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In January 2025, Dean Crispen '87 was named the chief of the San Francisco Fire Department. Less than a year later, in December 2025, Derrick Lew '91 was named chief of the San Francisco Police Department, marking the first time the SFFD and SFPD were led by SI alums at the same time.

In interviews with GENESIS, the two men spoke about their journeys to these positions, how their high school experiences formed them, their relationship with each other as they strive to make San Francisco safer, their philosophies on leadership, and more.

When reflecting on their time in the Sunset, both chiefs noted the strong bonds between classmates and said they were grateful for how Jesuit education at SI helped develop their confidence and their character. In particular, there were specific adults whose care, encouragement, and guidance played a major role in their growth.

Chief Lew pointed to longtime Dean of Students Douglas Draper, S.J. as a key influence on his life, saying, "Br. Draper was a disciplinarian and hard-nosed — you didn't want to be the object of one of his lectures — but I also learned that, even though he had an outsized reputation for upholding discipline, he was very compassionate. More than a few times, as a student, I forgot my basketball shoes at home, or my homework, and found myself trying to explain to Br. Draper what had happened and asking if I could go home quickly to fix the problem. In all of those situations, whatever the outcome, I understood not only the disciplinary standard he wanted for me, but that he could see me as an individual."

Chief Crispen noted that he long considered himself an ordinary student, but a teacher's encouragement gave him the confidence to pursue more, saying, "Senior year, Mike Silvestri '67 pulled me aside. I had been in his math class, and at first I wondered if I had done something wrong, but in the hallway he told me I was pretty talented at math and asked if I had ever considered a career in the field. He guided me into what ended up being a career path in accounting."

Though he joined the fire department while finishing his college degree, Chief Crispen continued pursuing accounting and did side work in the field during his first few years as a firefighter. "That care Mr. Silvestri had for me, and being singled out for something positive, was really valuable," he said.

Both chiefs described their careers as a calling and directly connected their decisions to heed the call to service to lessons they learned at SI. Chief Lew said his family had minimal connections to law enforcement, and he had already started a career in finance when, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he reconsidered if he was on the right course.

"I began to wonder if, 10, 15, or 20 years in the future I would look back and be fulfilled by my career," Chief Lew said. "And I couldn't escape the idea that I was meant to be of service in some way. I truly felt a calling to be a cop in San Francisco — I wouldn't have done it anywhere else and the SFPD was the only department where I applied, at age 29. I even went through the academy twice, because the first time I had a knee injury that kept me from finishing. I remember being in the hospital, recovering from that injury, and my mother asked me why I was doing this. I told her that I was definitely going back because I had a clear vision of the importance of police work, and I felt it was how I should serve."

For his part, Chief Crispen said, "To be really good at this job, you have to have a calling, and you can't fake it. You have to care about people and their outcomes, and you have to be connected to the community, which was demonstrated for me at SI and by my father, who was a fire department captain. He really cared about the people who worked for him, and they were like family to him. I think that's really important in the fire department because our people can be in stressful situations, yet have to perform well as a group, and afterward have to take care of each other to get through traumatic experiences."

As they rose through the ranks of their respective departments, the two chiefs developed a relationship that continues to pay dividends today. Before Chief Lew's appointment to lead the police department, the two worked on San Francisco's Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a multi-agency task force that seeks to address street conditions and crime attributable to drug dealing and consumption in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. Their close partnership has continued after Chief Lew's elevation, and so they have particular insight into how the other leads.

Chief Crispen said, "Derrick led DMACC prior to being named chief, he is still very involved, and I gained a lot of respect for him in that position. I think because we are both operations people who embraced those positions, now we both understand the operational piece of our departments, which allows us to really connect with the boots on the ground."

Chief Crispen continued, "I have noticed that the people who work with Derrick have an incredible amount of respect for him. I think it's because he's worked the ranks; every position he has ever been in is the most important position for him. I feel that mirrors my career, and that's a deep connection we have. At the end of the day, we are public servants, and we learned at SI the value of being connected to the community and respecting all the people we serve."

For his part, Chief Lew was equally effusive speaking about the fire chief, saying, "I love Dean Crispen. Given his seniority as a department leader, he's been something of a mentor to me, showing me the ropes. I think we do have a natural camaraderie being SI alums, and that connection helps us work together trying to make our city better. Working together on DMACC means that Dean and I talk multiple times each week about what we're doing to impact the fentanyl crisis in our city, a major public safety issue. As a city kid, I want to do everything I can to be part of that solution, and it's super cool that I get to work with Dean, a fellow Ignatian."

