Chad Holcomb
Editor’s Note: The Happy Beginnings series features recent College of Arts & Sciences graduates who are getting started in careers, graduate school and service.
Chad Holcomb ’13 is a Special Agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Crime Scene Unit and is responsible for the investigation of felony crimes, including homicides, questioned deaths, sexual crimes, robberies, burglaries, kidnappings and other violent crimes.
After graduating with his B.A. in Sociology from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University, he worked as a production assistant at WBNS 10TV in Columbus, where he had been working during college breaks. He worked in the Broadcast Operations Department behind the scenes in the control room and the studio during the live newscasts.
He left WBNS and started working for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation in September 2015 as a Criminal Investigator in the Narcotics Unit and immediately attended the police academy. Holcomb graduated from the police academy in April 2016. In May 2019 he received a promotion to Special Agent in the Crime Scene Unit.
He has one year left in the Tiffin University MBA Program with a focus in leadership, which means he will be finished in December 2020! This September through November he attended a 10-week training at the National Forensic Academy (and attended the Body Farm) in Knoxville, Tenn.
He was voted on by his classmates and awarded the Dr. William Bass Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Forensic Investigations. He is also a Certified Crime Scene Investigator through the International Association for Identification.
His OHIO Experience
Throughout the first two years of college he was undecided about a major and finally decided on becoming a sociology major at the end of his sophomore year. He says that he wouldn’t be in the career he is in now if not for his sociology professors, especially Dr. Deb Henderson, who was “a fantastic adviser.” He got stuck in the quarters to semesters transition and Deb worked with him diligently to ensure that would still graduate on time.
“I vividly remember Dr. Vander Ven’s Sociology of Homicide class,” he says, “and our capstone project investigating a cold case homicide. I remember sitting there with my assigned group thinking, ‘this is pretty interesting stuff!'”
He never imagined during that class that within the next 10 years he would be processing and investigating homicide cases.
“During my time at OU I was also a member of the Marching 110. The 110 taught me discipline, working as a team and being patient!”
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