Nether Providence Police Chief and 1981 graduate of Nether Providence High School David Splain knows he chose the right profession because he still enjoys coming to work after 41 years of public service as a law enforcement officer.
Since he was 12, Splain has lived in Delaware County, where his father worked at Drexel University, and Splain later raised three Strath Haven graduates. In high school, he played baseball, starting on the varsity baseball team in 1979, 1980, and 1981.
Following high school, Splain went to a police academy while attending Widener University and was immediately hired after graduation by the North Wildwood Police Department. There, he worked from Memorial Day to Labor Day in 1985 and 1986.
Since then, he has worked for the Darby Police Department for two years and the Yeadon police department for 26 years, with 13 years in charge of the detective division.
He has been the Nether Providence Police Chief for the last 13 years. There, he is in charge of all public safety within the township as well as all the operations involving the police department such as administration, patrol, traffic, safety, and criminal investigations.
According to Splain, it is really special to come back to the community he grew up in and serve as the police chief.
“The skills I learned at Nether Providence [High School] taught me about community, responsibility, integrity, teamwork, and leadership, and that’s what kind of ultimately built the foundation and directed me in the direction of becoming a police officer,” Splain said.
Splain was a coach for Media Little League and NPAA basketball for his three kids as well as a PIAA football referee for local games, including Strath Haven’s playoff game against Upper Moreland.
Splain highlights watching kids that he coached grow up into productive members of society as the most rewarding part of coaching.
“Twenty-plus years later, [I’m] walking down the streets in Media and one of the kids comes up to me. ‘Hey, Coach, how are you?’ And talking about the great experiences they had when I coached them,” Splain said.
As the supervisor of the detective division in Yeadon, Splain was in charge of all criminal investigations and homicides, two of which became national stories. Splain received the Liberty Award from the Liberty Museum for investigative excellence during the Deanna Wright homicide, which involved an FBI agent’s daughter that was kidnapped and murdered.
“The second one was the Veno Leigertwood homicide, which [was] featured on NBC Dateline in June of 2011 and that was a Philadelphia school teacher that was murdered,” Splain said.
Rose Quinn, the Office Manager/Public Information Officer at Nether Providence Township Police Department, has known Splain for most of her professional life and has been working for Splain for three years since November. Quinn describes Splain as well-respected and respectful to other people.
“I’ve never heard anyone say anything even remotely negative about Chief Splain and I’ve known him for a long time,” Quinn said. “He has friends everywhere from law enforcement, here, and probably around the world since he was president of the Police Chiefs’ Association.”
Quinn also describes Splain as the calmest person she’s ever known and someone who never loses his cool.
“More than once, I’ve said to myself, I have to take a page out of Dave’s playbook and just let something go, because it’ll all work out,” Quinn said. “And guess what: it usually does.”
Splain was the president of the Delaware County Police Chiefs’ Association, which contains 42 police departments in Delaware County. According to Delaware County Crime Watch, Splain has also served on the Executive Board of the Police Chiefs’ Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania since 2016, currently serves as the association’s secretary, and served as the association’s president in 2020.
“It was very humbling and a lot of work, because at the time, the law enforcement world was undergoing changes, and we had to adapt to the changes that society wanted,” Splain said.
As Quinn noted, Splain introduced an internship teaming criminal justice students with officers to get them experienced with police work. Splain also introduced a partnership with the Delaware County Victim Assistance Center, which is a pilot program that offers victims of violent crime care and advocacy in the township to help them navigate the complex legal system.
“I really enjoy helping people, and police officers are called on to help people and can make a difference in people’s lives,” Splain said.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated on Jan. 4 to correct an error regarding Splain’s family. A previous version misidentified who raised three Strath Haven graduates.
