The city of Hoquiam has selected its police chief, but it seems to be no surprise to city officials, nor to retired Hoquiam Police Department Chief Jeff Myers.

Though it was expected for Joe Strong to take over full time as chief, it doesn’t damper the pride Myers felt when he spoke about his friend’s promotion. Strong, who had served as interim chief since Friday, July 1 when Myers retired, was confirmed on Monday night, Aug. 8, at the Hoquiam City Council meeting.

“I’m very proud to see him moving forward and taking the helm of the department, as well as see the promotions of his new leadership team,” Myers said.

Myers sounded excited when he told The Daily World about seeing Strong get his official promotion to chief. He expects Strong, who Myers described as a “North Beach kid,” to serve the position well. Myers said former Deputy Chief Don Wertanen’s retirement in 2019 allowed Strong to become HPD’s deputy chief.

“Joe has been a long career veteran of the department,” Myers said. “I have full faith that he will continue to lead the department with service, honor, distinction, and integrity, that’s expected of Hoquiam PD by the people who we serve.”

Strong’s “leadership team,” includes Lt. Jeff Salstrom and Lt. Brian Dayton — who were promoted from sergeant, and then a trio of new sergeants in David Peterson, Rob Verboomen and Jerad Spaur, who were promoted to sergeant.

“They truly do feel like they’re my kids,” said Myers, who hired the three new sergeants at HPD. “So, I still worry about them and I wish them nothing but the best as they continue to do a very tough job out there right now.”

Strong, who has served the residents of Hoquiam since November 1994, said the number of promotions on Monday night made it a “historic night” for the city of Hoquiam.

“It’s the most promotions we’ve done at one single time since I’ve been here … I’m very excited for the new leadership of our department and where we will be going in the next three years,” Strong said.

Brian Shay, Hoquiam city administrator, sounded happy about Strong’s promotion.

“It was an exciting night with the department announcing several promotions following the retirement of Chief Jeff Myers,” Shay said.

Strong said a sergeant gets promoted “here and there” and about every 10 years a lieutenant gets promoted.

Strong said the promotions fulfill HPD’s restructuring plan that staff put in place when Myers retired from the force.

He compared HPD’s restructuring plan for how Major League Baseball teams operate when a new prospect gets called up.

“We needed two administrators to replace him,” Strong said. “That’s what we went with. That created voids in our first level supervision ranks of sergeant. So, yeah, we moved the minor leaguers into the big leagues.”

Strong spoke briefly about his transition from interim police chief to police chief.

“I think there’s a sense of relief in that we can now unquestionably move forward with our reorganization and structure,” Strong said. “We will have more direct oversight over our patrol division and other divisions, such as jail, records, and investigations. That was too much for two of us to keep track of.”

He said the addition of the lieutenants will make the department more organized, and make the department more punctual when it comes to operations and policies.

“As you can probably imagine, our policies change every month as we adapt to new legislation, and best practices,” Strong said. “That is an ongoing battle that needs to be divvied out into the appropriate divisions of administrators.”

Hoquiam Fire Department Chief Matt Miller said he’s gotten the chance to work with all of the officers who were promoted in different aspects and roles. He believes in the group’s ability to help HPD grow and to strengthen an “already great team.”

Miller said through the last year he’s had the ability to work with Strong, who Miller said is a “very good choice.”

“I appreciate (Strong’s) command presence, and knowledge of the job,” Miller said.

It sounds as though having Strong at the helm isn’t going to be much different than when Myers steered the department.

“Chief Myers worked hard at creating good working relationships with all city departments,” Miller said. “Chief Strong is continuing that trend. As a team, we can all accomplish more.”

The promotions for Strong and the rest of his team made for a warm feeling for Myers.

“I’ve been retired now a little over a month,” Myers said. “It’s been very hard to leave my family at Hoquiam PD. Watching and participating in the (city) council meeting (Monday) night and seeing all the promotions and all the families there support their officers made me feel like a very proud papa.”