Director’s Page

Director

NMLEA Academy Director Sonya K. Chavez
Director’s Office Phone: 505-827-9262

Sonya K. Chavez began her appointment as the Director of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy on October 30, 2023.  In her role at the Academy, Director Chavez is leading the state’s efforts to provide comprehensive training to New Mexico’s law enforcement officers, including basic and advanced training.  Her commitment to promote a broad sense of service and commitment to our police agencies is an example of the priorities she has set for herself and her teams in her previous roles in our law enforcement community – building teams and partnerships.  She also provides support and oversight to the nine satellite police academies in New Mexico, ensuring consistent curriculum implementation and training excellence.  Her role also includes the review of all police misconduct cases in the state, making recommendations on these highly sensitive situations to the Law Enforcement Certification Board.

Prior to starting in her position at the Academy, Ms. Chavez served as New Mexico’s United States Marshal.  A White House appointment, Ms. Chavez was sworn in as New Mexico’s first woman to serve as U.S. Marshal in April 2018. Ms. Chavez was responsible for oversight of one of the Marshals Service’s largest Districts, and one which makes up the Southwest Border Region.

Shortly after becoming U.S. Marshal, she was appointed to the Federal Judiciary’s Committee on Southwest Border matters and to the Director’s U.S. Marshals Advisory Committee, where she played an instrumental role in leading the Marshals efforts to raise the entry level pay scale for new deputies and was asked by the Director to lead the Marshals Service’s effort to increase the number of women in the organization by implementing the 3030 initiative.

Prior to serving as New Mexico’s U.S. Marshal, Ms. Chavez spent 22 years as a Special Agent with the FBI. Ms. Chavez joined the FBI in April 1996 and was assigned to the Chicago Field Office, where she was a member of the Division’s Joint Task Force on Gangs. She developed multiple complex investigations targeting some of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country and spent the majority of her Bureau career focusing on the operation of criminal street gangs in the United States. She has participated in the arrest of some of the most violent gang members and drug distributors during her tenure with the FBI. Ms. Chavez has been recognized by the FBI, and by state and local law enforcement and professional associations for her investigative work.

In December 2006, Chavez received a transfer to the FBI’s Albuquerque Division and initiated the FBI’s Safe Streets HIDTA Gang Task Force, leading that Task Force as a Supervisory Special Agent for eight years.  She served 15 months as the Assistant Special agent in Charge of the Criminal Program and was the Division’s Undercover Program Coordinator.  She was a member of the FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Team in both Chicago and Albuquerque. Ms. Chavez has been qualified as a subject matter expert by the Federal Court in the Northern District of Illinois and in the District of New Mexico in the area of criminal enterprises and their communication and drug transportation methods.

Prior to joining the FBI, Chavez worked as a television news reporter and anchor for CBS and NBC news affiliates. She was the director of marketing at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce and was press aide and spokeswoman for then-New Mexico Governor Bruce King during his last administration. Ms. Chavez received a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and mass communication from New Mexico State University and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of New Mexico.

She is a Torrance County native and is a graduate of Moriarty High School.