“Then he said, ‘You ever thought about being a police officer?’ and said ‘You need to put an application in’ and one thing just kind of led to another,” Woodard told Dayton Daily News.
Woodard, 64, retires today, capping a law enforcement career that spanned 41 years, 37 of them in West Carrollton.
He attended the police academy at the Montgomery County Joint Vocational School, which is known today as the Miami Valley Career Technology Center, then was hired by Madison Twp. Police Department in 1984. He worked there until June 1988, when he joined West Carrollton as a police officer.
Promoted to K-9 officer with his dog, Nero, in 1991, the duo served together for four years. He was promoted in 1995 to sergeant and Nero retired.
Then, Woodard became deputy chief in 2005 and interim chief in 2013 before being named chief in March 2014.
Woodard said he isn’t proud of one specific moment or accomplishment in his career, but rather those with whom he has served.
“It has been my great honor and privilege to do so alongside the amazing officers and employees of this police department,” he said during West Carrollton City Council’s most recent meeting. “This community is truly blessed by the caliber and character of the men and women of this agency.”
Woodard said he has never thought of his work as just a task, job or chore.
“No matter what’s going on, I’ve never dreaded putting the uniform on and coming to work,” he said. “I’ve always looked forward to it, so I’ve been extremely fortunate to be in a profession where that occurred. I’ve been truly blessed to find something where I just felt like I’ve not really worked a day in my life.”
Woodard said that’s because his career gave him the ability to make a difference in someone’s life, whether it was someone in the community during a call for service or someone at the police department. That, he said, has been “very, very rewarding.”
During his career, he said he has kept in mind that good people make bad choices, and that someone who may have done something bad “doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a bad person.”
“That just means they might have made a bad choice,” he said. “I’ve always tried to look at it from that perspective and then treat them accordingly and with as much respect as I can.
“My first words to people when I would go on a call would be ‘How can I help?’ and that seemed to calm some people down sometimes and maybe set the tone for really why I was there, and that’s why I was there: How can I help?”
Woodard said retiring will give him the opportunity to spend more time with his wife, son, stepson, grandson and granddaughter, and the ability to move to Florida, where he and his wife have previously vacationed.
City Council honored Woodard with a resolution at its Feb. 25 meeting. Mayor Rick Barnhart, West Carrollton’s former police chief and Woodard’s supervisor during all of his years working for the city, praised him for fostering strong community relations through various programs, providing strong leadership and fostering teamwork.
“Since I retired, you’ve done an absolutely magnificent job with ... the police department,” Barnhart told Woodard during the meeting. “We are truly a great organization, and that comes from your leadership, and I greatly appreciate it.”
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