There was a quote attached to Insp. Kevin Murray’s recent email to the detachment.
It came as no surprise. The man in charge of the St. Albert RCMP is known for leaving inspirational citations on the detachment’s whiteboard every morning. Only this one was more personal.
It said “moving is the simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.”
He was still waiting for the paperwork to finalize on Thursday morning. But in the coming weeks, Murray is moving on to become second-in-command of the RCMP’s Central Alberta District.
That means taking leadership skills earned in 26 years with the RCMP, three of them spent in St. Albert, to the next level. In his new role as assistant district commander, Murray will help manage detachments from Morinville to Innisfail, and Rocky Mountain House to Camrose – including St. Albert.
It’s the smallest district in the province, but it has over 20 detachments. That’s a big move and a lot of people to manage, says Murray. He is up to the task but he also admits that it’s hard moving on.
“St. Albert has been tremendous. Honestly, three years have just flown by,” he says. “And I think that’s due in large part to the staff and members that I’ve worked with.”
Murray arrived in St. Albert with his wife and two children from a posting in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in 2012. Most of his career had been in general duty policing and, freshly promoted to inspector, he was determined to make a difference.
There’s a bookshelf in his office bending under literature on management. An award sits on top of a cabinet, two quotations attached to a door below. One says “leadership is service, not position.” But there’s only so much you can learn from books, he says.
“Honestly, it’s not until you are thrust into a situation when you learn what you are made of,” he says.
For most of Murray’s time in St. Albert, things were going well. He created a crime reduction unit, which still faces resource challenges, but he hopes the work will continue with whoever is chosen as his predecessor.
He also started a positive workplace committee, to let employees know that they “have an ear with the detachment commander.” The quotes on the whiteboard are part of his work to empower others to “do what they need to do to get where they want to be.”
He adds that St. Albert prides itself in being safe. The residents and city council support the police. That makes it easy to work here, he says.
The most trying time during his posting came in January, when two of his officers were shot. Const. David Wynn died and Auxiliary Const. Derek Bond was seriously wounded. That’s when you need to make sure the support and help is there for your people, he says.
“You are thrust into it and I like to think as a group, the senior managers within this detachment, with the support of the district and the division, we came through that very well,” he says. “That’s all you can do. Try to do your best and hope that you are up to the challenge.”
Murray did not start out with the RCMP with a plan to move through the ranks. For a while, he wasn’t even sure he’d be an officer, he says.
Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, he originally wanted to be a farmer. Then dust allergies made that unrealistic. He applied with the RCMP in 1983, right out of high school, and was turned down. At the time, the RCMP was looking for more university-educated officers. Five years later, they accepted him.
Now, several promotions and nine postings later, he is taking on yet another challenge. Working as assistant district commander, he will miss the daily interaction with the members of the St. Albert detachment. But he also looks forward to encouraging members from other detachments to “be the leader that I hope I tried to become.”
“I fall down constantly … but every day I come back trying to be better and that’s what it’s about,” he says. “What we are, what we want to be, sometimes it’s a leap of faith. But you have to be prepared to put yourself out there.”
That’s also a quote he keeps in his office.
