PORT ANGELES — After 32½ years of service at the Port Angeles Police Department, Ed Schilke will retire from the department.
Schilke’s last day will be Thursday.
“I am very proud of my 33 years of service to this community. I do think (hope) that I have touched a lot of lives here,” Schilke said in a news release.
“Ed Schilke has represented the Port Angeles Police Department as a kind, hardworking and consummate professional,” said Cheif Brian Smith in the release.
“He is a role model for the rest of us in our profession.”
Schilke began his career at the department June 3, 1985.
Since that date, he has worked as a patrol officer, Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer, crime prevention officer, patrol corporal and administrative sergeant and has received departmental accolades such as Distinguished Service and Expert Marksman medals.
“I was blessed to have been able to serve in diverse roles,” Schilke said.
“It’s [been] a great job for me. I’m so thankful for all the opportunities I’ve had,” he continued.
His work led him to projects and assignments including Crime Stoppers, electronic home monitoring management, police department accreditation, policy manual revision and management, as well as working as the department’s designated public records officer.
For the last nine years, he has worked at the department’s records division, where his professional expertise focused on the state Public Records Act.
He served as an administration sergeant from 2008 to 2012, and was then hired as a civilian employee where he holds the title of records supervisor.
Schilke was one of the first group of records specialists and supervisors statewide to be accredited by the state Association of Public Records Officers in March 2013.
He has been part of a sea change in police communications and police records management that has occurred during his tenure, Smith said.
In 1985, police communications were made via radio or telephone and messages and reports were handwritten or typed.
Public records in the modern world and the wide variety of ways people communicate and create records has been one of the many challenges taken on by Schilke as the department public records officer, Smith said.
Schilke said he is looking forward to volunteering at the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society or anywhere there are volunteer opportunities for which he would be a good fit.
He also has grandkids to smother with love, he added.
Said Smith, “I am very proud of Ed and the work he has done on our behalf, and am proud to call him my colleague and my friend.
“It is hard to describe how much — in terms of institutional and professional knowledge — we will lose at the police department when Ed steps into retirement.”
The department has selected an employee from the records department to fill Schilke’s position and the application is currently being processed, Smith said.
