FBI Academy
Come and hear Coby Pewitt, a 22 year veteran of the Richardson Police Force's experience completing the FBI National Academy!
At 16, Pewitt joined the police department’s Law Enforcement Explorers, a program that provides youths with hands-on policing experience.
After working with the Explorers for five years and becoming a full-time officer with the police department within months of earning his undergraduate degree from the University of North Texas, Pewitt enrolled in the MBA program in the Naveen Jindal School of Management in 1998. During that time, after becoming a detective, he started working on cases involving forgeries, frauds and credit card abuses, giving him a new appreciation for the finance and statistics classes he was taking at UT Dallas.
A few years after earning his MBA, Pewitt became interested in the University’s new public affairs program and its focus on public administration. Although it took him longer to obtain his degree than he had planned because of his increasing police duties, Pewitt remains close to the cohort he started the program with in 2005.
Kyle Coby Pewitt MBA’02, PhD’14, assistant chief at the Richardson Police Department, earned Rookie of the Year honors in 1998 and was named Detective of the Year in 2002.
“Policing is founded on volunteerism,” he said. “One of my biggest hallmarks at the Richardson PD was helping spearhead leadership of the volunteer program.”
In 2008, Pewitt accepted an award for Outstanding Achievement in Law Enforcement Volunteer Programs from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The award recognized the department’s efforts in driving volunteer participation through the crime prevention unit.
Pewitt’s generosity extends beyond his day-to-day duties, as he devotes time to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, an endurance sports training program that raises funds for the organization. Since 2002, Pewitt has completed 32 marathons in locations ranging from Oklahoma City to Athens and raised nearly $90,000.
In addition to his volunteer service and the added duties of his most recent promotion, Pewitt also is a professor at Tarleton State University, where he teaches courses in the public administration program.