Cpt. Steve Paulsen knows West Seattle well.

He grew up here as a youngster and eventually returned as Operations Lieutenant for the Southwest Precinct for four and a half years before leaving in January of this year to take over as day watch lieutenant for the West Precinct.

“When I heard I was taking over the precinct, and this one specifically, I felt like I got two presents; I got promoted and I got to go back to West Seattle,” Paulsen said.

Cpt. Paulsen and Cpt. Kessler (who is leaving the Southwest Precinct to take over as commander for the West Precinct) are in the midst of transition and Paulsen expects to be fully settled in West Seattle by Oct. 1.

The two have worked together and been friends for many years, Paulsen said, making the transition an easy one.

“You are not going to see much change as far as the programs with the exception of continually taking the programs we have and looking at how we do more outreach within our neighborhoods and community,” Paulsen said.

Paulsen brings his own philosophy to the commander post, and said he likes to, “keep it simple.”

“Number one, take care of yourself. Use best practices of officer safety. Keep watch over each other so you are safe and can go home at night.”

“Number two, take care of your community. Are we treating people the way we would want our own family members treated.”

“Number three, I came onto the department to do one thing and that’s catch bad guys and put them in jail.”

“Number four, have fun doing all of the above and enjoy yourself.”

Paulsen said the key to his officers’ enjoyment of their jobs is to minimize stress.

“The stress of my officers isn’t from doing police work; that’s what they hired on for, they enjoy catching bad guys. But what kind of atmosphere are we creating with my supervisors and commanders in providing them an environment where they are not concerned about stress within the box but out being able to focus on their jobs?”

Having spent his childhood in West Seattle and working here as Operations Lieutenant, Paulsen has great respect for both the precinct and the community, he said.

“There is something special about this precinct. I’ve had an opportunity to work in every precinct in the city and they are all good,” Paulsen said. “This precinct is different, it is purely a family out here … I have detectives here that are sharing information continually with my officers across all watches. I have my community police team members doing the same thing and all three different shifts are talking amongst themselves too. And that’s what makes us successful – besides just being very close as a precinct we are sharing information to take care of one of our big things, and that’s catching bad guys. That’s what makes this place special.”

“You know what’s neat about West Seattle is it is very dynamic – we’ve got it all here. We’ve got some very intimate and wonderful neighborhoods with their own personality. It’s not a cookie cutter thing, my relationship with Alki might be tailored differently from another community because of the issues they are dealing with,” Paulsen said.

Looking into the future, Paulsen admits that budget cuts make servicing all of West Seattle’s neighborhoods a difficult balancing act.

“The true art is that I have this finite number of resources that I can throw at something and obviously in this economic environment I can’t throw money at anything, so its how do you deploy your people are the right time, the right place … so they can make the biggest impact in the neighborhood?” he said.

“I’m hoping it will get better, but at the same time how do we take care of our communities with the resources we have? If I can create that environment where I can get the most out of my people that’s the resource I need to continue tapping,” he added.

Paulsen believes car prowls, auto thefts and burglaries are the biggest crime issues in West Seattle since it is primarily a residential community.

“We have good programs in place on fighting these three issues, but how do we make these even better? How do we get people to report things to the police department,” he said.

Paulsen recently met with the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network to let them know what an important role they play in fighting neighborhood crime.

““You as citizens know your neighborhood better than anyone else, even better than the police,” he told the captains.

Cpt. Paulsen is starting his 26th year working for the Seattle Police Department, a job that he claims to have fallen into by accident. He graduated from college in the early 1980s when the economy was not in great shape and decided to go back to school for an engineering degree – something he felt was more marketable. One night a friend of Paulsen’s in the SPD asked if he wanted to join him for a ride-a-long in Rainier Valley (where you join an officer in their squad car for a shift).

“They were just having fun with what they were doing,” he said. “So I took the test and they hired me. After getting through the battles with my parents to do police work I’ve been in it ever since and I’ve loved it from the very beginning. I’ve enjoyed the heck out of myself doing this job.”

And that enjoyment persists into his new position as Commander of the Southwest Precinct.

“When (SPD) Chief Diaz promoted me I felt very honored and also felt I have this responsibility now. How am I gong to represent our department and take care of our community and our officers and how to be the best precinct commander that I can be?” he said.

“I’ve just been thrilled, this is my first assignment as a commander and I take it on gladly.”