce City, Colorado Police Department on January 2, 2008. Prior to his appointment in Commerce City, he served for fifteen years with the Denver Police Department and for 8 years with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. In Denver, he served as a patrol officer, field training officer, detective, sergeant in Internal Affairs and Vice/Narcotics, and as a lieutenant in the Gang Unit and the Patrol Division. Chief Baca began his service with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in 1999. While at Jefferson County, he served as the Captain of the Support Services Division, Commander of the Patrol Division and served his last four years as the Division Chief of the Criminal Investigations Division.
Since 1997, Chief Baca has embarked on a teaching career developing law enforcement training programs in Colorado. He is the former academy director for the Colorado Sheriff’s Training Institute in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. He served in this position for approximately three years. For the past 15 years, Chief Baca has taught at various police academies and state colleges including Metropolitan State College of Denver and the University of Colorado. He teaches constitutional law, civil law, juvenile law, criminal law, criminal procedure, and courtroom evidence and procedure. Chief Baca has also served as an Assessor and Team Leader for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), Fairfax, Virginia.
Chief Baca is a graduate of Colorado State University with a BA in Pre-Law /Political Science. He obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Denver attending law school as an evening division student, while still working his full-time job as a police officer. For a period of approximately eight years, Chief Baca left law enforcement to practice law. His areas of practice were banking, real estate, finance and commercial transactions.
Dewey G. Cornell, Ph. D., is a forensic clinical psychologist and Professor of Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Dr. Cornell is Director of the UVA Youth Violence Project and a faculty associate of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy. He holds the Bunker Chair in Education. Dr. Cornell has worked with juvenile and adult violent offenders, testified in criminal proceedings and legislative hearings, and consulted on violence prevention efforts. Dr. Cornell has authored more than 100 publications in psychology and education, including studies of juvenile homicide, school safety, bullying, and psychological assessment of psychopathy and violence. Two recent books are School Violence: Fears Versus Facts, and Guidelines for Responding to Student Threats of Violence. His current projects include studies of bullying, school climate, and school safety.
Terrence L. Freeman, Ph. D., is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley and the founder of TransEd. He graduated with honors from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a B.S. and from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He has served as a Research Engineer for Western Electric and Ralston Purina Co. and as Senior Project Engineer for Mallinckrodt, Inc. He completed his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with a concentration in Higher Education Administration at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Since entering the field of education, he has served in a variety of positions at St. Louis Community College including Coordinator of the Minority Engineering Transfer Program, Engineering Science Coordinator, and Advisor to the President on Multicultural Affairs.
Dr. Freeman’s varied work experiences include managing an urban roller skating rink, conducting diversity workshops for a variety of organizations from elementary schools to the FBI, coordinating youth programs and teaching subjects as varied as mathematics and sociology, in addition to his specialty of engineering. He is a poet, a black belt in tae kwon do, a guest columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a proud member of St. Philip’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. As a motivational speaker, consultant, and presenter he has served the community through a variety of initiatives and has received numerous awards in recognition of his efforts.
William Lassiter, MPA, serves as the Director of Communications, North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention where he promotes the Department’s overall message, vision, mission, objectives, and values. William received his Masters Degree in Public Administration from North Carolina State University, and began working for the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in the Center for the Prevention of School Violence in January of 1998 as a researcher. In 1999, he became the project coordinator for North Carolina’s statewide school safety tip line and its accompanying educational campaign Working Against Violence Everywhere (WAVE). By 2001, William had been promoted to the Center’s School Safety Specialist. In this position, William coordinated a number of projects for the Center including the “What We Want to be is Bully-Free” awareness campaign, North Carolina’s annual census of School Resource Officers, the North Carolina portion of the National Institute of Justice sponsored national evaluation of School Resource Officers, North Carolina’s critical incident response kit project, North Carolina’s pre-service teacher conflict management project, and the Center’s character education effort. In 2005, William was called upon to lead the Center and help it realize its vision of “every student attending a school that is safe and secure, one that is free of fear and conducive to learning."
Lassiter was honored to receive the prestigious National Service Award from the Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence, for his exemplary service to children, youth and communities. William has coauthored the script for “A Critical Incident: What to do in the First Twenty Minutes” video and the “Critical Incident Response Booklet: Recommendations to Schools, Law Enforcement and Emergency Responders for Putting Together the Tools they Need to Respond to a Crisis.” Lassiter has been featured on a number of major news networks and national publications including: CNN, Fox News, the BBC, USA Today, the Los Angles Times, the New York Times and many others.