A Biography of John F Jarrett
Being born and raised in Phoenix,
Arizona, John F. Jarrett is a true Arizona native who
always had a great interest in electronics yet intended on being a
pharmacist. Somehow however, John began a career in law enforcement while
attending Phoenix
Community College
changing majors and delving into Administration of Criminal Justice! In doing
so, John became involved in a security business ultimately becoming a
self-employed security supervisor for several property management companies.
In the summer of 1974, he joined the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department as
a Reserve Deputy Sheriff while continuing his college studies. Attending a
police academy on weekends, working a security business in the nighttime and
taking a full load of college courses during the day was quite a feat!
In January
of 1975, John transferred his credits, equal to an Associate of Arts Degree,
to Northern Arizona University
and pursued his Bachelor of Science Degree in Police Science and
Administration. While attending NAU, he worked for the Flagstaff Ambulance
Company as an Advanced Emergency Medical Technician II as well as for the
Flagstaff Police Department as a work study certified police officer and the
Northern Arizona University Office of Student Affairs as a Student Residence
Hall Advisor. In December of 1977, John became the Director of Security at
Little America in Flagstaff,
Arizona, until March of 1979
when it was time to be a policeman again. John then moved to the White
Mountains of Arizona and thinking that this area and move were just stepping
stones, he has stayed for more than twenty-five years! John's career was as a commander
with the City of Show Low Police Department where he acted as the
department's assistant chief of police. Here he helped to manage twenty-six
sworn police officers and a total staff of over thirty-seven personnel. This
does not count the numerous volunteers! John has also authored numerous grant
requests through which the department has been awarded almost $1,000,000 in
needed funding for technology, equipment and manpower!
John has attended numerous law
enforcement specialty classes and several management training schools. One
management course was the "Arizona Law Enforcement Leadership
Institute." This was a very intense two hundred and forty hour course
presented by Arizona
State University.
John is also a graduate of the Dale Carnegie Course and was also a graduate
assistant for several Carnegie courses. He is also self-taught in several
computer programming languages, analog and digital electronics and also holds
an FCC Technician-Plus amateur radio license, N7MJJ. John has written and
copyrighted several computer programs and programmer libraries along with a
self published small book titled, The Expandable Sinclair ZX-80/81. This was
a book of electronic projects for a small Zilog Z-80 based computer system
and was published in 1981. The book held good reviews and sold well. More
recently he wrote, "The PC Game Port," included as chapter 16 in a
book titled, MS-DOS System Programming, Third Edition, published by R&D
Communications. This chapter deals with the PC game port and how to program
it in several languages including assembler. John also wrote numerous
articles in the 1980's for Computer Trader Magazine on "Cops and
Computers," as well as several other periodicals. Since 1980 John has
had a small business that he called "Computer Engineering Services."
Custom hardware and software to solve system problems has also been an
accomplishment. The name of John's business recently changed to Jarrett
Consulting, Information Technology Services and Systems (JCITS Systems) LLC.
During John's career in law enforcement
he has been able to combine his many interests and talents including
computers, electronics and radio systems to management and adult education
and training. Through his self-study, work and education, the Show Low Police
Department became a leader and model for other agencies in police
technology. This includes; mobile radio data networking, digital imaging,
wide area network links, local area networks, custom application programming,
database programming; from small local databases to large client server SQL
databases, World Wide Web presence and more. John has also assisted other
police agencies with their computer and software needs through consultation
and custom software as well as providing services to several large
corporations.
Training of others has been another
interest of John's and in 1997, he appeared on nationwide satellite
television in a training series on Community Oriented Policing and specifically,
interpersonal communications. John is a certified Arizona Peace Officer
Standards and Training (AzPOST) board police instructor and was a subject
matter expert in the mentioned AzPOST satellite video production, which was
one part of a twelve part series. John has also been a certified Community
College Instructor in both Police Science and Computer Technology. In 1997,
he was appointed by AzPOST as the Regional Training Facilitator for both the Navajo County
and Apache County regions. In being so appointed,
he facilitated and coordinated training requests for local and regionalized
training of police officers. In 1999, John narrated and facilitated a panel
of experts in a two-part AzPOST satellite telecourse on "Suicide by
COP" with a nationwide broadcast in March and April of 2000. John also
moderated another two-part AzPOST satellite training course on 'Elder Crime'
which aired in August and September of 2000 along with a Law and Legal
Update, which aired in October of 2000. John was then appointed the
AzPOST telecourse narrator and moderator and has helped produce numerous
video training programs until after his police retirement.
John retired from the Show Low Police
Department in October 2001 after 23 years of honorable service to the Show Low
Police Department. He is currently the Management Information Systems Director at the
Hon-Dah Resort and Casino in Pinetop, Arizona and owns Jarrett Consulting,
Information Technology Services and Systems, LLC. John also took a leave of
absence from the Hon-Dah Resort and Casino and returned in March of 2003 to
the City of Show Low as the Interim Chief of Police while the
City searched for a new police chief.
John has been married to Betty, a
schoolteacher at Blue Ridge
Elementary School in
Pinetop, since 1980! He has two adult sons, Matthew and Benjamin. All of the
Jarretts are certified PADI scuba divers with John holding Advanced and Nitrox
Certifications. His other interests lie in luthiery, (guitar building), radio
controlled airplanes and most anything challenging and outside of the ordinary!
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