Heather Fong

Heather Fon was the chief of police in San Francisco. She was the first woman to lead the police department there and the first Asian American to lead a major metropolitan city police department. She is the second Asian American police chief in the San Francisco police department’s history.

Fong’s family was from Guangdong Province, China. She grew up in San Francisco and got a BA from the University of San Francisco and a MA from San Francisco State University. She joined the US Air Force ROTC and was also a police cadet. She graduated from the police academy in 1977.

In 1979, she was an instructor at the police academy, and in 1983, she was one of two female child abuse investigators. She was also a youth investigator in 1992. She moved up in ranks and was promoted to lieutenant in 1993, captain in 1994, commander in 1998, deputy chief in 2000, and assistant chief in 2003.

She became police chief in April 2004 and retired in 2009.

In November 2014, she served as the Department of Homeland Security Assistant Security for State and Local Law Enforcement but left at the end of the Obama administration