Hoquiam removes interim tag from Police Chief Jeff Salstrom

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 15, 2026

During a ceremony at Monday’s Hoquiam City Council meeting, Hoquiam Mayor Ben Winkelman removed the interim label and named Jeff Salstrom chief of police. Salstrom’s wife Jessica pinned on his new badge.

Salstrom has been with the Hoquiam Police Department for over 25 years and has nearly 28 years of law enforcement experience. Although he isn’t the first peace officer in his family, it was Salstrom’s love of dogs and the desire to become a K-9 handler that drew him to his vocation.

“My grandpa was a King County sheriff’s deputy back in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Salstrom said. “He did leave law enforcement but hearing his stories when I was a little kid and then I’ve always had a fascination with dogs. My very first word was ‘dog.’ When I was probably 10 or 11, I learned about police dogs and from that point forward, that was all I wanted to do.”

During his career, the Aberdeen-native and Aberdeen High School graduate has served as a patrol officer, canine handler with his partner, K-9 Enno, field training officer, special response team member, a trainer in active shooter response, firearms and defensive tactics, and more. He was promoted to sergeant in 2008 and lieutenant in 2022. As a lieutenant, Salstrom held both the patrol and administrative lieutenant positions.

He is a graduate of the Northwest Law Enforcement Command College and has received the Trilogy Award from the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association for completing their courses in supervisory, command, and executive leadership. Back in 2015, then-Sgt. Salstrom was honored as Police Officer of the Year at The Daily World Citizen of the Year Awards Banquet.

Upon announcing his retirement in late April, former Hoquiam Police Chief Joe Strong wrote, “Despite the increasing challenges law enforcement face in the state of Washington every year, I have great confidence Chief Salstrom and his administrative team will continue to move forward, adapting to anything that comes their way.”

Salstrom says that over the years, he has learned quite a bit from his predecessors, both good and bad.

“I’ve learned a lot of great things, a lot of things to do and a lot of things not to do. In 2006, the Hoquiam Police Department hired Jeff Myers and, just a phenomenal chief, phenomenal leader and so I got to spend 16 years working with and learning from him,” Salstrom said. “My big thing is my communication style. As a chief, you kind of have to tailor your communication style to the person that you’re dealing with. It’s not a one-size-fits-all thing. That’s something that I’ve worked on, fostered over the years to make sure that I can get my message across to different people in different ways. So it’d be the same message, but maybe a little bit different delivery and I think that’s where I’ve kind of succeeded.”

He added that he learned quite a bit from Strong as well.

“Chief Strong, he was such a tremendous investigator, very good as a detective and his knowledge of how to prepare a case. And, because we have recently had a first degree murder conviction, Chief Strong was integral in guiding the detectives,” Salstrom said. “I learned a ton from him as an administrator, how you make sure that the case is organized, not just as a detective, but the things that you need to do as an administrator to make sure that your detectives are doing the things the way they should.”

According to Salstrom, there are myriad problems to address, however, progress is being made on one particular front that has not gone unnoticed.

“Obviously, Hoquiam or Grays Harbor in general is a fairly economically depressed area. That unfortunately leads to crimes of opportunity, so thefts and those things that cause issues in the community, “ Salstrom said. “One of my first goals that I’m working on in conjunction with the mayor, the mayor’s vision of the city is public nuisance abatement. We’re just seeing, and I think every city is seeing it, but you know, abandoned vehicles, abandoned motorhomes. We have been working really hard the past couple months to try to address those issues. Our officers have towed a couple dozen abandoned vehicles. We’ve knocked on a lot of doors asking people to take care of their stuff, move them off the street. And the mayor has told me that he’s noticed our efforts and he said he has visited with some business leaders who are thinking about opening businesses or moving businesses to Hoquiam and they have also noticed our efforts over the past few months. So I do appreciate that a lot.”

Aside from policing the city of Hoquiam, catching criminals and keeping the city safe, Salstrom said that police department administration presents its own challenges.

“Recruiting and retention is the tough one for everybody, trying to get up to full staff. We’ve always been one or two bodies short almost my entire career,” Salstrom said. “We have a very rigorous background [check]. We have high standards here, and we aren’t going to lower those standards just to fill a spot. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t pass our background process. So trying to get our staffing to where it should be is always a challenge. Every police agency around is facing the same kind of issues.”

Now that he is the chief, Salstrom has to navigate the inter-office politics and relationships that come with being the person in charge of everyone, not just a squad or a tactical unit. He has gone from being one of the guys to being the boss. He said it’s a little easier because he came up through the ranks of the Hoquiam Police Department and hasestablished relationships.

“It’s sometimes hard too, though, because, you have those friendships, but now you’re in a different role. It’s probably harder going from sergeant to lieutenant because as sergeant, you’re really one of the guys, you know, you have a squad and now you’re a supervisor, but you’re out there with them every day. And then you go to lieutenant and now you’re an administrator. So automatically you’re already mistrusted a little bit now that you’re on the other side,” Salstrom said. “The biggest one, because there are times where you do have to have crucial conversations with people that can be very uncomfortable, I have to try to figure out what’s best for the department over what’s best for the person sometimes. That can be a challenge because ultimately my responsibility is to the department and the city, so it can be a little bit of a challenge. You’re always trying to balance out what’s best for the department, what’s best for the person and you hope that those two new things align, but sometimes they don’t.”

He added that as chief he has to restrain from engaging in jocularity with his fellow officers.

“I can’t generally have the kind of banter and the kind of smoking and joking with people as I used to do because now you’re looked at a little bit differently and I have made those mistakes,” Salstrom said.

One of the keys to working as a first responder in Grays Harbor is interagency cooperation. Salstrom said familiarity and history with his colleagues in the region helps a great deal.

“I think our level of dedication to helping each other in our county is very unique and it’s absolutely outstanding. Fortunately, a lot of us have kind of grown up in this together,” Salstrom said. “It’s been really, really neat to just have those relationships with all the agencies around here.”

Salstrom said he thoroughly enjoys working for the Hoquiam Police Department and serving the city of Hoquiam.

“Hoquiam has been an awesome place to work. We’ve had our ups and downs during the years like any place does, but overall it’s just been an absolutely outstanding place to work,” Salstrom said. “We’ve always had very good support from our mayors and our city council. It’s been a pleasure to work here. Early in my career I thought about leaving a couple times, but ultimately, some things happened that kept me here and I’m glad I stayed.”