Stan Hilkey

Colorado native Stan Hilkey was appointed Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety in June 2014 by Governor John Hickenlooper and was reappointed twice by Governor Jared Polis in 2018 and 2022. In his role as Executive Director of CDPS, he provides leadership to the 2,300+ members of the department. He is the longest serving Executive Director thus far in the history of the department.

CDPS is one of the largest departments in Colorado state government. It has 6 divisions: The Division of Criminal Justice, Division of Fire Prevention and Control, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Colorado State Patrol, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and the Executive Director’s Office, which also houses the Colorado Office of School Safety as well as the Colorado Integrated Criminal Justice Information System.

In addition to other Cabinet work groups, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice task forces, advisory boards and commissions, Executive Director Hilkey also serves as Chair of the Colorado Fire Commission, Chair of the Homeland Security Advisors Council, POST Board member, Board Member of RMHIDTA and the Rocky Mountain Intelligence Network.

Under his leadership, the Colorado Department of Public Safety has played a critical, lifesaving role in the state of Colorado’s response to the pandemic, the largest wildfires in state history, and historic civil unrest. He also served as Chair of the Colorado Commission on Crime and Juvenile Justice for nearly a decade.

Stan’s career started in public safety. He served 28 years in the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, where he was the elected Sheriff of Mesa County for 11 years. During his tenure as Sheriff, he was President of County Sheriffs of Colorado, a POST Board Member, two-time Chair of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Board, Colorado State Methamphetamine Task Force, and a member of the Pretrial Detention Task Force of the Colorado Commission on Crime and Juvenile Justice.

He graduated from the Police Executive Research Forum’s Senior Management In Policing (SMIP) in Boston, MA in 2010, FBI National Academy in Quantico, VA, in 2004, and from the Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command in 2001. Stan has been POST certified since 1986 and has served on the POST Board since 2014.