‘Huge legacy of public service’: State College’s Tom King set to retire after 40 years with borough
After 40 years of serving State College Borough — including 23 years as the police chief — assistant borough manager Tom King is set to retire at the end of this month.
King’s impending retirement was announced at the end of Monday’s council meeting. Although it might have come as a surprise to some, King informed the borough of his plans last summer and put in his official notice in February.
Borough manager Tom Fountaine took time Monday to publicly thank King.
“Tom leaves a huge legacy of public service both as a police officer and a chief of police, but also in the work that he has done with the administrative staff,” Fountaine said. “He has provided tremendous service to this community, and the community is much better off because of that.
“I will personally miss Tom’s work and assistance but the community, more importantly, will miss Tom’s work.”
King initially intended to retire at the end of August, which would’ve marked his five-year anniversary as the assistant borough manager. But he decided to stay on two additional months to better help the borough transition from several projects where he acted as the lead staff person — including the Task Force of Mental Health Crisis Services’ recommendations; the Act 315 Health Department Feasibility Study; the borough’s Race, Equity, and Leadership (REAL) Training and Racial Equity Plan creation; and the Community Oversight Board.
King told the CDT he chose to retire to because he and his wife Kelley have wanted to travel more and see family in Virginia — they have two young grandchildren there — since she retired from Penn State last year. He also hopes to golf more with his son who lives in Centre County, in addition to doing more reading, movie-watching and walking.
He doesn’t plan on moving anywhere else — except maybe, temporarily, someplace warmer in January and February.
“We plan to remain in State College except for the cold months, where we will go south,” King added.
King was first hired by State College as a police officer on July 27, 1981. He was promoted several times until he was appointed chief of police on April 19, 1993. He continued to serve in that capacity until August 2016, when he technically retired before immediately moving to the role of assistant manager of public safety.
He has served in that role for the last five years, where he was charged with overseeing the police department, Department of Health, and Neighborhood Service & Community Engagement Office.
With no other council meetings scheduled this month, Monday’s was officially the last for King in a borough career that’s spanned four decades.
