Mark Breneman:  

After surviving being bullied my entire junior year (You know who you are, Stu Bassman and Rollie Conger), and just making it through graduation, I tried a year of college. I discovered the college "experience" wasn't for me, but it did give me time to grow physically, so I came home and joined the West Des Moines Fire Department. It didn't take me long to find out that I was pretty good at handling emergencies and figuring out quickly what needed to be done. I graduated from the first EMT class in Iowa and began serving with the West Des Moines ambulance service, which at the time was run by the police department. I got to know the officers, and went to work at the police department soon after. West Des Moines was still pretty small at the time, so when a new sheriff named Bob Rice took over in Polk County in 1976, I went to work for him as a deputy. I worked in communications, jail and mental health unit the first couple of years. I graduated from the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy at the top of my class, and for the next decade or so worked uniform patrol. I found my calling there as a street cop. I made a lot of good cases, I was able to help a lot of people, and I put a lot of bad guys where they belonged. I became the senior field training officer, r...Expand for more