The township promoted William Obuchowski (fourth from left) to chief of police and Roy Wagner (third from right) to captain at a meeting in June. The department’s newest officers, Julia Wheeler and Zachary Edmondson, were also sworn in.
The Cinnaminson Police Department has new leadership and two new officers.
Captain William “Bill” Obuchowski was sworn in as police chief, Lt. Roy Wagner was sworn in as captain and Julia Wheeler and Zachary Edmondson were sworn in as patrol officers at a township committee meeting in June.
The department made history with Obuchowski’s promotion, according to Executive Director Mitch Sklar, of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police. With his father John, a retired Cinnaminson police chief, the Obuchowskis are the first father and son to serve as chiefs in the same department.
There were two other father/son combinations and one father/daughter combination among police in New Jersey, but they all worked for different departments.
Besides his father, William Obuchowski follows in the footsteps of former Chief Rich Calabrese, who retired on May 31. Obuchowski was appointed officer in charge on June 1 and was promoted and sworn in as chief at a township committee meeting on June 17.
Obuchowski is a township native who graduated in 1994 from Cinnaminson High School. His career took off soon after at the Burlington County Corrections Department and the Burlington County Sheriff’s Department. He was hired by Cinnaminson police in 1999 and months later, graduated from the Burlington County Police Academy Class 76 with a Director’s Award for overall excellence, according to the township website.
Soon after joining the Cinnaminson department, Obuchowski was designated a marksmen/observer and also became a firearms instructor in 2002. By the following year, he had been trained as an EMT, and in 2004, became a field training officer. He’s always been involved in training as an instructor in radar, firearms and taser.
In December of 2010, Obuchowski was promoted to sergeant and put in charge of training, a position he still holds today. In 2018, he was tasked with completely revamping the department’s field training officer program as well as creating a sergeant training program. Three years later, he was promoted to lieutenant in June of 2021.
Since then, Obuchowski has attended several prestigious training programs, including the New Jersey Chiefs of Police Command and Leadership course, where he received the Chief Harry Wilde Academic Achievement Award for coming out at the top of his 2021 class. Upon graduating, he was asked to return to the course as an instructor, where he teaches in Area 4 of the program.
On March 17, 2023, Obuchowski graduated from the nationally accredited Certified Public Manager program. In May 2023, he received a certificate of achievement from Fairleigh Dickinson University for the completion of the Executive Leadership Program for Public Safety. Also in May 2023, Obuchowski successfully passed with distinction the Professional Certificate in Evidence-Based Policing from Cambridge University. On Dec. 8, 2023, he graduated from Northwestern’s School of Police Staff and Command.
Obuchowski was promoted to the rank of captain in January, a role that means he is assigned head of the patrol division. His duties included training, policy development, the field training officer program, firearms, quartermaster and OPRA/common law. He was also assigned as a deputy emergency management coordinator for Cinnaminson.
Like Obuchowski, Wagner grew up in Cinnaminson and a 1992 graduate of its high school. He started his law-enforcement career by attending the Cape May County Police Academy in 1998, graduating as a Class 2 Special Law Enforcement Officer with Wildwood’s police department.
In 1999, he joined the Burlington County Sheriff’s Department as an officer. Wagner graduated from his second training at the Burlington County Police Academy and received the Academic and Director’s Award upon graduation. He joined the Cinnaminson department in 2002 and assigned to the patrol division, according to the township website.
In that role, Wagner was assigned to the Field Training Officer program, training new officers to function as solo-beat officers. He was also designated an evidence technician to assist the detective bureau with investigations. In addition, Wagner became certified as an instructor in firearms, armorer and taser.
Wagner was promoted to patrol sergeant in 2017 and later to detective sergeant two years later. In the latter role, he was tasked with investigating and overseeing all criminal activity affecting Cinnaminson. Wagner was also assigned to internal affairs and became the department’s bias crime liaison and juvenile liaison officer. In January, he was promoted to lieutenant, where he assumed command of internal affairs and continues to train officers in the use of firearms and tasers.
Wagner earned his bachelor’s degree in individualized studies from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2018 and a master’s in administrative science from the university in 2021. He is a graduate of the New Jersey State Chiefs of Police Command and Leadership Program and received a Certification of Achievement from Fairleigh Dickinson for completion of the Executive Leadership Program for Public Safety Personnel.
