Clayton welcomes first woman chief
When Elise Warren reports for work on Monday, she will be joining a very elite club of one. She will be Clayton’s first, and currently Contra Costa County’s only, female police chief.
After a 28-year career with the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department where she retires this month as Assistant Chief, Warren is ready for the challenge.
“I’m always looking for a better way to do things,” she said in a recent interview with the Pioneer.
“After 28 years of answering to a boss, I’m ready to be the boss.”
Warren comes to the job well prepared. During her career she served in every major division including patrol services, internal affairs, field operations, technical and IT services before retiring as Assistant Sheriff over the Field Operations Bureau.
She was chosen after a rigorous process of interviews before a selection panel comprised of three current or former police chiefs, a school administrator, a city attorney, president of a special district and a Clayton planning commissioner.
“(Warren) arrives in Clayton with professional distinction and exceptional reference recommendations,” says City Manager Gary Napper. “She clearly established she was the top finalist for us.”
While she says every rank brought its own “favorite” things, Warren found Internal Affairs the most rewarding. “This is where all citizen complaints go,” she said. “There was such satisfaction in getting to the truth,” she said. “IA clears way more employees than not.”
A physical education major at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, Warren credits her career path to a college boyfriend who was majoring in law enforcement. “It sounded interesting.”
As college graduation approached, the California Highway Patrol was recruiting. She applied and successfully completed the testing and interviewing process. But, when the offer came to go to Los Angeles and join the force, times had changed. In the year since she’d applied, there had been a spate of freeway shootings in Los Angeles and the job lost its appeal. She declined the offer returning to her hometown of Berkeley where she worked at clerical jobs for a year or so before joining the Sheriff’s Department.
Warren spends her off time volunteering with ARF in Walnut Creek and traveling with her husband — also retired from the Sheriff’s Department — and two children, a son who recently graduated from college and a daughter in ninth grade. The family shares their Walnut Creek home with a golden retriever, bulldog and Yorkshire terrier.