About Ed Day
Rockland County Executive
Rockland County Executive Ed Day was born in 1951 in a housing project in Brooklyn to Edwin and Jane Day. Growing up as the eldest of three children, Ed graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1968. He continued his education with an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration and Marketing from Kingsborough Community College in 1971, further pursuing his education at Pace University while working full time in sales. Eight years later, he joined the New York City Police Department. In 1983, Ed moved north to Rockland County.
Ed’s career with NYPD took him from Patrol Officer to Sergeant in 1985, where he oversaw one of the nation’s first Community Policing Units. He earned the rank of Lieutenant in 1989 and Lieutenant-Commander of Detectives in 1999, holding several key positions before serving as Commanding Officer of two Detective Squads in the Bronx.
Ed retired from the NYPD in 2000, having earned 40 citations for meritorious and conspicuous actions in the line of duty. He then joined Phipps Houses Services, a New York-based property management corporation as their Director of Corporate Security.
In 2003, County Executive Day became Chief of Detectives of the Baltimore Police Department, where he held executive command responsibility for all detective operations, personnel and administrative matters within the entire 3,200 member force. He oversaw a budget in excess of $7 million and implemented a series of reforms, resulting in a 50% increased success rate for violent crime investigations and reducing overtime expenditures by over 10%. He then moved back to the private sector, working as a Senior Security Consultant for American Security Systems, Inc.
County Executive Day is dedicated to the community, both in and out of politics. He's volunteered as a youth baseball, basketball, and football coach since the early 1990's. Seeing a need to better unite and represent his local community, he reconstituted and served as president of the Little Tor Neighborhood Association in 1997. Ed also grew involved in our schools, creating the PTA Child Personal Safety Course Pilot Project, a curriculum still in place today in the Clarkstown Central School District. He’s been honored as a Lifetime Member of the PTA and served as co-president of the Clarkstown North Football Fourth Quarter Club. In 2003, his dedication to the community was recognized when he earned the Rockland County Distinguished Service Award.
After having served as a volunteer on a variety of town committees, Ed realized that he could better fix government from the inside. In 2005, he announced a run for the County Legislature. Ed’s tireless efforts fighting for public safety, fiscal responsibility and a common sense approach to government led to his election in November, 2005 and reelection in 2007 and 2011, a clear endorsement of his tireless efforts to actively represent his district and his fight for more responsible fiscal policy.
Running on the Republican and Preserve Rockland lines, he was elected Rockland's third County Executive with 52% of the vote to his opponent's 46% in 2013, in an election that saw historically high voter turnout. By all accounts, his first term was a rousing success and his leadership is widely acknowledged for bringing Rockland County from the brink of financial collapse to an increasingly successful and up and coming county. The voters clearly recognized these accomplishments by returning him to Office for a second term by a 12 - point, 10.,000 vote margin over two opponents, a contest that broke all records for a local election and in 2021 Ed was again returned to Office for a third term, winning 72% of the vote.
Ed is recently married to the former Donna Pascucci and resides in the Village of Haverstraw.