Board Members

Richard C. Cox was elected Chair of the Board in October of 2008. He was appointed to the Board in December, 2005, when a former Commissioner resigned from the Board, and reappointed in July, 2008, to a term which will expire in 2013. He worked for the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office for seventeen years, in every rank from Deputy Sheriff to Administrator of Detention Services. He also served nine years as Superintendent of the Milwaukee County House of Correction. He has a BS degree in Criminal Justice from UWM, and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and a Life Member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE). He is currently Executive Director of Neighborhood House.

Kathryn Hein was appointed to the Board in June of 2008. Her term expires in 2013. Currently she is the Assistant Director of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University where she runs a program placing disadvantaged students in public service internships. She is also a member of the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center Board of Directors. Prior to her employment at Marquette she served as both District Director and Chief of Staff to Milwaukee Congressman Jerry Kleczka for over 20 years. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. 

Carolina Maria Stark was appointed to the Board in July of 2008, and elected Vice-Chair in October, 2008. Her term will expire in 2012. She has been an Administrative Law Judge for the State of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development since February 2007. She previously served as an attorney with Centro Legal Por Derechos Humanos, Esperanza Unida, and the Stark Law Office, LLC, all in Milwaukee. She speaks, reads, and writes fluent Spanish. She is a magna cum laude graduate of St. Louis University (Missouri, 1999), with a B.A. in Criminal Justice and Spanish, and received her Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2002. She volunteered with Big Brother Big Sister from 2000 to 2007, served as a City of Milwaukee Election Inspector in February and April 2008, and has been Treasurer of Historic Concordia Neighbors, Inc. since 2007, and a member of that organization since 2002. 

Paoi X. Lor was appointed to the Board in September of 2008. Her term will expire in 2013. She has been Program Coordinator and Consultant for Hmong Radio since 1999, and with Hmong ABC Radio in Milwaukee since 2003. From 1998 to 2002, she was an Economic Support Specialist / Wisconsin Works Case Manager for Dane County. She also has experience as a real estate consultant. She holds an A.A. degree from West Coast Christian College in Fresno, California, and a B.A. in Management and Organizational Development from Fresno Pacific University, also in California. She has been a member of the Southeast Asian Consortium since 2006, and is a past Board member of Lao-Pha Society and the Hmong-American Peace Academy. She has also served as Executive Board Secretary of the New Salvation Church of God.

Sarah Morgan was appointed to the Board in June of 2009. Her term will expire in 2015. She is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She teaches Cultural Diversity in Health Care in the undergraduate program, and Issues in Women’s Health and Development in the graduate program. Her research is focused on vulnerable populations, and she currently is working with community-dwelling elders with dementia and their family caregivers. She is a board member and academic partner of the Board of Diverse and Resilient whose mission is the healthy development of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Wisconsin. She also serves as Senior Warden, the highest lay leader, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. She is a former board member of Cream City Foundation and Eastside Senior Services. She is a proud resident of Sherman Park. Sarah received her PhD in nursing in 2003 from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, has a master’s and bachelor’s degree in nursing from Case Western Reserve University and a bachelor’s degree in Education from Bowling Green State University. She has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and the YMCA one-on-one mentoring program.

Michael M. O'Hear was appointed to the Board in October of 2010. His term will expire in 2016. He is a professor and the Associate Dean for Research at Marquette Law School. He is an editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter and the author of more than forty scholarly articles on sentencing and criminal procedure. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. Following law school, he clerked for United States District Court Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven, CT. He then practiced civil and criminal litigation for three years at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago. He joined the Marquette Law School faculty in 2000, and was appointed the Law School's first Associate Dean for Research in 2008. 

Michael G. Tobin, Executive Director, received his Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a graduate of the Wisconsin Military Academy, Wisconsin State Patrol Academy, and the Milwaukee Police Academy. He is experienced in many aspects of fire department services and law enforcement activities. He began his employment with the City of Milwaukee as a police officer. Upon graduation from law school he joined the Milwaukee City Attorney’s Office as an Assistant City Attorney where he prosecuted and defended police and fire department employees for almost twenty years in state courts and administrative agencies. He served as a legal advisor for two Milwaukee police chiefs and two Milwaukee fire chiefs. He is a U.S. Army combat veteran and in 2005-2006 was appointed to manage the U.S. military program to reconstruct the civilian justice system nation-wide for the country of Afghanistan. In November 2007 he was appointed Executive Director of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission by Mayor Tom Barrett and the Milwaukee Common Council.