Sheriff Ken Binder, who marks one year in office this month, speaks at a swearing-in ceremony earlier this year for new deputies, correctional officers and professional staff.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Ken Binder tells new deputies something most of them don’t believe at first: Treat everyone with respect, and one day someone will thank you even when you take them to jail.

“If someone had told me that when I was in the academy, I’m not sure I would have believed them,” Binder said. “You’ll remember the first time someone actually thanks you when you’re taking them to jail.”

It’s a lesson that carries weight for Binder, who marked one year as San Mateo County Sheriff on Nov. 12. 

“You always treat people like a human being,” he said. “You never reduce them to an action that they did.”

On a recent morning, Binder sat down for an interview at the Sheriff’s Office headquarters building, which sits next door to the Maguire Correctional Facility. He talked about how a business major from San Jose found himself with a career in the policing profession that has spanned nearly three decades.

Sheriff Ken Binder hands a young resident a gift at a community event in North Fair Oaks, one of the unincorporated communities where Sheriff's deputies serve as the local police.

As sheriff, he oversees more than 800 employees who run the County’s adult correctional facilities and serve as the local police in unincorporated communities and five contract cities and towns. The office also serves the entire county, providing courtroom security, transit policing services, a forensic crime lab, search and rescue, a bomb squad and SWAT team, and regional task forces that target drugs, auto thefts and gangs. 

He never set out to be a cop. 

Born and raised in San Jose, Binder played basketball, ran track and played tennis at James Lick High School, then studied business and finance at San Jose State. All he knew was that he didn’t want to sit in an office all day.

His mother, who worked in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, signed him up for a ride-along with San Jose police. The officer spent the shift talking to people, thoughtful and professional, Binder recalled, while responding to calls.

“That was the first time I thought, ‘OK, I could see myself doing something like this,’” Binder said.

He spent 26 years with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, starting with a year in courtroom security. There, he watched arraignments, preliminary hearings and jury trials, an early lesson in how much good police work matters when a case reached trial. 

He went on to work patrol and train new deputies as a field training officer. He served on the SWAT team and patrolled backcountry roads and parks on off-road motorcycles.

He also worked in the sexual assault unit, processed homicide evidence as a crime scene investigator, then spent four years as a homicide detective. 

“I loved that work because it was challenging and rewarding at the same time,” he said. “I just thought I would be a deputy sheriff my whole career.”

Then a wave of retirements left a gap in leadership. “The need was there,” Binder said, and he decided to step up.

He made a promise to himself as he rose through the ranks: never forget what deputies face every day on the street. “Even now as I sit as sheriff,” he said, “my heart is with our deputy sheriffs.”

He spent more than 15 years in leadership positions, rising to undersheriff, the number two spot in Santa Clara County. Along the way, he earned a master’s degree in criminal justice from Arizona State University. He said he learned by observing strong leaders, through training that included 10 weeks at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va., and by reading.

Asked what books influenced him, Binder stood up and walked to a shelf where several are on display. There’s Without Hesitation by retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom he heard speak at the FBI Academy. There’s Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead by retired Gen. Jim Mattis, signed after a talk at Stanford. And there’s Bulletproof Spirit by veteran police Capt. Dan Willis, about the emotional toll first responders face, along with tools on how to heal.

The last book reflects a philosophy at the heart of how Binder sees his role as the department’s leader: “Healthy deputies treat the community in healthy ways.”

“No one calls 9-1-1 because they’re having a good day,” he said. “For most people, that kind of call is, thankfully, a rarity. For deputies, it’s every shift.” 

It takes a toll. And if not addressed, deputies can run out of patience and stop handling calls the way they should, Binder said.

“What we really want to focus on is making sure that deputies are well taken care of, emotionally and mentally, so that they have something to give the public.”

So the office offers no-questions-asked counseling with therapists who understand law enforcement, and he encourages his employees to stay fit, eat healthy and get enough sleep. He also makes it clear that it’s family first.

“The job’s super important,” Binder said. “But if there’s something that they need to handle with their family, we’ll give them the time off.”

About 40 minutes into the interview, an aspiring deputy sheriff trainee who just received a conditional offer of employment arrived at his office door, a recent college graduate who had studied psychology. Binder makes a point of meeting every new hire.

Sheriff Ken Binder welcomes an aspiring deputy sheriff trainee into his office, with books on leadership on the shelf behind them. "We are in the people business," Binder told him.

Binder greeted the young man, then looked him in the eye. “We are in the people business,” he told him. “All we ask is that you give us your best, that you don’t cut corners and that your integrity always comes out to the forefront.”

