By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

Thirty minutes west of Bend, Ore., Mount Bachelor rises into the sky, a beacon to snow skiers that there’s plenty of powder through June.

Below it, the Deschutes River draws rafters and fly fishermen, while nearby Smith Rock State Park attracts rock climbers from all over.

Bend has done what any place that can boast 300 days of sunshine a year could do: grow. The population has doubled to 70,000 in 15 years as people have arrived to work at resorts, restaurants and in shopping districts, or simply to vacation.

The nearby town of Redmond, only a few miles south of Bend in central Oregon, has begun to enjoy a little of the same.

“Our city has been growing at a 10 percent-plus rate for at least 10 years,” said Capt. Gary DeKorte, who is in charge at the Redmond Police Department. In 1995, the population there was 10,000. Now, it’s 25,000.

Those are the bustling communities that will give Joplin its next police chief, Lane J. Roberts. He will start the job April 23.

Customer service

If Bend and Redmond are any indicator, the Joplin department will be expected, under the guidance of the new chief, to provide a certain level of customer service and to address issues that underpin crime.

“Lane Roberts is to me, if I were to characterize him, the consummate professional,” said DeKorte, who worked for Roberts for seven years at the Redmond department. “He has very high standards, and he would expect us to achieve more. He brought our agency from one level up to another.”

Roberts was chief at Redmond from 1999 until last summer, when he left to take a job as director of the Deschutes 911 Service District.

DeKorte said he doesn’t know why Roberts would leave the 911 job after only about six months. He said Roberts has retuned the organization into a positive workplace.

“It was a huge undertaking, and it’s related to law enforcement,” DeKorte said, though it isn’t the police work that Roberts has pursued for 35 years. “There was a lot of turnover,” and Roberts seems to have made the place more tranquil and better able to retain its employees, DeKorte said.

“He brought morale up there,” DeKorte said, and Roberts did it while teaching a credo he has used constantly in his leadership role: “He believes that everybody is our customer, including our co-workers.”