Darryl McAllister’s policing career spans 37 years. He devoted the first 32 years of service to the Hayward, California community, rising through the ranks and receiving numerous prestigious honors along the way. In 2013 he migrated to the city next door to serve as the chief of police in Union City. Throughout his entire career, his passion has been to edify police-community engagement to build meaningful relationships and to foster trust and transparency between police and the communities they serve.
Immediately after retiring from his storied career in policing, McAllister brought his leadership to the private sector. He first began a new calling in healthcare safety and security management. overseeing safety operations for one of Sutter Health’s major medical centers, He also served the second half of his two-year tenure working in Sutter’s corporate offices as the enterprise’s security plans and programs manager, where developed and rolled out new policies, security programs, and innovations. In 2021, a new chapter of his private sector leadership emerged when he was selected as the director of corporate safety and Security for The Walt Disney Company’s Pixar Studios. Since 2024, he has also served as a senior associate of Meliora Public Safety Consulting—a national firm that helps to instill public safety agency efficacy and continuous improvement. In April 2025, he joined SPADE Security Services—a premiere leader of innovation in the security industry—as a member of its Board of Directors.
For over two decades he has served as a board member of several community organizations, including the Kids’ Breakfast Club, the St. Rose Hospital Foundation, University of San Francisco’s International Institute of Criminal Justice Leadership, and the Emergency Shelter Program (for victims of domestic violence). He served two years on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and, in his spare time, he has volunteered as a youth mentor with Reality Mentor, Inc. He now serves on the board of The Daily Bowl—a nonprofit organization that repurposes excess produce and foods to feed the hungry in Bay Area.
McAllister is also an educator. He served six years as faculty and as lead faculty area chair at the University of Phoenix, and since 2016 he has taught criminal justice and community relations courses at Chabot College and Las Positas College. In addition to teaching college courses, he taught for three years in the Executive Development Course of the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. Since 2019 he has served as the coordinator of the California Police Chiefs Association’s Executive Leadership Certification Program, which focuses on teaching newly-appointed chiefs of police how to be successful in their role, and on guiding the pathway for police executive officers who look for success in executive leadership.
McAllister is a two-time nominee and one-time recipient of Hayward’s Police Officer of the Year Award, a recipient of the “Hayward Pearl Award” honoring volunteer service to the community, and in 2013 he was awarded University of Phoenix’s Faculty Member of the Year for the San Francisco Bay Area region. In 2015, while serving as police chief, he was selected by the San Francisco East Bay Area/Southern Alameda County branch of the NAACP for its most prestigious award: “Person of the Year”.
McAllister holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Occupational Studies from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master’s Degree in Administrative Development from Alliant International University. He completed the first two years of his pursuit of a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Saint Mary’s College of California. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia—a professional course of study for U.S. and international law enforcement leaders. He is also an alumnus of the California Command College—a graduate level futures study program of the California State Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
