Josh Jeffery has spent the majority of his life working to protect his community. As a teen, Josh volunteered with his local sheriff’s office search and rescue unit to help save those stranded in the wilderness surrounding Mt. Hood. While serving the people of Washington County, Oregon under Sheriff Jim Spinden, Josh learned invaluable life lessons, as well as skills in law enforcement and emergency services that have guided him to this day. One of the most important lessons Josh learned during his time with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was the importance of the office of Sheriff and the role of Sheriff’s Deputies in maintaining public order and protecting the community.
As a young adult, Josh worked in law enforcement, and was the founding Watershed Ranger Sergeant managing the protection of the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit of the Mt. Hood National Forest, the City of Portland’s water supply. Josh was responsible for developing an all-hazards program to address law enforcement, structural and wildland firefighting, medical emergencies, HAZMAT incidents, as well as any other potential public safety threats to the water supply. Josh was responsible for rehabilitating the relationship between the City of Portland and U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations, the lead agency for federal law enforcement inside the Bull Run Unit. Josh also created new working relationships with U.S. Bureau of Land Management Law Enforcement Rangers, the Clackamas, Multnomah, and Hood River County Sheriff’s Offices and District Attorney’s Offices, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Sandy, Corbett, and Hoodland Fire Districts, and the United States Attorney’s Office. Josh served as the Incident Commander for Portland for all emergencies occurring in the Bull Run, and also served as the night shift watch commander supervising up to twenty Rangers split between patrol and dispatch functions.
Josh also served as a volunteer firefighter and EMT in the Bull Run area. After twenty years of experience as both a volunteer and professional, Josh took a break from public safety in order to attend graduate school, where he focused on U.S. History and religious studies. As part of his studies, Josh wrote a thesis focused on federal enforcement of the Espionage and Sedition Acts by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner to the FBI) during the First World War.
After graduate school, Josh moved to Chinle, Arizona (in northern Apache County) on the Navajo Nation where he served as an Assistant Professor of History and Diné Studies at Navajo Technical University. Based on his experience and performance, Josh was later promoted and named Assistant Professor of Law Enforcement, and Coordinator of the Navajo Police Training Academy. While at NTU and NPTA, Josh created the Associate of Arts in Law Enforcement degree program, and revived the working relationship between the university and the Navajo Police Department.
Josh is running for Apache County Sheriff in order to improve the agency’s relationship with the community, including increasing transparency and responsiveness in order to ensure that ACSO serves all of the people of Apache County. As a former professor of law enforcement at a tribally controlled university, Josh is especially concerned with issues of tribal sovereignty, and will work with the Navajo Nation and the White Mountain Apache Tribe to safeguard the rights of indigenous peoples to pass and enforce their own laws, while also working as a full partner to ensure the livability of all communities in Apache County.
Learn more about Josh’s campaign platform here.
Check out the latest news about and from the campaign here.
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