MOSES LAKE — Kurt Adkinson was surrounded by friends and family as he signed off for the final time with the Washington State Patrol on Friday after 25 years of service.

Adkinson, who earned the rank of lieutenant, is pausing for a moment after a long career to take a breath before beginning his next adventure.

After growing up in Concrete, Washington, Adkinson left town for college where he received his bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate. Adkinson joined the WSP in 1995, and said it was the only law enforcement agency he’d tested for.

“At the time we got hired, we went directly to the academy, so there was no pre-employment,” Adkinson said. “I spent the first few years working as a trooper on the road.”

Adkinson spent the early part of his career with the patrol in Seattle, living in Tacoma at the time. He said it was common at the time for new hires to end up in more urban areas, typically either Everett, Seattle, or Tacoma.

Adkinson said it was the number of different job opportunities that attracted him to join the WSP early on.

“I had a lot of movement early on in my career,” he said. “After working the road, I was an instructor at our academy, and then I was on the governor’s security detail for a couple of years. At the time, it was Gov. Gary Locke and his family.”

After about two years in Seattle, Adkinson had the opportunity to transfer to Mount Vernon in Skagit County, the same county as his hometown. It was his promotion to sergeant that Adkinson said landed him in Moses Lake in 2003.

Before moving to Moses Lake, Adkinson said he’d never been there for more than just stopping for gas. Walking in the door of the patrol office for the first time, Adkinson said, he wondered just what he’d gotten himself into.

His time in Moses Lake ended up being more rewarding than he could imagine, he added.

“It’s just some quality, quality folks that I got to work with at the state patrol,” he said. “You don’t always get to pick who’s on your team, but I just had an excellent team here. The relationships, just with the communities and other law enforcement agencies in Grant County, that’s the thing that was very, very rewarding.”

Adkinson spent 14 years as a sergeant in Moses Lake with the WSP, serving as field sergeant for seven years before moving to detective sergeant up until 2017.

His final years with the WSP were spent as a lieutenant with the motor carrier safety division and criminal investigation unit, covering essentially all of Eastern Washington. Adkinson said he knew when he took the position it would only be for a couple of years until he hit his 25-year mark, not wanting to be away from home.

Kurt Adkinson met his wife, Theresa Adkinson, while living in Moses Lake and the two were married in 2012. They have five kids between them, his two daughters and her three sons.

Adkinson said the support of his family and children is probably the biggest thing that’s helped him be able to comfortably step away from law enforcement.

“None of this happens without the support of the lady in the house and the kids in the house here,” he said. “What Theresa and I’ve created together is my greatest accomplishment in life.”

Adkinson said he sees the family staying in Moses Lake for the foreseeable future, especially given how active his wife currently is in her role as administrator for Grant County Health District. Adkinson said he expects to jump back into another profession in some fashion eventually.

“Obviously, Theresa is heavily invested in her career right now, and that’s absolute insanity right now,” Adkinson said. “I will be putting my toe back into my profession at some point, whether that be in the private sector or back in a public sector job. But for the next couple of months, my job is going to be trying to take as much stress off of her as I can.”

With the policing profession currently in tumult across the nation, Adkinson addressed the issue by discussing the pendulum between the community and law enforcement.

“I walked into the front end of this career and the fallout from the Rodney King situation just happened in L.A., our young men and women are overseas fighting a war at that time,” Adkinson said. “Fast forward 25 years and we’re now seeing a lot of the same situations. Our war may be with the coronavirus, but it’s that pendulum still swinging.”

Adkinson said the community will drive what law enforcement does because law enforcement is an extension of the community. When the community does speak up, Adkinson said, it’s up to agencies to listen, take in and evaluate that information.

Adkinson said he believes they’ve been fortunate here in Grant County where he feels the relationship between the community and law enforcement has been mostly positive.

“I don’t want to say we’ve been isolated for the last couple of years, but we really have,” he said. “Our local agencies do a great job, I think, listening to the community. I just think there’s a lot of community and law enforcement collaboration here that maybe doesn’t happen other places.”

Change is often slow and painful, he said, adding that it’s no different with the community and law enforcement.

One hundred percent, it’s the relationships that he’ll miss most from his time with the WSP, Adkinson said.

“You’re a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and you get pulled out of that,” he said. “I know that I will have lifelong friendships, and I’ll miss those daily interactions. Cops are very good about sitting down, having coffee and chit-chatting. I’ll miss that.”

Adkinson said his father retired from law enforcement in Washington as well, serving as a game warden. This helped him see what the transition from this profession entails, he said.

Adkinson said he won’t miss the constant influx of forms, boxes to examine, evaluations, audits and other things that come with the job quite so much.

The career path he’s taken isn’t nearly the one he expected when he walked in the door to the WSP office 25 years ago, he said.

“I thought ‘I’m going to be a trooper in a patrol car for 25 years, and that’s what I’m going to do,’” Adkinson said. “Then I have the same story that all of us have: met the right person here, was in the right place there, had the right mentor.”

While there are certainly parts of the profession he’ll miss, Adkinson said, he’s now excited to focus on new things as he waits for his next adventure.