Robert
Snaza

Sheriff Snaza is in his third term as the elected Sheriff of Lewis County, Washington, and has served as the county’s chief law enforcement executive since 2015. He leads an agency of roughly 110 across patrol operations, investigations, corrections and civil divisions, with executive responsibility for strategic planning, budgeting, policy development and personnel leadership. He began in 1990 as a patrol officer with the Napavine Police Department and came up through the Sheriff’s Office: deputy sheriff in 1995, patrol sergeant in 2002, and undersheriff in 2014, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Operations, Civil and Corrections bureaus and the agency’s budget and personnel, before becoming Sheriff in 2015.

His operational experience runs from the street to the command level. As a deputy he served as a field training officer, a street crimes deputy, a SWAT team member and a boating deputy. As a sergeant he supervised the regional drug task force, the street crimes unit, the canine program for drug and apprehension dogs, the boating program and the reserve program, served as clandestine laboratory supervisor and site safety officer and as a boating accident investigator, and rose from SWAT team leader to SWAT team commander. He built a Regional SWAT Program to give neighboring agencies a coordinated tactical capability, established the county’s Motors Program, and created a Regional Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team.

The discipline he brings to consulting is policy and procedures: their development as an executive, and their analysis against what officers are actually trained and required to do. He developed training in support of policy and procedures, built leadership development programs for sergeants and mid-level supervisors, and partnered with Region 3 sheriffs to establish Gold Leadership Training for executive and mid-management personnel. For six years he served as a commissioner of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the body that sets and delivers peace-officer training across the state. His own command education includes the Commission’s Executive Management Certification, the National Sheriffs’ Institute executive management program and the Northwest Law Enforcement Command College, with more than twenty years of continuing leadership training. How Professor Gilbertson reads a sheriff’s office case, from the deputy’s decision to the command that shaped it, is set out under sheriff’s office cases.

Focus areas

• Executive law enforcement command
• Policy & procedures development and analysis
• Supervision, discipline and accountability systems
• SWAT and tactical program command
• Narcotics enforcement command
• Training development in support of policy and procedures
• Multi-agency coordination
• Peace-officer training standards