PPOA Executive Director
wquint@ppoa.com
A mentor is often defined as a person who gives a younger or less-experienced person help and advice over a period of time. In February of 1999, I quickly began seeking help and advice from retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Arthur (Art) J. Reddy. I was a mere 38-year-old sergeant with 17 years of law enforcement experience at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. I had just been elected to the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS) board of directors and began my first two-year term as president. Prior to February 1999, I did not know or ever have the pleasure of meeting Art when he was an active member of the LASD or when he began his distinguished public safety labor career, which began when he was first elected to the PPOA Board in 1979 as a mere 37-year-old deputy sheriff with 17 years of law enforcement experience.
When I met Art in 1999, he had held the prestigious position of vice president of the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) since 1995. Art was the treasurer of PPOA in 1986 when PPOA began its affiliation with IUPA. Both PPOA and IUPA were significantly involved in supporting the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. This was one of the largest anti-crimes bills in the history of the United States, and it funded the hiring of approximately 100,000 new peace officers nationwide.
Art was responsible for inviting members of the IUPA, including me, to the White House to meet the president of the United States in the Oval Office. In my PPOA office is a picture of me shaking hands with the president, and in typical first-class Art Reddy style, he made sure President Clinton signed the photograph.
Art worked tirelessly and was an expert in national public safety legislation during his seven-year tenure as vice president of IUPA. He was an exceptional mentor for hundreds of cops, regardless of age or rank, not only from California but across the United States on the importance of political action at the local, state and national levels of law enforcement.
From 1999 to 2002, I continued to be educated by Art on how to best serve my membership based on his PPOA experience as a director, treasurer, vice president and his six years of presidential leadership. I am enormously proud and humbled that for 12 years, I was part of the remarkable professional relationship AOCDS (1976) has had and continues to have with PPOA (1951) for the past four-plus decades.
Art and his amazing wife, Judy, returned to California and thankfully, he decided to once again grace the PPOA Board room beginning in December of 2002 when he was sworn in as a director and appointed as the PPOA Retiree Liaison chairman.
Art continued to be a PPOA director from 2003 to 2019. Fortunately, I did not miss a beat in continuing to have the many priceless opportunities to communicate and interact with Art. This really came to fruition when, in October 2017, the PPOA Board of Directors selected me to become its fourth executive director. I cannot express in words what it meant to have my mentor and his institutional knowledge readily available as I began my new journey.
I am quite certain that Art would agree with me that the most honorable and significant involvement we participated in was serving on the California Peace Officers’ Memorial Foundation. The CPOMF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable foundation whose mission is to recognize and honor California’s peace officers who gave their lives in the line of duty serving the citizens of this great state. A very fitting position that encapsulates Art’s ongoing role as a mentor was his 20 years of being appointed to the CPOMF Special Advisory Committee, which he served on until his tragic passing.
I’m going to end my tribute to a true law enforcement labor legend by quoting a paragraph from his first Star & Shield Chairman’s (President’s) Message in January 1981: “First of all, I firmly believe that if you do not like the way something is being done, then you should at least make an attempt to get involved and bring about change. You should not just sit or drop out.” Thank you, Art, and may you rest in peace.