Johnson ready to retire after 30-year Patrol career

Col. Bret Johnson poses for a portrait Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017 at his office in the Highway Patrol General Headquarters in Jefferson City. Johnson will be retiring from the force after approximately 30 years of service.
Col. Bret Johnson poses for a portrait Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017 at his office in the Highway Patrol General Headquarters in Jefferson City. Johnson will be retiring from the force after approximately 30 years of service.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was changed at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, to correctly identify Col. Johnson's wife as Cindy.

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Missouri State Highway Patrol Col. J. Bret Johnson grew up on a farm near Unionville in rural Putnam County, worked for the sheriff's department for a couple years after high school - and joined the Patrol in August 1986.

He's retiring Wednesday from the superintendent's post - a job with statewide responsibilities.

The Patrol requires its members to retire at age 60 - but Johnson is just 58, so his retirement this week isn't required.

"If you are going to work (after) the Highway Patrol, I think you have to figure out where you're more marketable," he explained in an interview last week. "You have to make the decision of when's the right time to go."

Johnson said he considered retiring a couple years ago while still serving as the Field Operations Bureau's director but stayed when then-Gov. Jay Nixon asked him to succeed Col. Ron Replogle as superintendent in May 2015.

Nineteen months later, he coordinated with the incoming Eric Greitens administration to set Feb. 1 as his retirement date.

"I'm proud of the things that we have accomplished, so I'm glad I stayed," he told the News Tribune.

While Johnson doesn't know who his successor will be, he has worked with those on his command staff to prepare them for the possibility of being the next superintendent.

Command staff meetings involving himself, the lieutenant colonel and six majors often involved disagreements on how the Patrol should address issues.

"We had open discussion (over) long hours," Johnson said. "When we opened these doors and walked out, I felt everyone was on the same page."

Johnson was assigned to General Headquarters staff duties in August 2001 and has been part of the command staff since 2007.

The Patrol faced some major issues during Johnson's work as superintendent and Field Operations director - including the state's response after the May 2011 Joplin tornado killed more than 160 people, after Michael Brown was killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, after Brandon Ellingson's May 2014 drowning at the Lake of the Ozarks while in Patrol custody, and the 2010 merger of the highway and water patrols.

However, Johnson said, those well-publicized situations didn't change the Patrol, overall.

"I think, when you live in Jefferson City, those are a lot bigger issues than they are if you're a trooper doing our primary function and living in Kahoka, Hayti, Tarkio" or elsewhere in the state, he explained. "I think those issues were more significant for the people who sit around this (command staff) table" in the superintendent's office.

The first job inside the Patrol is trooper - providing basic law enforcement on the state's highways and waterways.

And that work begins only after an extensive, six-month training program at the Academy on the hill behind the General Headquarters in Jefferson City.

Before the new troopers begin working solo, they get in-the-field experience and more training from veterans.

"Early in your career, I don't think you could ever see yourself being the superintendent," Johnson said.

A trooper who wants to become an administrator must first go through the assessment center, which is offered only every two years, he explained.

"Last year, only 22 percent of our sergeants who took the assessment center even passed it to become eligible to be promoted to lieutenant," Johnson said. "That is the biggest change in our organization, when it comes to rank."

When Johnson made the switch in 1999, he recalled, the Highway Patrol wasn't using technology in the ways they are now - and technology has made a major difference in the way the Patrol operates, making it easier to communicate with each other and with other law agencies in other states.

"We still didn't have email when I came to (Jefferson City-based) Troop F," he remembered. "We had pagers, and the duty lieutenant had a bag-phone for a cellphone.

"We had no computers in the cars, and we had a computer in the office (where) the reports would come in a hard copy. And the clerical staff would re-type all the reports."

The 2010 Water Patrol merger into the Highway Patrol combined differing law enforcement cultures.

"Any merger is like a marriage - it takes time to adjust to each other," Johnson noted. "I certainly had feelings for the administration and those in the Water Patrol who were actually 'losing' their agency - and we tried to be conscious of that."

The merger was an effort to save the state some money, avoid a cut of 18-20 Water Patrol veterans, and "gain some efficiencies" - and those have happened, Johnson said, although he admitted it's hard to see those efficiencies from the outside.

Seven years after the merger, he said, the biggest change has been better documentation of the training given to recruits on the differences between the road troopers' work and the marine division efforts on Missouri's lakes and rivers.

Because Trooper Anthony Piercy still faces criminal charges connected with Ellingson's drowning, Johnson declined to discuss the effects that case has had on the Patrol's marine operations.

He was more open about the effects of Ferguson on law enforcement overall, where the Patrol became directly involved from mid-August through Labor Day 2014.

It began as a local case, involving the Aug. 9 shooting of an 18-year-old by a local officer, but the shooting and its aftermath attracted international attention.

Johnson said the Highway Patrol troopers who went to St. Louis County helped improve the situation because "our officers are used to working by themselves. And, in doing so, you have to learn from a very young age to be able to talk with people - and talk your way out of dangerous or conflicting situations."

Johnson said many people still may not understand the complexity of the Patrol's work - troopers do more than write traffic tickets and investigate accidents.

They also are involved in overseeing riverboat gambling operations, helping local law agencies in complex drug and crime investigations, operating laboratories that test evidence in criminal cases, and supervising the inspections of motor vehicles and school buses.

And what's next for Johnson after his retirement?

"I'm going to reassess some things," he said. "I'm going to take a little time off."

However, he already has "had a few calls" from people interested in hiring him.

His son - who also is a trooper, based in Columbia - became a father five months ago, so there will be grandchild time.

His other son works in Chicago, so there will be some travel.

Johnson's wife, Cindy, retired from Jefferson City's Public Schools several years ago.

"I have a lot of habits, but not a lot of hobbies," Johnson said. "We'll have to see how my wife and I will get along, being together more hours than we're used to."