Hawaii County Police Department’s Capt. Gregory Esteban was elected as president of the 2,600-member International Homicide Investigators Association, the department announced this week.

Esteban serves as commander of the Area I Criminal Investigation Division in Hilo, a 35-year veteran of the department and a graduate of the 246th session of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va.

He has been an association member since 2012, served as its western regional director since 2015 and just completed a term as vice president.

The nonprofit, founded in 1988, is an organization of homicide and death investigation professionals from every U.S. state and nations on six continents. They include highly respected death and homicide investigators, criminal behaviorists, forensic scientists, crime scene technicians, crime and intelligence analysts, prosecutors and others, the police department said in a news release.

The relationship with the the association has benefited Hawaii law enforcement, bringing homicide investigation training to Hawaii island.

That training includes a one-week basic investigator course in 2016 and in 2018 with two more planned this year.

Premier instructors from the field help local law enforcement attendees from across the state and the country.

“Hosting this course locally has contributed to an increasing number of Department detectives and officers receiving the training, benefiting the community as a whole,” the department said in a media release.