By Khalida Sarwari
There has been a changing of the guard at the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office West Valley Division. Capt. Ricardo “Rich” Urena was tapped to replace Capt. Rick Sung as commander of the patrol division.
Urena officially began his new job on Aug. 1. Sung was promoted to assistant sheriff.
Urena will oversee a division that serves the communities of Saratoga, Cupertino, Los Altos Hills and unincorporated areas of the county, bringing 14 years of law enforcement experience into the role.
He said he brings a community-oriented leadership style to the position, with the ultimate goal of enhancing residents’ quality of life.
“I think being a successful manager really means you have to engage the community, really to learn their expectations,” he said. “I’m a proponent of communication–frequent communication.”
Urena indicated that his first order of business would be getting to know his communities by going to various cultural events or holding coffee with a cop events and hearing about local issues directly from people.
“What I’d like to do is have an opportunity where I can go out and meet the community,” he said. “As I move forward, I want to spend a lot of time in the community, because at the end of the day, that’s what matters to us, that’s where we get our direction.”
He said he’s already been briefed about the residential burglaries plaguing Saratoga and would consider doing a “targeted enforcement” in the city to alleviate the issue, along with implementing regular patrol checks and communicating with residents via social media. He said he’d also like to continue making traffic safety presentations and offering residential security surveys for residences and businesses.
Urena spent the last year and a half managing the sheriff’s office’s court security division. His career with the sheriff’s office began in 2002 and since then, he has worked a wide range of assignments, which include patrolling the West Valley cities, as well as performing law enforcement duties for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s transit patrol division.
Urena has also served as a field training officer, assistant division commander in the investigations division, recruit training officer, detective in the Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement team, a sergeant in the West Valley detective division, as a tactical flight observer aboard the sheriff’s office helicopter, STAR 1, and as a mentor and leader to deputies.
His command experience includes serving as the assistant director of the protective services department at Valley Medical Center, the assistant division commander of the investigations division and the division commander of the court security division.
Urena resides in Gilroy with his wife, a sergeant for the sheriff’s office, 19-year-old step-daughter and 6-year-old daughter. In his free time, he enjoys running and spending time with his family.
Link:
Saratoga: Urena replaces Sung as commander of West Valley Patrol Division
