Whitley, Kimberly
(born: 1965)Kimberly Whitley is the second African American female to become a warden in Kentucky. (The first was Cookie Crews.) Whitley, born in Danville, KY, is the daughter of Roland and Frances Whitley. She is a graduate of Danville High School and Kentucky State University, where she earned a B.A. in corrections education (1987) and a masters degree in public administration with a concentration in personnel management (1990).
Whitley also holds a certificate in Management Fundamentals as a graduate of the Governor's Minority Management Training Program (Patton administration). She has been a government employee since 1986, when she was a student employee through the Kentucky State University Cooperative Extension Program with the Department of Corrections.
In 1990, Whitley was hired full-time as a classification and treatment officer at Northpoint Training Center in Burgin, KY. She has also been employed with the Kentucky Department of Corrections in the Lexington Corrections Division of Probation and Parole, and she was a Court Designated Worker with the Division of Youth Services.
In 1995 she left corrections for a position with the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, but after two years returned to the Department of Corrections. She was promoted to Deputy Warden II at the Frankfort Career Development Center in 2002 and Deputy Warden III at the Blackburn Correctional Complex in Lexington in 2004. She transferred in 2005 to Northpoint Training Center. In 2006, Whitley was promoted to Warden II at the Frankfort Career and Development Center.
The Career and Development Center closed June 30, 2011, and Whitley was appointed Coordinator of the Professional Standards Unit within the Office of Adult Institutions [source: "Kimberly Whitley overseeing Professional Standards Unit," Inside Corrections, vol. 4, issue 3 - September 2011, p. 11].
This entry was submitted by Roland Whitley with additional information provided by his daughter, Kimberly Whitley.