Gilbert named interim executive director
of Mill Springs Battlefield Association

David E. Gilbert, a long-time supporter of Mill Springs battlefield activities, has been named interim executive director of the Mill Springs Battlefield Association succeeding Stephen McKinney.

Gilbert assumed his new duties April 4 and is responsible for daily operations of the museum/visitor’s center, preservation and land acquisition of battlefield property.

The Somerset native was administrator of the battlefield in 1997 and 1999 after retiring from a 20-year career with the Somerset Police Department, the last 10 as chief of police. He purchased more than 100 acres of battlefield property under the direction of former MSBA President William Neikirk and, during the winter of 1997, implemented a national reenactment, which, at that time, was Kentucky’s largest attended Civil War event.

Gilbert was director of the Lake Cumberland Area Drug Task Force in Somerset from 2002-11 and the deputy director with Appalachia HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) in London from 1999-2002.

He began his career in 1977 as a Somerset police officer and continued through the ranks to detective in which he spent four years as narcotics investigator and general investigations. He retired from the Somerset police department in 1996.

Gilbert received his bachelor’s degree in police administration from Eastern Kentucky University in 1980 and trained with the Department of Criminal Justice in Richmond from 1976-2011. He attended the FBI National Academy in 1984.

President of the Kentucky Narcotics Officers Association from 2005-07, Gilbert also was president of the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police in 1996 and is a lifetime member of that organization.

He has served as chairman of the Boy Scouts of America District and as president of the Southeastern Kentucky United Way. He also is a former board member of Big Brothers-Big Sisters.