Meet Our Graduate Fellows
While the HCNY Foundation started with a focus on providing scholarship funds for Harvard College students, it has since expanded its activities.
Assistant Commissioner Ron Wilhelmy
As the son of police officer seriously injured in the line of duty, Ron took to public service at an early age. He volunteered for his local fire department at age fifteen. Then, the day he turned seventeen, he enlisted in the U.S. Army through a special program that allowed him to attend boot camp during the summer between eleventh and twelfth grades. After high school graduation, he spent the summer training as an army medic—a skill he later put to good use working in Harlem as a New York City emergency medical technician.
But Ron says none of these early endeavors compare to the public contributions he has been able to make as a member of the New York City Police Department. Ron realized his childhood dream of joining the ranks of the NYPD in 1996. He has since worked in a variety of assignments throughout the city. He spent his first years at the 52nd Precinct where he worked on patrol and in various details including Domestic Violence, Street Narcotics Enforcement, and Anti-Crime. With six years of hard work graciously recognized, he was transferred to the Precinct Detective Squad, promoted to detective, and shortly thereafter assigned to the squad’s Homicide team—a position Ron cites as both his most demanding and rewarding assignment.
Upon promotion to sergeant in 2004, Ron was assigned to the 47th precinct where he was tasked with managing a spike in auto theft complaints. Ron devised and implemented a comprehensive strategy which contributed to a 22 percent decline in auto theft reports over the subsequent six months. The following year, Ron was transferred to the Internal Affairs Bureau where he conducted several high-profile investigations. Ron credits his time conducting internal investigations in IAB for the insight he obtained into a particularly pernicious side effect of police work: officer stress. To that end, Ron passed a rigorous interview process and training program to counsel afflicted officers as a volunteer with the officer support program POPPA (Police Officers Providing Peer Assistance).
Since 2007 Ron has supervised investigations within the department’s Organized Crime Control Bureau. He has spent time in the Auto Crime and Narcotics divisions as well as the bureau’s Investigations Unit.