Aaron Hotchner

Played by Thomas Gibson, Unit Chief SSA Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner used to be a prosecutor and was formerly assigned to the FBI field office in Seattle. After stepping down for a period, he returned to lead the unit. He has a son named Jack (Cade Owens) by his deceased wife Haley (Meredith Monroe). The two eventually divorced and remained on good terms until Haley was murdered by George Foyet (C. Thomas Howell), Aaron's Nemesis. Aaron's attempts to balance his family life and his job have been something of an ongoing struggle on the show. When Jennifer Jareau leaves the BAU for a promotion to a position at the Pentagon, Garcia and Hotch take up her responsibilities as media liaison and retains this position when JJ returns to the BAU as a profiler. But in the episodes "Closing Time", "A Family Affair", and "Run", it is shown that he has moved on and is currently in a romantic relationship with Beth Clemmons (Bellamy Young). It is known that "Hotch" is rarely seen smiling throughout the show. His most notable smiles are when he is with his now girlfriend and his son. Gibson appeared in 1–2 episodes in the forthcoming season; he was then immediately removed as a cast member. 

He officially resigned from both positions in Season Twelve after being put into witness protection due to his son, Jack Hotchner being actively stalked by Peter Lewis, aka, Mr. Scratch. At his suggestion, his position was taken over by his friend and former colleague Emily Prentiss. After the death of Scratch in Season Thirteen, they left witness protection but Hotch opted not to return to the BAU in order to be a full-time father. 

Hotch was born on November 2, 1971. His mother was originally from Manassas, Virginia, and went to Mary Baldwin College. Hotch was a former profiler in the FBI's field office in Seattle, Washington, before transferring to Quantico. Before that, he was a prosecutor after having earned his degree of Juris Doctor at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in 1990. Hotch stated that his reason for joining the BAU was because he felt that, as a prosecutor, it was too late for him to do anything, but by joining the BAU, he has a chance to stop killers sooner. His struggles to maintain his family life have been an ongoing theme of the show. In the episode "Natural Born Killer", Vincent Perotta questions Hotch as to the meaning of "some people [from extremely abusive and violent households] grow up to become killers." Responding, Hotch says, "And some people grow up to catch them." This hints that Hotch might have been abused as a child, but the subject was never further elaborated on. In the episode "Ashes and Dust", Hotch's father was revealed to have died from lung cancer, though an earlier episode, "The Tribe", states that he died of a heart attack at the age of 47.