EPHRATA — Brandon Guernsey was sworn in Aug. 4 as the new Grant County Prosecutor. He replaces Kevin McCrae, who announced his resignation in May, effective Aug. 3.

Guernsey said he has set some goals for the prosecutor’s office, one of the most important being to improve morale. The prosecutor’s office does not have a sufficient staff of attorneys, he said, and he wants to remedy that.

“For me personally, cracking down on drugs and gangs,” he said. “That’s really where my passion is, to stop drug cartels from destroying our lives.”

Attorneys in the prosecutor’s office, he said, should be accessible.

“We should be holding ourselves accountable to the community,” Guernsey said.

Guernsey said he enrolled in law school because he was originally interested in a career in federal law enforcement, and thought a law degree would help with that goal. Once he started taking classes his ambitions changed, he said.

“I found criminal law to be fascinating,” he said.

A class in trial techniques cemented his decision.

“It was pretty much immediate – I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor,” he said.

He was hired at the Grant County Prosecutor’s Office in 2017, soon after graduating from law school and being admitted to practice in Washington.

“This was my first job,” he said.

By 2019 he began to prosecute adult felony cases, working with, among others, the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team. He said he gained a lot of respect for INET’s role.

“I found the job they do is severely underappreciated,” he said.

He resigned in early 2025 to take a job in Georgia; when the prosecutor’s job came open, he was approached by people from Grant County who urged him to apply, he said. After discussing the options with his family, he decided to apply for the job.

“Let’s throw my name in and see what happens,” he said.

He was one of three candidates interviewed by the Grant County Commissioners, and his selection was announced in July.

The prosecutor represents the state of Washington, but it’s important that prosecutors support crime victims, who usually are going through very challenging times, he said. It’s important to be receptive to communicating with crime victims.

Guernsey grew up in Salt Lake City, he said, and wasn’t sure at first if he would stay in Grant County. But in the end, he and his family grew to like it here, he said, and he enjoyed the prosecutor’s job.

He said he thinks that experience will help him when recruiting attorneys to Grant County.

Guernsey and his wife have four sons – all of them hockey players, he said. He’s a volunteer youth hockey coach.