Bettendorf Police Chief Keith Kimball will retire from the job on April 25, 2025, after dedicating more than 35 years to the Bettendorf Police Department.
“Ultimately, I wanted to be able to help people in the community and make a difference,” Mr. Kimball said in a Bettendorf news release.
He added: “When I looked at law enforcement as a career, I really looked at having personal interactions with the public. The job is multi-faceted and enforcing the law is a very small part of being a police officer. In fact, I always thought if I wasn’t going to be a police officer, the other profession I was interested in was being a teacher.”
The Bettendorf City Council voted on Tuesday, Dec. 17, to approve the job description and recruitment process for the city’s next police chief. The process will be internal and will consist of submitting an application and a resume, as well as completing an interview with the City’s Civil Service Commission. The city council will then vote on the candidate City Administrator Decker Ploehn appoints to the post.
“I was actually the police chief and interim city administrator when Keith was sworn into office in 1990,” Mr. Ploehn said in the release. “He always was a cop’s cop. He immersed himself into the police department and took advantage of every opportunity that presented itself to him, which gave him a variety of experiences that ultimately led to his ascension to the office of police chief.”
‘Very rewarding’ career
After being sworn into office on Jan. 15, 1990, and serving on third shift patrol, Mr. Kimball was a DARE officer in 1992 in the local elementary schools and then became the first-ever school resource officer at Bettendorf High School in 1994 until 1999.
“It was very rewarding because I had the best of both worlds and I wore many hats – being a positive role model, mentor, a parent, a teacher, a counselor but also, I had to hold kids accountable, and because of that I started to view law enforcement in a similar way on a community-wide level,” the outgoing chief said.
Mr. Kimball worked his way up the ranks – being promoted to sergeant in the Investigative Services Bureau, then lieutenant as a shift commander, and eventually in charge of the Investigative Services Bureau. After being reassigned once more to oversee training and operations, he was promoted to captain in 2012 to lead the Field Services Division. Then, in 2018, Mr. Kimball was promoted to chief – taking over the ranks from Phil Redington, who served as police chief for 25 years:
“I was always impressed by Keith’s dedication to the job and his positive attitude with all our employees, city staff, and most importantly, the public,” Mr. Redington said. “I was pleased when he was selected as chief. I knew he would do a great job for our community which he has proven during his years as chief.”
