Dan Breci took over duties as Interim Police Chief for the Junction City Police Department on June 9th and now after a months long process, Breci has formally been named the new Police Chief.

“I feel very honored and proud to be a member of the Junction City Police Department,” said Breci. “Our men and women here are a group of great people and I look forward to being their cheerleader; and I look forward to working with all the citizens of Junction City and our surrounding communities and our law enforcement community – we have a great group of people that really truly care about the citizens of Junction City and Geary county and I’m just fortunate to be a part of it.”

Breci began his work in law enforcement in 1976 in Mitchell, South Dakota before joining that military.  Breci came to Junction City in 1986 as a part of the military; after leaving the armed forces in 1989 Breci began working for the Junction City Police Department.

Breci worked in community involvement as the first full time DARE officer, crime prevention and community police officer before becoming a detective and then relocating to the Topeka Police Department for a period of six years. In September of 2005 Breci returned to the JCPD as the Captain of Operations where he’s worked for the past 11 years.

Allen Dinkel, City Manager, made the decision to hire Breci as the “full-time chief for the city” after “a search and some phone interviews.”

“I’m real fortunate that I had somebody of the caliber of Dan Breci to choose from and to select as police chief,” said Dinkel. “He has shown a long term dedication to not only law enforcement but also to the city of Junction City; and I believe he will be a very successful chief for us and one that will be able to continue with the legacy – going back to Tim Brown and the chief before that – in offering the citizens of Junction City the quality police department that they deserve.”

Breci has an impressive resume including jobs like:  the Military Police Investigations Unit at Fort Riley, Detective in charge of Internal Affairs and Human Resources in Topeka, Undersheriff of Shawnee county, KS, instructor for police for the University of Kansas at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center in Hutchinson, currently teaching police and sheriff’s administrators around the state on conducting internal affairs investigations, past President and Secretary of the Kansas Internal Affairs Investigators Association, Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, and Internal Association of Chiefs of Police.

Breci has a Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources from Friends University and a Master’s in Criminal Justice from Fort Hays State University.

Chief Breci is married to Carolyn and has four children and eleven grandchildren.

“There is no ceremony I need; the city manager [Allen Dinkel] told me to go put on my new badge and that was the ceremony, and I know that the people that I work with are happy that we now know who is at the helm and they can start planning for what is going to happen next,” said Breci.