To have a thriving community, you need many people whose work directly serves the community. Police officer Todd Gehrke exemplifies the role of someone who cares about their town.
Like many kids, being a police officer was something Officer Gehrke considered, but the route wasn’t direct. After high school, he became a hospital corpsman in the Navy for five years. He went on to get his associate’s degree at Kirkwood Community College, then transferred to Coe College in Cedar Rapids where he double majored in public relations and sociology.
Over the next couple of years, Officer Gehrke worked for student development at Coe College and became the director of student life at Cornell, which was where he found his true calling. One evening, Officer Gehrke was in the same building during a presentation given to students by Doug Shannon, now chief of police for Mount Vernon-Lisbon.
After the presentation, Officer Gehrke walked up to Chief Shannnon, who told him that he could apply for a position as a reserve officer. He got the job, and after getting his certifications from the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, became a full-time officer in 2003.
Police officers do a wide variety of things in the public service field including diplomatic security, training officers, and school visits. Of course, Officer Gehrke needs tools to do all of this, and some of those include a pager, radio, cameras, keys, handcuffs, and pepper spray — all of which have a space on his 20-pound harness and 10-pound belt. Inside the squad cars, there are numerous other items, including defibrillators and computers.
Like all jobs, being a police officer has its ups and downs. In Officer Gehrke’s opinion, working with kids is by far the best part of the job. He has many interactions with children through school programs such as DARE, which is for fifth and seventh graders. He is an EMT in the fire department, so he enjoys getting to work with other public service workers such as firefighters and paramedics on calls.
The scariest part of the job, for him, is working with people who are in a fragile mental health state because of how unpredictable they can be.
“Whenever people are at the
Profile: Officer Todd Gehrke
Edith Dawson
Special to the Sun
October 21, 2021