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11/01/2017 08:30 AM“Leave this world a little better than you found it”—it’s a famous quote by Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the international scouting movement. In the world that is Madison, Connecticut, former boy scout Eric Thornburg has achieved just that.
As he prepares to move to California, Eric leaves his home of 11 years and his position as the president and CEO of Connecticut Water. Next week, he starts a new job as president and CEO of San Jose Water, a large, publicly traded water utility.
“I very much enjoy my job and colleagues at Connecticut Water. I planned to stay there until I retired, however our daughter lives in California and my wife and I don’t have any family in New England, so we decided it was the right move,” he says.
Professionally, Eric has worked his way up in the water utility industry over many decades. In contrast, his eight-year role as the chair of the Board of Police Commissioners in Madison came almost by accident.
Eric and his family had not long moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Madison when the infamous scandals of the local police department unfolded in 2007 and 2008. It’s a well-worn story now, but it was breaking news back then, as six officers were charged and dismissed for criminal and misconduct activities and the previous chief of police retired, following a settlement, leaving the culture and the reputation of the department in tatters.
“Like most people in town, my wife and I were very concerned about what was happening and the significant problems with the local police department. A friend in St. Louis called me up after reading the story in his local newspaper and asked if this was the Madison, Connecticut, that we lived in. The story made national news, and I thought that I really needed to try and help,” he says.
Eric called then-selectman Noreen Kokoruda (Madison current state representative) and offered to lend his professional expertise to the search for a new police chief. While that process was well underway, Noreen had another job in mind for Eric: The town needed new police commissioners.
“I didn’t have any knowledge of what the board did or policing, but I had a great deal of professional experience with culture change and strategic planning, so I said ‘Yes.’ Sometimes if you want to see change, you have to get involved and make it happen,” he says.
Eric joined the commission at the same time as Ed Dowling, who had retired as the vice president of Human Resources at Yale New Haven Hospital, and around the same time that the new Police Chief John (Jack) Drumm was hired.
“He was absolutely the right person for the job—highly professional and an excellent leader of people with all the tools to achieve this change. I like to say that the good Lord has a plan, and the combination of our skill sets was just what was needed at the time.”
It was 2010 and top of the agenda for the revamped Police Commission and Drumm was a five-year strategic plan.
“The first goal was to rebuild the trust of the community in its police department. Fortunately, the people of Madison were supportive of our changes and extended their trust to the department and showed us they really cared,” Eric says.
“The Senior Citizen’s Police Academy and bike patrol were two of the ways for officers to reconnect with the community. The Police Department and the Board of Education came together and we put a police officer into the middle schools, so that young people have positive interaction with the police and learned to trust them at an early age. Reconnecting and building trust is not about putting out press releases, it’s about talking to the people you serve.”
Eric said the board acknowledges the hard work of the town’s many good officers who were instrumental in developing a positive, service-oriented department.
“The second goal was the change the culture of the Madison Police Department; to develop a competent, well-trained department that was focused on service and excellence. Right away, we found that there were many good, professional officers in the department that desperately wanted change, and along with the police union, were very supportive,” he says.
“It was remarkable in hindsight. The bad, old days were really gone after 12 to 18 months, and we could focus on making our good police department great.”
The board and department set down an ambitious goal: obtaining national accreditation with Commission of Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). In March 2014, Madison Police Department was named one only 19 departments in Connecticut to achieve this recognition. In 2017, the Department was reaccredited for law enforcement, along with a new accreditation for its communications department,
“We wanted to demonstrate to the community that the department, the board, the chief we are all committed to giving them the best police department, one worthy of national recognition. The accreditation is a rigorous process that reviews training, policy, procedure, and service. We took the journey to building a great department and that really culminated in the CALEA accreditation.”
Eric says he has enjoyed the opportunity to serve the Madison community.
“The role of the Board of Police Commissioners is really to support the chief and the department, to ensure they have the resources they need to achieve the plan, and to hold them accountable on behalf of the town,” he says.
“We have a great board and I’m very proud to have been a part of this team. We had strong support from the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance, which allowed the commission to focus on what was best for the department and the town.”
Selectman and Police Commission Liaison Al Goldberg is one of many to thank Eric for his commitment.
“This community is indebted to Eric and his leadership team at the Madison Police Department for their extraordinary success in moving this organization to one of excellence. Eric’s visioning, steadfastness, and persistent persuasion have lead us to a point where Madison can now be justifiably proud of its police department.”
The initial CALEA accreditation wasn’t the only accolade for Eric in 2014; he was awarded the Good Scout Award by the Boy Scouts of America, Connecticut Yankee Council.
“I was a boy scout and an eagle scout and it had a great impact on my life. I really enjoyed the outdoor programs, learning new skills and teamwork,” he says. “Scouting really makes a positive difference in the lives of young people.”
A self-proclaimed midwesterner, Eric grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. An avid high school soccer player, he had a very specific college selection process.
“I chose Cornell University because the soccer coach that recruited me was from St Louis. It was a bonus to get an Ivy League education, too. At the end of college, I sent my résumé out to hundreds of companies for graduate programs, and I was offered a job at Coca-Cola and a job at a water utility. I decided that I wanted to help provide safe drinking water rather than sell sugar water,” he says.
“I have enjoyed the public service component of working for a private enterprise. I get a great satisfaction from heading a company that delivers a life-sustaining service while being part of the business world.”
Eric began his career in Pennsylvania, first outside Philadelphia and then Hersey, where he could “smell the chocolate in the air.” Professional opportunities took the Thornburgs to Pittsburgh, back to Hersey, then Indiana, before heading back home to St. Louis.
The opportunity to head up a leading water utility prompted the move to Connecticut, with Madison top of the list for Eric, his wife, Melissa and their children, Wesley and Erica.
“Moving to New England was quite different to the Midwest. It took a little longer to get settled here, but the people in Madison are great and we’ve loved living here,” he says. “We were excited to live between New York and Boston, but be able to move to a small town where we could get to know people. The school system was the first draw to Madison, as well as the natural beauty and the small-town feel.”
As the Thornburgs pack up to head west, goodbye is bittersweet.
“I really want to thank my wife, Melissa, for putting up with all the late-night Police Commission meetings in the early days, and her encouragement to keep at it. I’ll miss the relationships with our friends here, but I’m also excited about the challenge of a new job and a new home close to family,” he says.
“I’m most proud that the people of Madison have a police department they can trust. I was part of great team who resolved to hold the course and get there, and we did. My service in the Police Commission is a role I’m very proud of and I leave very satisfied of our achievements.”