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Greer Police Chief Dan Reynolds earned his department a grant to be among the first state law enforcement agencies to have officers wear body cameras while on patrol.
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Dan Reynolds served a year as the President of the South Carolina Police Chiefs Association.
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Police Chief Dan Reynolds commends a graduate of the Greer Youth Police Academy his staff recommended. The academy's second class graduated in July.
“It’s just time and I just celebrated my 68th birthday,” Reynolds told GreerToday.com.
Reynolds was hired in February 2005 and will celebrate 12 years served as Greer police chief next year. He will submit his letter of resignation to City Council to officially mark his retirement with the City of Greer.
Reynolds has maintained his ties in Georgia with his wife, Dawn. “We will move to Bluffton to be closer to the family,” he said.
Reynolds will retire with 42 years in law enforcement – 30 years with the Savannah (Ga.) police department. He served five years in the U.S. Navy and Army, leaving as a Captain in 1972 to begin his law enforcement career.
“The emphasis on education is probably his biggest mark,” Captain Matt Hamby of the GPD, said. “He’s brought a strong encouragement to all of the employees and all of our staff to go out into the communities and just start informal relationships with the organizations, churches, citizens and people. He started countless programs for at-risk youth in our city.”
Hamby said Reynolds encouraged ideas and aggressively pursued them with the resources available. “I would say he is the biggest asset and facilitator to get things done,” Hamby said.
“Most of these ideas have come from officers. They bring them to him and he gives them exactly the resources they need for them to happen.”
Hamby said Reynolds, “Reinvested and reinvested in this department and what we are doing.”
Mayor Rick Danner was a member of Greer’s government when Reynolds was hired. He said “stability” would be a one-word answer to Reynolds’ value to the GPD and community.
“This group that we’ve got right now is probably one of the most cohesive and stable groups we have,” Danner said of the GPD. “They are just rock solid over there and I think that it is representative of his leadership.
“(Chief Reynolds) has sort of quietly built an internal structure over there that perceives that stability on the outside. He just fosters growth with a hands on environment.”
Reynolds has encouraged training and emphasized his officers to pursue higher education. The top tier of leaders has master’s degrees. That, according to Danner, will serve in-house staff to be viable candidates to replace Reynolds.
“When we went through this process last time, we may not have had any really strong candidates internally,” Danner said. “I think we will have some strong candidates this time. And for us, that is a good thing.
“We will obviously look at those internal candidates and say ‘they are there or they’re not’. We are going to take the best candidate. We’re going to measure our guys against everybody else around,” Danner said.