Then Binder joined his command staff to present a lifesaving award to William Conneally, a correctional officer. In April 2024, during what began as a routine welfare check at Maguire Correctional Facility, Conneally noticed an incarcerated man didn’t respond to his name being called. He pulled back a blanket and found the man turning blue. He began administering CPR and called for medical staff to respond.  

The man recovered.

“You guys do welfare checks all day, every day,” Binder said. “They can get tedious and it can get easy to just say, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be fine.’”

Had Conneally just gone through the motions, Binder said, the man could have died. 

“His family would be heartbroken, and he’s still a human being,” Binder continued. “So thank you. It’s the basic fundamentals like that that end up making this organization great, and that’s a great example for everyone else too.”

Sheriff Ken Binder presents a lifesaving award to Correctional Officer William Conneally, right. Conneally's quick action during a routine check at the Maguire Correctional Facility helped save a man's life.

Board of Supervisors President Noelia Corzo has seen the change inside the County’s main correctional facility. When she toured it with her staff earlier this year, she said, it was surprisingly calm.

“It almost felt underwhelming,” she said, “but that is something you definitely want to say when you’re going to visit a county jail.”

A loud, tense jail, where people are so in crisis “that you feel your blood pressure rising,” is not a good sign, she said. 

She also appreciates his candor, “even when it’s not necessarily what I want to hear.”

The Sheriff’s Office serves as the local police for much of the coast, from Montara to Pescadero, including Half Moon Bay. It’s all within Supervisor Ray Mueller’s District 3. 

“He sets the bar high for the Sheriff’s Office,” Mueller said. “I hear this from sheriff’s deputies all the time that they respect him so much because he’s done so many different jobs himself.”

 When something goes well, Mueller said, he’ll go to compliment the sheriff, only to have Binder tell him, “Oh, I knew about that. I was there.”

“He didn’t make a big deal about being there. He didn’t advertise it,” Mueller said. “Ken is not about standing in front of the cameras and trying to take accolades. He’s just about getting the job done for neighbors.”

Looking ahead to his second year, Binder plans to focus on using technology responsibly to deter and solve crimes, and is in the final stages of hiring an ombudsperson for the correctional facilities, a position he proposed when he was appointed.

Incarcerated persons and their families will be able to take concerns to the ombudsperson, who will review them and work with corrections staff toward a fair resolution. 

“The ombudsperson will look at each concern, without any preconceived ideas, make a recommendation and explain it,” he said. 

That’s the same approach he wants deputies to take in interactions with the public.

Sheriff Ken Binder, center, stands with members of his executive team outside the Sheriff's Office headquarters in downtown Redwood City. From left, Assistant Sheriff Frank Dal Porto, Undersheriff Chris Hsiung, Assistant Sheriff Ryan Monaghan and Assistant Sheriff Mark Myers.

He credits his parents for building the foundation of his leadership philosophy: "They always held us accountable, but gave us lots of love in the process.” His younger brother also went into law enforcement and recently retired as Palo Alto’s police chief. 

Binder, 52, is married and has an adult daughter.

On Monday nights, Binder trades his uniform with five gold stars on the collar for a basketball jersey at the SportsHouse in North Fair Oaks. Binder is 6-foot-4 and played in rec leagues for years.

He signed up for the local league as a free agent, not knowing any other players. He was assigned a team and, when no one stepped forward to manage it, he raised his hand.

Every team needs a name, and he pitched a few, including one he had used a few years ago on a team of cops: Donut Squad. The team bit. He’s the only cop on the roster as far as he knows. The team, Binder said, is made of a great group of men who love basketball.

“We’re learning how to gel together and play together as a team,” he said. “We get out there, we run up and down the court. It’s good exercise. It’s competition. It’s camaraderie. It’s just fun.”

You might also find him on his Harley-Davidson Softail Deuce, which he calls “a joy to ride.” Earlier this year, he rode it in a poker run with the Redwood City American Legion, Post #105 that raised money for the Sheriff’s Activities League.

But his real love is dirt biking. He rides a Yamaha WR450, when his schedule allows, and has carried a lesson from the trail through the ranks to his office on Bradford Street.

Keep your momentum. Don’t be afraid to hit the throttle. And, above all, don’t stare at your front tire. 

“You can’t look at what’s right in front of you because you’ll get overwhelmed. You’ve got to keep your eyes on the horizon,” Binder said. “You look to where you’re going, and you’ll automatically go.”

About San Mateo County
Established in 1856, the County of San Mateo stretches from the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco Bay and includes 20 cities and rural communities. Home to more than 750,000 residents, it is one of California’s most diverse counties with an economy driven by innovation, life sciences, agriculture and international trade and travel. In addition to serving unincorporated communities, the County provides countywide services that support the health, safety and quality of life of residents. Learn more at smcgov.org.