School Resource Officer Van Rader retires today after 31 years of police work. Rader, the SRO for Foothill High School, took that position in January 2000 when the Pleasanton Police Department first implemented the SRO program.
“Van has been utterly fantastic,” said Pleasanton Police Chief Tim Neal. “I wish I could clone him. He defines the ideal resource officer.”
The SRO program started in Pleasanton six years ago after the department received a federal grant from the Office of Community Oriented Policing titled Cops in Schools, Neal said. The idea was to have two police officers assigned to both high schools to address any safety concerns on campus and to help build a positive relationship between youth and police. When Neal joined the department around that same time, he was tasked by the City Council to make improving police-youth relations the number one priority. In answering that call, Neal established the Youth and Community Services Department, which includes the SRO program.
“The SRO program has been one of the most successful things we’ve done in terms of addressing both purposes: safety on school campuses and tremendously improving the rapport with teens of the community,” Neal said. “By putting a human face on a police officer, the students realize we’re just regular people tasked with a difficult job, but we’re doing it on their and their parents’ behalf.”
Rader first got his taste for police work as a student in a police explorer program in Mississippi, where he lived before moving to Pleasanton with his family, although he grew up in Missouri. At the age of 21, Rader became a reserve officer with the Pleasanton Police Department, a position he held for six years. After transitioning into a fulltime officer, Rader held a variety of special assignments including SWAT, bicycle patrol, special investigations unit and working with canine officers. He became the first SRO for Foothill and joined Officer Scott Rohovit, the first SRO for Amador Valley High School, as the inaugural officers in the program.
“I couldn’t be more pleased with the job Scott and Van did getting the SRO program started,” said Sergeant Brian Laurence who leads the Youth and Community Services Bureau. “When you have good people who work with you, you feel like they’re the ones who carry the bureau.”
In 2005, Officer Mike Steiner took over for Rohovit as the SRO for Amador and currently holds the position. This change was made because the department rotates officers’ special assignments every four years, Neal said. With Rader now retiring, Officer Eric Silacci will take over as SRO for Foothill.
Rader said he is looking forward to retirement and spending more time with his own children, a twin boy and girl, 17, who are seniors in high school. Although, he said, he will miss his work at Foothill.
“We have a great bunch of young adults in this community, and I will miss working with them and being part of what happens at the schools,” he said.
The Youth and Community Services Bureau will see more changes at the end of the year as Laurence wraps up his assignment as the division head and will go back to patrol. Laurence, who has led the division since it was founded, had already extended his assignment an extra six months.
“From the very beginning, Brian was part of the energy that advanced the organization,” Neal said. “From the founding of the Explorer Program to establishing the SRO program, I give him tremendous credit in getting those key activities off the ground.”
In fact, Laurence was first supposed to be the SRO for Foothill, but two weeks after accepting the position he was promoted to sergeant and was made head of Youth and Community Services.
The Youth and Community Services bureau oversees many programs in addition to the SRO program, such as the DARE program, Teen Police Academy and the Parent Project classes, a series that started in 2005 to help parents of wayward adolescents learn how to handle and help their children.
“It really has been a group effort with all the folks in the bureau,” Laurence said. “I’ve been fortunate to work with six very talented people. They’re the ones who make this bureau successful. They’re the ones with the passion to work with community and youth.”
As of now the department has not appointed anyone to replace Laurence, but there are several people interested in the position, Neal said.
