Thomas N. Edmonds

Thomas Edmonds graduated from Western Michigan University in 1969 with a BBA degree and a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. Edmonds served in Germany and Vietnam before leaving active service in 1972; he would continue to serve in the Army Reserve and the Air National Guard. Edmonds then attended Wayne State Law School, graduating with his J.D. in 1975.

He served as an assistant prosecuting attorney from 1975 to 1981, with stints as Chief of the Consumer and Commercial Fraud Unit for the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney for Kalamazoo County from 1978 to 1981 and as Chief of the Special Prosecutions Unit for the same Office from 1980 to 1981. In 1981, Edmonds joined the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Department as Undersheriff.

He was elected Kalamazoo County Sheriff in 1984, winning re-election five times before retiring from the office in 2003; he retired from the military in 2004 as a brigadier general.