Twenty years ago, it would have been hard to imagine Lt. Chad Napier working in drug abuse prevention.
"As a young officer, I would have been 'Get out of my way' and 'I'll arrest my way out of this problem, you watch me,'" he said.
Napier, now bureau chief of investigative services, marked 20 years as of last Friday with the Charleston Police Department. On Nov. 2, after spending much of his career focused on drug crimes, Napier will start work as a prevention coordinator, covering West Virginia and Virginia, with Appalachian HIDTA.
HIDTA stands for High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas and is funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It focuses on targeting mid- to upper-level drug trafficking organizations, but will be expanding its prevention efforts with the creation of the new position, Napier said. Previously, one prevention coordinator covered four states, but now two prevention coordinators will be covering that area.
Napier admits he was a little hard-headed when he first started in police work.
"It would have just been because I was a young officer, just like you know, your children sometimes can be a little hard-headed, you have to grow and I've grown and I've seen how that's worked for me," he said.
"I've locked a lot of people up. I like a lot of them that I did lock up. Nine out of 10 people I arrest, I like. I sit down and talk to them. I like them. I don't like seeing them go away for a long time, even though they've chose that a lot of times. So I think I've seen that our prisons are full and where are we really getting?"
Napier isn't saying stop prosecuting drug crimes. However, he has realized that prevention is a crucial component.
"I think if we all work together, we can get a handle on it, but if you stay in your lane, I stay in my lane - and that's what we've done for a lot of years and we've not really worked together - I think that's what's got us where we're at now," he said. "I think we're starting to see that it's just not working very well."
Napier started out in college wanting to be an anesthesiologist.
Then, after he didn't like the classes, decided he wanted to become a lawyer instead.
He pursued criminal justice, but never went for that law degree. He got married to his wife, Wendy, and needed to start making some money.
After his two decades with Charleston police and before that, a stint with the Boone County Sheriff's Office, Napier says he will miss the work. Asked for an example of a time when he knew he'd made the right decision, Napier said, "Every day."
"When Sunday comes around, I'm ready to go to work on Monday," he said. "It's like, 'you pay me to do this?' Don't tell the chief that, but it's like, wow; it's a bonus that I get a check because I've just enjoyed this job."
It helped that he got his priorities straight early on. As a young officer, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
"I felt like the good Lord gave me a little wake-up call," he said. "I needed to be about His business and I needed to appreciate life, so it was a good thing."
Napier has won awards for his work on drug crimes, including several from HIDTA. He was named National HIDTA's top drug task force commander in 2012. He says the most fun he had was working with the street crimes unit.
"The awards I won was because I had a bunch of hard workers that just busted their butts," he said.
Prevention work isn't new to Napier. He routinely does drug abuse prevention program for schools, churches and other organizations.
"I lost a couple close friends to drug overdoses," he said. "My best friend in high school was hooked on drugs. It's touched me, and it's in my family, so I'm compassionate towards that side."
"I love the drug investigations," he said. "I love arresting drug dealers. I like that part of the job. I've always enjoyed that, but I also think that you can't just attack the supply side. If we keep attacking the supply side - which law enforcement is pretty good at, I think - and you don't ever touch the demand side, you're going to continue to spin your wheels."
Napier is ready to hit the ground running. He plans to continue working on some of the initiatives he has undertaken at the Charleston Police Department.
"It's not going to change a whole lot besides I won't have this badge any longer," he said. "That's bittersweet."
Never one to call attention to himself, Napier, who suggested keeping this story to about three lines, said he would do the interview last week if the Gazette-Mail "really wanted to." At the conclusion of the interview, he was asked if there was anything he had been planning on mentioning that wasn't brought up.
"I was planning on mentioning that I didn't want to do this interview," he said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@ wvgazette.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.