Laurens Police Chief Keith Grounsell graduated from the FBI National Command Course in Quantico, Virginia at the FBI Academy last week.
The course is an invitation only and 52 Police Chiefs and Sheriffs from 42 states were in attendance. The course focused heavily on leadership in a law enforcement capacity. As part of the training, attendees attended specialized leadership training at the George Washington Leadership Institute.
Chief Grounsell said, “The amount of training crammed into this course was amazing and the FBI did an excellent job. We had a combined level of over 1300 years of law enforcement experience together in the room for this training. This created an atmosphere rich in discussions, based upon real world leadership experience. I look forward to continuing to network with some of the many great Chiefs and Sheriff’s I met during this training.”
The National Command Course (NCC) was first developed in 2020 to fill a void in FBI strategic leadership training programs for policing executives. According to their website, in the United States, law enforcement agencies with fewer than 50 sworn employees comprise over 80% of departments, yet leaders of these agencies often lack funding and/or manpower availability to send employees away for weeks at a time to attend nationally recognized executive leadership programs.
“I am always interested in bettering myself as a leader. With almost 25 years in law enforcement under my belt, I still have a lot to learn and must constantly be training to evolve and keep up with modern trends. The day I think I know it all or stop training is the day I need to retire. I feel I have a good 15 years left in me for my career and I look forward to amazing things,” said Chief Grounsell.
The cost of the program was covered by the FBI.