Angie Gangi
Sports Editor

Imagine sitting in class on the first day of a new semester and seeing a police chief walk into the room.

Then imagine that he walks to the front of the class and introduces himself as your teacher.

For students sitting in Adjunct Professor Mark Kling’s Tuesday night public administration class, the scenario was real.

“For the most part students are relaxed once they realize I’m not a robot,” Kling said.

Kling, 49, was named Rialto’s chief of police in August and he has also been a part-time University of La Verne faculty member for seven years.

Being the chief is not new for Kling.

He served in the same position since 2001 at the Baldwin Park Police Department before leaving to join Rialto.

Kling is also a ULV alumnus who earned his master’s and his doctorate of public administration degrees at the University.

It was while he was in the master’s program that he was approached by one of the teachers who was influential to him, Associate Professor of Public Administration Suzanne Beaumaster.

She offered him an opportunity to co-teach a Foundations of Public Administration class, and his teaching career began.

“I began getting interested in teaching as a dual career with law enforcement,” Kling said. “From a more practical sense, to teach students, who are the future of public organization, is what really got me interested in both sides.”

Besides becoming the new Rialto police chief, Kling has another new role to look forward to this year.

He and his longtime girlfriend Lisa Delatorre will be getting married in December after six years of dating.

They are planning an intimate beach wedding in Santa Barbara with close friends surrounding them.

“I’m excited because we get to move forward with our life together,” Delatorre said. “I’ll finally get to call him my husband.”

Kling’s new position is a blessing for his personal life because Delatorre is an executive secretary at the Baldwin Park Police Department and they couldn’t get married until they were not working together anymore.

Kling was married once before an has four teenage children. His oldest is Brent, 19, a law and society major at UC Santa Barbara. Kling also has 15-year-old Zachary, 13-year-old Jacob and a 12-year-old daughter named Hannah.

With the addition of his fiancée’s son Michael, 15, Kling’s household will include five teenagers.

“They put all my education and my ideas of parenting to the test,” Kling said.

The road to becoming the chief began in 2000 when the city of Baldwin Park was contemplating whether to consolidate its Police Department with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The city was on the verge of eliminating the police department and contracting with the sheriffs.

“I was able to ask a lot of the city council members to give the department another chance to succeed and the chief position happened to open up around the same time,” Kling said.

Kling was only 43 at the time he took over the Baldwin Park Police Department and had a lot to deal with from the start.

There was internal strife and employees were leaving the city.

“Basically the department was imploding,” Kling said.

“So at a turbulent time, I took over this very dysfunctional police department and then with the core group of employees who didn’t want to see their Police Department fail, we went ahead and rebuilt it.”

Kling seems to shrug off the fact that the department completely changed directly because of his efforts.

Like many great leaders, he attributes the success to the teamwork within the department.

Ed Lopez, also a ULV alumnus, is Kling’s replacement at Baldwin Park and had previously worked under Kling as a captain.

“There were low morale issues when he took over and through his management skills he boosted morale and increased the public’s protection,” Lopez said. “He held on to his commitment to the organization and maintained high values.”

Currently the Rialto Police Department is going through similar circumstances as Baldwin Park had before Kling arrived.

“[Rialto] was on the verge of consolidating with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and the vote was four to one to go ahead and consolidate,” Kling said. “Eventually everyone came to some terms and decided to keep their police department.”

There was an interim chief for months and then Kling got the job. The first step toward making Rialto stable was a resolution stating the only way the department can disband is an actual vote of the people not the council.

Kling is currently working on hiring new officers to fill his “substantial vacancies.”

But now that the department is becoming stable and has a permanent police chief, the future is looking brighter for the Rialto Police Department.

“The morale at Baldwin Park was so high because of him and when he left it was a real loss,” Delatorre said. “Rialto is very fortunate to have him and if anyone can fix it, he can.”

With all the responsibilities Kling has in his life as a father, a teacher and a police chief, some may wonder how one man can do so much.

“I’m a typical type-A personality,” Kling said. “People always ask me how I’m going to handle everything I have on my plate and I just tell them, if I need to I will get a bigger plate.”

Angie Gangi can be reached at agangi@ulv.edu.