Palm Beach State College alum Ronald Rowe made Acting Director of the U.S. Secret Service

 

Former Palm Beach State College Police Academy alumnus Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. became the Acting Director of the Secret Service following the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle on July 23, 2024.  As acting director, Rowe oversees 7,800 special agents, uniformed division officers, technical law enforcement officers, and administrative, professional, and technical staff.

Rowe’s new role is the culmination of a longstanding dream. Even before he graduated PBSC’s police academy in 1995, Rowe’s goal was to join the Secret Service and become a part of the presidential protection detail, recalled West Palm Beach Police Department (WPBPD) Assistant Chief Anthony J. Spatara. Both Rowe and Spatara were in the same PBSC recruit class. “The training we did together at PBSC really set the base of our knowledge in law enforcement and all the hours we spent together at the academy and on the job helped us establish a lifelong friendship,” Spatara said.

After four years with the West Palm Beach police force, Rowe joined the Secret Service’s training academy in 1999. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Secret Service and achieved his goal of getting assigned to the presidential detail in 2004. Four years later, he was selected to the staff of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary. By 2011, Rowe was an adviser to the National Security Council where he developed the President’s strategy to combat state-sponsored economic espionage and the theft of U.S. trade secrets and other intellectual properties.

During his 25-year career with the Secret Service, Rowe has coordinated major security operations, collaborating with other government and law-enforcement agencies. On the cybersecurity front, Rowe was selected for a joint duty assignment to the National Intelligence Council, where he spearheaded the development of multiple analytic products. Those products were later considered to be among the most authoritative assessment by the U.S. Intelligence Community regarding the challenges and national security threats facing the United States.

Before his appointment as acting director, he served as Deputy Director of the Secret Service where he was responsible for the direct oversight of the agency’s daily investigative and protective operations. He also led the Secret Service’s engagement with Congress, the Department of Homeland Security and other government partners.

In addition to graduating from PBSC’s Police Academy, Rowe earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, and a Master of Science in Administration from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.