Looking ahead, the chiefs have ambitious goals. They both articulated visions for their departments that acknowledged unique challenges presented by San Francisco — notably the cost of living in the Bay Area — while also embracing ideas rooted in the value each department can generate by helping build strong communities in the city.

"The job of a firefighter is evolving," Chief Crispen said. "When I joined the fire department, most of my cohort were not EMTs, and many of us viewed our job as, 'We fight fires.' We still fight fires, but firefighters are asked to do so much more, now, particularly responding to medical calls in order to help people suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues. We also have San Francisco firefighters performing cliff rescues and underwater scuba diving operations. We have helicopter rescue technicians. All of this requires a lot of training because our area is prone to a wide array of events that may be infrequent, but very dangerous — think earthquakes, tsunami, and we even had a tornado warning fairly recently. You have to have comprehensive training and put people in simulations that prepare them for when the disaster or emergency happens. I think that will be my legacy, that our training has gone to a level that has never been seen before."

He continued, "I have also pushed and encouraged our members to be really invested in San Francisco communities, and I am working to get our members to live, if not in San Francisco, closer to the city. Part of that is operational, but I am also doing it for cultural reasons. San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods, just about every neighborhood in the city has a firehouse, and I think our city is better when our members are truly a part of the community, both on and off duty."

Chief Lew spoke enthusiastically about the role technology can play in policing, saying, "The department has made a lot of progress with our real-time investigation center, which, with the talented people running it and the essential work of people on the ground, brings together all sorts of data that allows us to quickly take in information from people who are reporting a problem and then be very efficient and precise about how we are spending our time. For example, when it comes to auto burglaries, a very small fraction of people are responsible for an outsized percentage of that particular crime. Ideally, we want to get the necessary information so that we can secure an apprehension and create the best case for a prosecution, which is helped by being efficient and precise, but it also matters a lot that we have the kind of information that allows us, say, to stop only the one car with our suspect in it instead of eight or nine cars that do not have our suspect. We don't want to stop the wrong people, and we also want people in our communities and people who might commit crimes to know that we are very good at this."

Chief Lew added, "I think, from listening to people in San Francisco, our citizens think the SFPD should excel at our core function: responding to 9-1-1 calls, investigations, apprehension, maintaining a presence to ensure public safety. No one wants heavy-handedness, but when a person calls 9-1-1, something bad has happened to them and they need help. We need to get there as quickly as possible and solve that problem in the most professional and efficient way as possible."

Being chief of a big city public safety department will always be a complex job. However, the chiefs both said they are confident in the teams they have in place in their respective departments. For their parting thoughts, they described key similarities in how they approach leadership.

Chief Lew said, "I am very much a collaborative person. I've never been one to dictate to the rest of the command staff. I understand that the buck stops with me and that, ultimately, I will be making some hard decisions and be responsible for those decisions. But I always want to hear what subject matter experts have to say because I hope I'm humble enough to understand, at core, that I am not the expert in everything. There are super-talented people who have a lot of dedication to the city, who have been doing their work for a long time, and are experts at what they do. I would be a fool not to listen to them and formulate strategies with them.

"But also, everyone in the SFPD has value, no matter what their role is, and I think that's true of any organization. A big part of my job is articulating our mission so that people understand they have purpose, that there's a why for what they do. They also need the freedom to do their best work, with proper guard rails that put them in position to succeed."

Chief Crispen also stressed the importance of collaboration, saying, "I'm very collaborative. If you talk to my team, they'll tell you I bring a lot of people into decision-making, I make important decisions slowly, and I try to get everybody's input before making those decisions. A mistake a lot of people make in leadership is only talking to their inner circle before making a decision, and then they later find out information that would have changed their minds.

"I also think your leadership ought to continuously evolve with the personnel that come on board. I want to find out what makes people tick because I believe there will be a certain group of people who are going to toe the line and do as directed, and there are some people who need nudging one way or another — using sugar or salt. You want to get buy-in from as many people as possible, but as chief, you have to kind of accept that there are going to be some folks who aren't in favor of your management style, or don't agree with some decisions. You won't be the most popular person in every corner, and that's tough because you may want to be loved by all. But to lead everybody, you have to accept that some people have a different way of looking at things, rely on managers to help guide them, and you can't take that singular responsibility completely upon yourself."

This article appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Genesis.