Kennard is 'excited to see where I'm headed'

It's the day before the Christmas weekend. The office that Aaron Kennard has called his work space for the past 16 years while serving as Salt Lake County's sheriff is almost empty.

Rows of books are stacked on two shelves behind him with a U.S. and a Utah state flag bordering each end as the always media-accommodating Kennard has left just enough background so photographers won't have to take pictures of him in an empty room.

But everything else around him has already been boxed up and was moved out the day before.

After nearly 36 years in law enforcement, including 19 with the Salt Lake City Police Department, Kennard is preparing for the next phase of his life. Kennard, a Republican, lost his position convincingly, and surprisingly, in November to one of his own sergeants, challenger Jim Winder, a Democrat.

The two candidates were on the opposite ends of the spectrum on the issue of a Unified Police District. That and controversy over how much time Kennard did or did not spend on the golf course seemed to become dominant issues in the tense sheriff's race.

But just a month after the election, Kennard said he has put any hard feelings he may have had behind him and is ready to move on.

"I'm at peace with everything," he said. "I'm excited to see where I'm headed in the next phase of life."

Kennard leaves behind a legacy that embraces a bevy a changes within law enforcement, including the introduction of equipment that, at the time, was state of the art — Tasers, tear gas, mace and semi-automatic weapons. Kennard instituted a program to get deputies updated patrol cars.

And even during Salt Lake County's guzzle-gate scandal involving its motor fleet, Kennard's office was never found to be in violation of policy. He got pay raises for the deputies when they had been near the bottom of the state on the pay scale and established a SWAT team, a chaplain's corp and a citizen's review board.

Not bad for a man who didn't get into law enforcement until age 28 and with no college degree.

Kennard was working in electronics in the private sector when his company wanted to transfer him to California. Not ready to take on such a move, Kennard quit his job and began looking at something else, preferably a job in the afternoons so he could go back to school during the day.