Why longtime Naperville cop is becoming Woodridge chief

When Brian Cunningham was growing up, the child of Irish immigrants in Chicago, he always enjoyed the stories he'd hear from his next-door neighbor, a cop.

"It wasn't about catching bad guys; it was goofy stuff," Cunningham said. "I was intrigued."

Now 53, Cunningham has been an officer himself for 30 years and on Friday begins work as police chief in Woodridge.

He retired from his position as deputy chief of the Naperville Police Department on Tuesday and will be sworn in Thursday night to lead the neighboring Woodridge department.

"I wanted to stay close," he said - both to his working home in Naperville, where he's spent his entire career, and to his home in Lemont, Woodridge's neighbor to the southeast. "I couldn't ask for a better opportunity."

As Cunningham takes over a smaller department than the one in which he has been working, he said he looks forward to getting to know each employee personally. While Naperville's department has nearly 300 people, Woodridge's has 65 - 51 of them sworn officers. And while Naperville has a population of roughly 145,000, Woodridge has more like 35,000 residents.

Cunningham's new bosses on the Woodridge village board want him to build a relationship with their diverse community following the September retirement of former chief Gina Grady, who stepped down with 30 years' experience. He says he's up to the task because his career hasn't been so much about "goofy stuff" as it has been about people.

Cunningham connects with people through an honest personality with integrity, said his former boss, Naperville Chief Robert Marshall. He's done that at each level as he's worked up the ranks from an officer, to a detective, to various supervisory positions - only moving up because his leadership was called for.

"Every job I've had, I've been totally happy and never thought 'I need to move on,'" he said. "I always tell people I can't even remember a day that I didn't want to come to work."

Cunningham built an expertise in investigations and was one of the founding members of the DuPage County Major Crimes Task Force in 1999, eventually becoming its commander. Although the big crimes, the ones for which communities need the help of the countywide task force, often would begin at inopportune times like 2 or 3 a.m., Cunningham said he was drawn to the chaos. It always led to opportunities to take it a step at a time, dive into the details and surround himself with good people - strategies he said he's used throughout his career to make sure all bases were covered to solve tough crimes.

Cunningham got his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Governor's State University and continued his education with leadership or command staff trainings through Northwestern University, Colorado State University and the Senior Management Institute for Policing. He teaches as well as an adjunct professor at the College of DuPage.

Woodridge Mayor Gina Cunningham-Picek isn't related to her town's new chief. But she and other Woodridge leaders chose Cunningham because of his reputation in DuPage law enforcement and his expertise in community policing, village spokesman Jack Knight said.

Some of Cunningham's family members were surprised he wanted to stay in policing even after hitting the 30-year mark, the point at which police pensions max out. He said he's never been more sure.

Despite national controversies about excessive use of force and poor police relations with minority communities, Cunningham says the job of being sworn to protect and serve - and all the "goofy stuff" that comes with it - is the job for him. There are bad cops, sure, but he'll keep working to prove there are good ones, too.

"It's the people," he said. "They've just made it a dream job for me."