The term “interim police chief” carries with it many connotations. The temporary capacity of the job seems to imply that the person who holds it is only holding out until someone better comes along. They’re an opening act, an appetizer, something to merely tide us over.

People with that vision of the job have never met Allwin Barrow Jr.

On Dec. 12, barely more than a week ago, Barrow took the reins of the Huntsville Police Department as Jean Sanders resigned from the position to work for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Barrow will serve as police chief for the city until a “suitable replacement” can be found. But make no mistake, Barrow is not merely someone to fill in the gaps.

He is a seasoned law enforcement veteran with experience in nearly every aspect of criminal justice. He’s investigated serial killers and drug organizations, worked with federal agents on national and international investigations, served as police chief at seven different police departments throughout Texas, worked in counterterrorism, performed threat assessments for cities the world over and has been commended by the U.S. Department of Justice for his unorthodox but highly effective crime reduction techniques.

Not bad for someone who never intended to be a police officer in the first place. Born and raised in Beaumont, Barrow was first exposed to the job through a friendship.

“What happened to me is that, at first, I was living ‘American Graffiti,’” Barrow said. “I was just going to college and street racing and not really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I met some policemen in Beaumont and I befriended them, and eventually I was recruited in an undercover capacity in 1969. That evolved into becoming a uniform police officer.”

Barrow would remain at the Beaumont Police Department for the next two decades, working his way up through the ranks until he became a division commander. Beaumont served as the foundation of Barrow’s law enforcement experience, giving him a chance to dabble in nearly every aspect of urban crime, including gang investigations, supervising a tactical unit, narcotics investigations, air and marine smuggling and working three serial murder investigations. Even as he worked the streets of Beaumont, Barrow was also cooperating with various federal agencies on national and international investigations. His recollection of this immense workload speaks volume about how he views his job.

“We had a lot of fun with all of those things,” he said.

In January of 1990 Barrow took a new step in his career when he became the Chief of Police in Kerrville, a position he would hold for two and a half years.

Immediately, Barrow found a stark contrast between his old position and his new one.

“It was quite a transition from being in a big city police department with a lot of hands-on command to a quiet atmosphere with mostly administrative duties,” he said. “But I had tremendous mentoring when I was in Beaumont. I knew what I liked and respected in a supervisor, and I had supervisors who saw to it that I was given all the knowledge I needed to lead.”

In 1992 Barrow left Kerrville to become police chief in Waxahachie, a small city in the Dallas Metroplex area.

It was a decision due in part to Barrow’s desire to be closer to home.

“I was a long way from home in Kerrville and I never was very comfortable with the West Texas environment,” he said. “I was allergic to cedar, and it was a really tough place to be when you’re allergic to cedar. So I took the opportunity to move up to the Dallas area. I was still far away from Beaumont, but even then I was closer to home.”

Waxahachie presented a new and dramatic set of challenges for Barrow. When Barrow assumed his duties as police chief, Waxahachie, a city about the size of Huntsville, had the third highest per capita crime rate in the Metroplex area.

To combat this, Barrow immediately set to work on a strategy that would unite all aspects of his city against crime.

“We initiated problem-directed response teams in high crime neighborhoods designed to attack the root causes of crime, not just the criminals themselves,” he said. “We got the Chamber of Commerce involved, the high schools, the real estate business and the banking industry, as well as every part of the city. If you can convince them that you’re there to support them, they’ll help you.”

By the time Barrow retired from Waxahachie in 2002, his programs had helped to reduce the number of Part 1 Crimes (designated by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports Program as major violent and property crimes including rape, murder and arson) by 70 percent in Waxahachie, and the department’s clearance rate for all crimes was up to 80 percent.

Even after retiring, Barrow wasn’t done with law enforcement. He began working as a consultant, writing guidelines for the Drug Enforcement Agency and advising more than 40 police departments throughout the country on crime reduction, a field in which he was now considered an expert.

While working with the National Interagency Counterdrug Institute in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Barrow became involved in counterterrorism studies, focusing specifically on intelligence gathering an interviewing. Between 2001 and 2005 he traveled extensively, providing expert counterterror threat assessments to cities around the world.

In 2005, desiring a break from his busy schedule, Barrow answered the call of the Texas Police Chiefs Organization and took an interim police chief job. In the three years since he has served in five such jobs, with Huntsville now being the sixth.

“I got a call from the general manager of Texas First asking if I’d be interested,” he said. “I met with Mr. Baine and I spent a day going around the city and making inquiries as to how things work, and I decided to take the job. I’ve always liked Huntsville, and I’m familiar with it because I went to grad school here, so when the opportunity was presented, I really was excited about it.”

Barrow has already set to work, not only in leading the department, but also in providing an assessment to the city on the state of the department and the kind of chief Huntsville needs for the future.

“I haven’t found anything critical that just jumps up at me,” he said. “The department is in pretty good shape. The personnel are all very good folks. I do see a need for some new equipment, and I’m looking into ways to acquire that right now. I hope to develop a profile from this assessment for the next police chief so that he will not only be qualified but will be a good fit not only for the department but for the city as a whole.”