Jonathan Owen, Director of Public Safety, was born in 1957 in Pueblo, Colorado, a son of a school teacher who became a minister. He was raised throughout the South, but attended high school in Dracut, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, graduating in 1975. Higher education culminated in a Master of Theology degree in Semitics and Old Testament Studies, cum laude, from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1986. In February, 1988, he was hired by the Dallas Police Department as a police officer. As a police officer, he was awarded the Department’s 40th Medal of Valor, for entering a wrecked, burning vehicle to rescue the driver, whose husband and two daughters had been killed in the collision. In 1990, the Texas Junior Chamber of Commerce named him one of “Five Outstanding Young Texans”. The following year, the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce named him one of “Ten Outstanding Young Americans.” In 1991, he was shot in the line of duty, and in 1993 he and his wife Rose moved to Alaska, where he was hired by the North Slope Borough Police Department and assigned to the village of Wainwright. He became an Investigator in 1995, and was promoted to Sergeant in 1997. He also served as one of the Department’s hostage negotiators. In 2000, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, and ultimately commanded police operations in the borough’s seven outlying villages and Prudhoe Bay.
In 2002, he graduated from the 210th session of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. In late 2003, he resigned his position and moved to the Palmer area to be able to respond to assist his brother, who was dying of lymphoma. In early 2004, he accepted a position with the City of Palmer, handling police property and evidence, then was charged with emergency planning city-wide. In December, 2007, City Manager Bill Allen named him Director of the Department of Public Safety. He is also charged with Risk Management duties throughout the City of Palmer.
