Officer Rob Kearney started with the Maple Valley Police Department in early September. He grew up in Kent and graduated from Kent-Meridian in 2004.

Q. What initially drew you to a career as a police officer?

A. My dad. I grew up in a heavily public service and military family all throughout. I was kind of thinking of going with life in the military. But my dad threw an article on openings in law enforcement at me and that’s what opened the door for it. It was either going overseas or being a cop. I started throwing my applications in when I was 19. I was previously hired with the Washington State Patrol. I got the job offer from Washington State Patrol to be a cadet. Then I waited quiet a long time and got the offer from the county, which I took.

Q. Where were you working before you came to Maple Valley?

A. The lovely Home Depot in Bellevue. That was a very different place. I believe I graduated from the academy in September 2008. It was one of those things where you’re on a waiting list, and all of a sudden I just started getting phone calls from different agencies.

Q. What brought you to the Maple Valley Police?

A. Being the community’s officer, you can spend the extra time with the community. You definitely get to practice a more community oriented style police work. In an unincorporated position you might be in one place the next day and the other side of the county the next. Here you can plug yourself into the community and work with them on a day in and day out basis.

Q. What do you enjoy the most about being a police officer?

A. Just everything is different from the moment you leave your house you know there’s not going to be that moment that today is not going to be like yesterday. There’s always something new and exciting that happens. You’re just on your toes. At Home Depot I did the same thing every day. A truck came every day at 4:30, I unloaded it. Here I don’t have the same schedule every day. That’s another thing, the different people that you meet on the job every day, it’s unreal. The variety and diversity of everyone’s problems is also pretty cool. Then you get the brain teasers and trying to figure out how to solve it.

Q. What is most challenging about being a cop?

A. The most challenging thing is dealing with the families in a very difficult solution. It’s trying to come up with a resolution that everyone is happy with. If there’s a dispute between neighbors, is there a way we can solve it. It’s difficult to appear as not just a cop, but as a person who can sympathize with people. It can be an emotional roller coaster, that can be the most difficult part.

Q .If you could clear up one misconception about police officers, what would it be?

A. Coffee’s right with the donuts, but we don’t have donuts. I’ve heard so many of them. Everybody thinks that cops have power trips and that’s not the way it is. We don’t have quotas at the end of the month that we have to make. We’re just normal people. That’s the biggest thing. You’d be surprised that people don’t look at us as normal people, they just see us as cops. When I’m not wearing the uniform I have a family, I’m just a normal person.

Q. Anything else we should know about you?

A. I’m a big snowboarder. I love it when the cold hits so I can put the snowboard rack on the car and I can spend days up on the mountain. My off days definitely are going to be spent on the weekends. I’m looking forward to it this year or in 2010.