Scott Tillema

Lieutenant Scott Tillema is an FBI trained hostage negotiator, spending over 7 years as a negotiator with the NIPAS Emergency Services Team, one of the largest multi-jurisdictional municipal SWAT teams in the United States. He is currently the training coordinator at the Schaumburg, Illinois, Police Department, where he has been a police officer since 2002.

Scott is a nationally recognized speaker in the field of police negotiations, having presented to thousands of police negotiators at conferences across the country and has also delivered a TEDx Talk, where he presented, “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators.”

Educationally, Scott studied behavioral science at the University of Wisconsin and later earned a master’s degree in forensic psychology, additionally, he has received negotiation training at Harvard University.

For many years, Scott held the role of adjunct professor, teaching multiple courses in both psychology and criminal justice. He is now faculty with the Schranner Negotiation Institute based in Switzerland, providing negotiation instruction to clients in both the U.S. and Europe, and was recently named as a trainer for the Hostage & Crisis Negotiation International Academy based in Paris.