With more than 20 years of police experience, Elgin Lt. Jeff Adam will share his skills overseas as he helps train a relatively new police force in Kosovo.

Adam has served as an adjunct professor for Northwestern University Center of Public Safety for the past six years. This week, he’ll begin training for the first time in another country as part of the center’s International School of Police and Staff Command.

The program, which runs in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice, began last year and sends instructors to Kosovo and Albania, said Shelly Camden, deputy director at the Northwestern center.

Adam is the third instructor to go to Vushtrri, Kosovo during this year’s 10-week training session. While there, Adam – with the help of translators – will run a week-long course about organizing an investigative unit and how to supervise specialized units, like those aimed at drugs and gangs. In Elgin, Adam supervises the department’s Neighborhood Enforcement Team, which includes the drug unit.

He said he’s excited about the opportunity to share his knowledge with those in Kosovo.

“I thought it would be a really interesting and unique opportunity to do it,” Adam said. “I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of similarities, but differences too.”

The Republic of Kosovo was formally recognized as an independent Eastern European country in 2008 after years of war.

“The biggest concern I have is it’s a relatively new country,” Adam said. “They don’t have a lot of the procedures and other types of law enforcement like we do.”

Adam said he hopes to teach the students how to train their own officers so they can take back what they learn to improve their department.

Besides Adam’s course, students in Kosovo and Albania take classes on budgeting, resource allocation, leadership, ethics and other aspects that help law enforcement run, Camden said.

“The program provides the students the opportunity to learn from different perspectives,” she said. “It gives the officers over there the same educational opportunities that we have here.”