Prepared for duty

FVCC Libby director draws on law-enforcement background

More than once, Pat Pezzelle has been told that "he's lucky" to have the job he does as director of the Lincoln County Campus of Flathead Valley Community College in Libby.

"I'm not lucky," he said. "I'm prepared."

Pezzele, 58, believes that two decades with the Phoenix police department, plus his time teaching the principles of democratic police work in Third World countries, equipped him well to lead the thriving satellite campus of a growing educational institution.

"The problem-solving and social skills I used in law enforcement are not any different than what I use now," he said. "Except I don't have to take the people who sit down with me and put them in jail."

Pezzelle was in Kalispell recently speaking at FVCC about cultural aproaches to law enforcement in Third World countries, specifically Bangladesh, Lebanon, Ghana and Kyrgyzstan.

From 1999 to 2002, Pezzelle accepted assignments as a contract consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice in the International Criminal Investigations Training Assistance Program, for jobs lasting anywhere from three weeks to four months.

In Kyrgyzstan, the challenge was in working with a former Soviet state transitioning from a totalitarian government and military form of law enforcement to a democratic style of policing.

Pezzelle said he remembers a few anxious moments when the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs "went out of their way to make us uncomfortable. It was still a fear-and-intimidation Soviet style of leadership, especially if they were the ones who had the guns."

In Beirut, Lebanon, Pezzelle and his team had to navigate the complexities of competing ethnic and political factions - Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinians, Sunnis, Shiites.

While moving around the city, for example, his group was fortunate enough to be guided by a seasoned driver, who "got us through more roadblocks and down more alleys than you can shake a stick at."

There were few intersections where representatives of Hamas were not collecting money for a "hospital," Pezzelle said. "And Hezbollah was doing the same thing."

By contrast, Ghana was a welcoming environment for police training work, Pezzelle said.

"I tried to convince my wife that we should retire to Ghana," he said.

Since he always was in the company of seasoned police officers from major metropolitan areas, Pizzelle said that even during the moments when things were out of the group's control, he never felt too threatened in the alien environments - maybe just a little nervous.

"We were used to risk management," he said.

His own police background - filled with long days and nights of surveillance and detective work - attuned him to the importance of having options for every situation.

Pezzelle spent 14 years undercover, launching his police career with the street crimes surveillance unit by keeping tabs on known criminals.

"We hid in Dumpsters and coolers in liquor stores," he said. "We dressed up like beauticians. How much more fun can you have as a young man?"

He moved on to investigate property crimes, then became the youngest organized-crime detective in the history of the Phoenix police department at age 29.

"I had an Italian language skill that came in very handy," he said.

He was promoted to detective sergeant and spent the last five years of his Phoenix career supervising 14 detectives in a string of sting operations, mostly "buying stolen property back from the bad guys."

Pezzelle eventually decided he'd given enough of his life to police work after losing years of family time with his wife, Beverly, a kindergarten teacher, and their two children. So during the final 16 months of his detective career, Pezzelle earned his master's degree in adult and continuing education.

Following Pat's police department retirement, the Pezzelles moved to Payson, Ariz., a small town north of Phoenix where Pat spent three years teaching world culture and U.S. economics and government at the high school.

Pezzelle continued his education career when the position as director of Gila Community College in Payson opened up in 2002, just when Pezzelle was on the verge of signing the contract for a new training assignment in Afghanistan.

"My wife had asked if I could get a job in America," he said.

He was director there until Pezzelle's children said they were moving to the Northwest and wanted their parents to join them.

So he jumped at the opportunity when the Lincoln County Campus job, which had been filled by a series of interim directors, became available in 2003. The county at the time was dealing with serious unemployment after its biggest employer, Stimpson Lumber Co., closed in 2002, and the campus was serving as a retraining center for many who lost their jobs.

"I saw it as a gem," Pezzelle said of his desire to be part of the school.

The Libby campus, with 1,800 square feet under one roof, houses a full science lab and art room, eight classrooms, a tutoring lab, student lounge, staff exercise room and a computer lab, a community room and offices for eight staff members.

There are about 100 on-site students, with 400 online students who subscribe to the online help site, which is based out of Libby.

In this fairly small environment, Pezzelle never knows what he'll be doing from one day to the next.

"If the janitor's sick, I'm the janitor," he said.

He has not escaped the long days at work, spending up to 60 hours in the office most weeks, he said, but he is just happy to be home every night.

"And I don't take anything home," he said. "I didn't bring it home when I was a policeman or when I taught high school, and I don't bring it home now."

Tucked among his varied careers was a three-year stint as a custom golf-club maker. When he was teaching in Payson, he was asked to be an assistant golf coach for the high school team. Many of the golfers didn't have good equipment, so he set out to solve the problem, attending a specialized Texas school to became certified in the craft.

"I love the math and science of it," he said. "The physics of a golf club head is amazing. It's almost art."

He left teaching and forged custom golf clubs for three years through his own business. It's now something he'll do if asked, but the demand for golf clubs in Northwest Montana pales to that in Arizona with its four-season golf culture.

Pezzelle has no regrets about uprooting and moving north so late in his career. He said he has become "a completely non-urban person."

"Do I miss the traffic, noise, drive-by shootings and road rage? No."

His daughter and her husband and five children live in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, and his son is at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota; Pezzelle predicts he eventually will end up at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls.

He said his family's convergence in one region is not luck, but "a plan we did as a family."

"My wife and I have been married for 37 years, and each phase is the next adventure," he said. "Like my dad always said, 'Every adventure you let slip by is the one you don't get back.'"

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com