After 39 years as a police officer, Philip Tenerelli continues to serve his community in an abundance of ways. Now happily retired and a proud grandfather, he looks back on his career with satisfaction. Growing up in the South Side of Chicago, Tenerelli knew a lot of police officers who lived in the area and, after deciding that he didn’t enjoy working in sheet metal like his father, chose to go into law enforcement. “I just thought it was a pretty cool job,” he explains.

After graduating from Leo High School in Chicago, Tenerelli attended Moraine Valley Community College, where he studied law enforcement. In 1978, he applied for a job as a dispatcher at the Willow Springs Police Department and was hired on the spot. A year later, he took a job as a railroad officer for the Belt Railway Company of Chicago, but found it uninteresting and akin to working as a “glorified security guard,” he says.