By Sue Bergstrom for Valdez City News –
Valdez Police Chief Bill Comer has accepted the position of Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety and will be leaving Valdez after thirty-seven years. His new job will be much like his present one, only bigger. The Department of the Commissioner oversees Public Safety for the entire state and works with the legislature.
Comer has experience in many facets of public safety, from the administrative to the very most basic of ‘hands-on’, not only in police work but as a firefighter and emergency medical technician. He started out as a member of the Valdez Fire Department in 1982, when the department first started to transition from an all volunteer department to one with paid employees. When Advanced Life Support services were added to their firefighting duties, Comer, who was in his early twenties, was one of the first EMTs to train to use a defibrillator on a person having a heart attack. The group also trained for dive and mountain rescues. He says it was a dream job for him.
When the police and fire departments combined in 1986, Comer attended the Public Safety Training Academy in Sitka. He says, “I don’t know what happened, but it just clicked with me…I knew that I wanted to be a cop. I never looked back.”
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Comer says there were many officers working here in the 1980s and ‘90s that he considers his mentors, such as Ray Glover, John Nealon, Joe Michaud, Greg Wood, Bert Cottle and Jeff Sullivan, and that they were all great cops who were committed to Valdez. As his mentors retired and moved on, Comer was working his way thought the ranks. He became a lieutenant under Chief Joe Michaud in 2001 and was appointed chief when Michaud retired in 2005.
Bill Comer moved to Valdez in the spring of 1978 and found seasonal work with the Madsen Construction Company until 1981. In the summer he painted, moved furniture, planted lawns and worked as a laborer on construction sites. He lived with his boss’s family, the Hickocks, who he says treated him as one of their own. He used to travel back to Washington to take college courses during the winter months. But he says he fell in love with Alaska and Valdez on his very first salmon fishing trip and has never left for more than a few weeks since then. He started dating Janai Quiroz shortly after he joined the fire department. They were married in 1983 and have been together ever since.
Bill says he’s looking forward to his new position but he’s going to miss his four daughters and their three children and all the people he’s worked with when he leaves Valdez.
“It’s a hard thing to leave after thirty-three years. I’ve enjoyed being a part of the City Administration and learning how and what the City Government can do for the people that live here. It’s been an honor to serve and protect the community as a Law Enforcement Officer… My new position, I’m looking forward to it.”
