GARDENS OFFICER AN FBI ACADEMY GRADUATE
Maj. Paul Rogers joins elite group who have passed the program.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — A Palm Beach Gardens officer who discovered his passion for police work in a teen career exploration program joined the upper echelon of law enforcement when he graduated from the FBI National Academy in December.
Maj. Paul Rogers, 37, handed off his responsibilities to head to the academy in Quantico, Va. He took upper-level college courses in executive leadership, management, media relations and counter-terrorism and completed a fitness class.
“It was an absolutely amazing experience,” Rogers said.
His coursework at the academy gave him ideas to bolster safety at special events in the city such as the upcoming Honda Classic golf tournament and pushed him closer to earning his bachelor’s degree in emergency management from Barry University, he said.
Rogers joined the fewer than 1 percent of police officers in the country who have graduated from the academy. A few other city police, including Chief Stephen Stepp, have gone through the academy.
The federal government pays the way for the police officers who get accepted into the highly competitive program, Rogers said.
Rogers and his new colleagues spent a weekend in New York City learning about how police fight terrorism in one of the biggest targets in the U.S. A student in the class who was from the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally in fighting terrorism, explained trends in his country and how to stop them from happening here, Rogers said.
Rogers’ classmates came from as far away as South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Britain, France, Costa Rica and Argentina, he said.
Rogers didn’t know for sure if police work was for him when he signed up for the Police Explorers program as a 16-year-old in 1996. In the program, young people