DURHAM, N.H. - The first American to head the international policing organization INTERPOL will deliver the commencement speech at the University of New Hampshire Saturday, May 19, 2012.

Ronald Noble is a 1979 graduate of UNH, where he studied economics and business administration. He graduated from Stanford University School of Law in 1982 and is a tenured professor at the New York University School of Law, on leave of absence while serving at INTERPOL.

Elected in 2000 and re-elected to serve two additional five-year terms, Noble is the youngest person ever to head INTERPOL. Under his leadership, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) developed the first global communications network allowing all 190 INTERPOL member countries to communicate in real-time and to access INTERPOL's police tools and services.
Recognizing a critical gap in border security efforts, Noble spearheaded the creation of the only global database of stolen and lost travel documents and the technical tools that put this vital resource directly into the hands of frontline officers at key locations, including border control points.

Noble began his career in law enforcement as a federal prosecutor specializing in organized crime, drug trafficking, fraud and corruption cases, obtaining a 100 per cent conviction rate on cases that went to trial.

In 1993, newly-elected President Bill Clinton nominated Noble to serve as assistant Treasury Secretary. Within a year, he was made Undersecretary of the Treasury, overseeing the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF).

Noble authored the Treasury Department's official report on what went wrong in the failed ATF raid on the Branch Davidian Compound near Waco, Texas in 1993.

He is the recipient of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton Award, 1996. In 2008, he was awarded the Legion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A photo of Noble can be downloaded at /unhtoday/sites/default/files/newsroom/img/Noble.jpg

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.                

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