Bill Woolf

Bill Woolf has dedicated his personal and professional life to combating human trafficking – most notably being recognized by receiving the Presidential Medal for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons. He started his professional career as a police officer where he was promoted to the position of detective and was assigned to work on the Gang Investigations Unit. While doing this work, he quickly became aware of an emerging problem in his region, human trafficking. Mr. Woolf sought out to better understand the problem and in doing so he learned how prevalent the issue was domestically in the United States, as well as internationally. From that point forward he became dedicated to combating the issue, serving as a federal task force officer, with both the FBI and HIS, investigating and prosecuting cases locally and federally.

He was instrumental in receiving funding to start a human trafficking task force in northern Virginia. Bill co-directed the task force with the US Attorney’s Office and the Virginia Attorney General’s Office. He was tasked with coordinating enforcement and interdiction efforts with other regional, state, and federal law enforcement. He was also tasked with forging partnerships with non-governmental agencies that could provide necessary services to those victimized by human trafficking. In the first two years, under Bill’s leadership, the task force was able to identify 217 victims of sex and labor trafficking and recover over 126 of them. The task force also identified and initiated investigations into more than 100 traffickers that had conducted illegal activities in the northern Virginia area.

Bill saw, through his work, that many of the young victims were being tricked by the traffickers because they were not equipped nor educated to identify what was happening. Bill founded the Just Ask Prevention Project to help in better protecting our communities. He led the effort to develop a systematic approach of education, prevention and intervention which brings effective strategies in addressing the threat of human trafficking to communities. The program has garnered national and international attention.

Mr. Woolf was called upon by the U.S. Department of Justice to accept a position as a member of the Senior Executive Service in the role of Human Trafficking Programs Director where he was responsible for overseeing the nearly $100 million budget to support human trafficking programs all across the United States. He was also responsible for developing departmental policy relating to human trafficking. Because of his demonstrated management abilities, he was asked to step in as the Acting Director of the Office for Victims of Crime and continued to serve as the Principal Deputy Director overseeing more $6.5 billion in grant programs. Bill also served as Special Advisor to the White House for human trafficking overseeing the implementation of the first-ever National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking.

He also seeks to influence the next generation by serving as an adjunct professor at George Mason University as well as Mount Aloysius College. Of all his accomplishments he is most proud of his six incredible children who continue to amaze and surprise him on a daily basis.