By Martin Espinoza
The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Calif.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Dack Thompson racked up numerous injuries during his time as a San Francisco cop, particularly the pounding abuse on his knees from countless foot pursuits.
During his training this year at the Santa Rosa Junior College Firefighter Academy, Thompson, 51, felt the toll of both his injuries and his age. The multiple surgeries on both knees and the melanoma surgery on his right foot from 12 years ago had caught up to him.
“Ibuprofen is your best friend,” Thompson said, adding that he started each morning of physical firefighter training by taping up both knees and his right foot, which had a plantar fascia tear.
“I remembered how well my body was able to hold up in the ( San Francisco ) police academy and with very little preparation and even less recovery time,” he said.
Thompson, who graduated from the local firefighter academy on Dec. 19, is one of the academy’s oldest trainees to complete the grueling, 585-hour program."DackDack Thompson recites the Pledge of Allegiance as he graduates from the 108th class of the Santa Rosa Junior College Fire Academy, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. Already a Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety police officer, Thompson, at 51, is the oldest graduate of the academy. ( Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)He did so to join the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety, which requires all its police officers to complete firefighter training. Rohnert Park is one of the few cities in the country to have a consolidated police and fire department.
For Thompson, this month’s graduation ceremony was the latest in a long list of ceremonies, marking a long career in public service that’s brought him to Sonoma County.
From Sacramento to Harlem to Rohnert Park
Thompson, whose father was in the military, was born in Sacramento but spent a lot of his childhood moving around, living in places like Fort Meade, Maryland and Harlem in New York City. His family, however, grew roots in Sacramento and they always ended up going back there.
After getting out of the Navy in 1998, for a time, Thompson worked as a graphic designer in San Francisco during the early 2000s. In 2002, one of Thompson’s friends joined the San Francisco Police Department, and he soon realized that many San Francisco police officers were indistinguishable from regular people on the street.
“In New York, I could see a cop coming a mile away,” he said, adding that San Francisco cops, in his experience, “have more of a connection to their city.”
His time in the San Francisco Police Department saw his service recognized in a number of ways, including Officer of the Year in 2005, numerous citations and a commendation from the San Francisco Police Commission.
In 2017, while still a San Francisco police officer, Thompson came to Sonoma County on a mutual aid assignment during the North Bay wildfires. Working with a team of law enforcement officers and firefighters, medical workers and social service workers, Thompson was deployed to Healdsburg.
The experience stuck with him at the time, and he felt deep empathy for the local community, which had suffered so much devastation.
“I thought, I don’t know how anyone is going to be able to come back from this,” he said.
As Sonoma County slowly emerged from the immediate aftermath of the Tubbs Fire, Thompson, his wife, April Jimenez, and their two sons moved to Sonoma County, settling in Sebastopol. Jimenez, who at the time was working for internet provider Sonic was commuting.
After moving to Sonoma County, it was Thompson who then had to commute to San Francisco. The couple moved to Rohnert Park in 2020 and in 2022, Thompson joined the Sebastopol Police Department, becoming a sergeant there until he transferred to Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety in early 2024.
He is currently an acting watch commander while he completes his firefighter training.
Thompson said living in the place where he works has always been a personal requirement of his. Doing otherwise leads to inevitable feelings of “disconnection,” he said.
Overcoming doubts
During the academy ceremony, Ron Busch, chief of the Sonoma County Fire District, gave the keynote address. A significant portion of his keynote, his first for the academy, focused on the need for firefighters to maintain good physical and mental health.
“Taking care of your physical and mental health are the most important things, and that wasn’t always the norm in the fire service,” Busch said after the graduation ceremony.
Busch, who went through firefighter academy in Solano County when he was 18, recognized Thompson’s accomplishment.
“It’s changed a lot,” he said. “I don’t remember exactly how many hours I went through but it was a lot less than what they’re doing.”
Dan Bull, program coordinator for the SRJC Firefighter Academy, said trainees often range in age from 18 to just over 40. He said at 51, Johnson is one of the oldest trainees to go through the program.
At an age when some law enforcement officers begin to think about retirement, Thompson is about to embark on the next chapter of his career. Jimenez, Thompson’s wife, gets emotional when she thinks about all the challenges her husband has endured.
“He’s been given so many challenges in his life, from childhood onward,” she said. “To watch him continue to have to work so hard to keep going and stepping up in the world — he’s always worked so hard.
“Sometimes seeing him tired, not sleeping, in pain, it’s hard to watch,” she said, her voice faltering.
But she said, “that’s his journey, and I’m here to support him. He wanted to be in Rohnert Park, we love Rohnert Park and these were the requirements.”
“He’s always got a great positive attitude,” she said, shortly after their Dec. 19 graduation ceremony, which was held at the SRJC Public Safety Center in Windsor.
“He kept me in a good mindset. … I had no doubts that either of us would come out on the other side. We trained together, studied together and pushed each other to do our best.”
Thompson, however, said that for the first time in his life he felt dubious. He said it wasn’t until the procession into auditorium where the ceremony was held that it set in he had actually completed the training.
Early on in the training, he had suffered a calf strain and then a hamstring tear. Just after the academy’s midterm testing, Thompson underwent prostate surgery. “Talk about old,” he said.
“It was the first time in my life that I doubted myself daily,” he explained in an email. “I did not think that I could move forward but I did.”
Thompson thought about everything he physically endured, as well as his many previous ceremonies, including his father’s Army retirement ceremony.
When he graduated from the basic police academy in San Francisco two decades ago, he was a bachelor with his whole life ahead of him. Now, he thought about his family and how their future depended on his success. He thought about what is now expected of him in Rohnert Park.
“Although I prepared for it and got in shape for it, in that moment, I was just in disbelief that I had done it,” Thompson said.
—
© 2025 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.). Visit www.pressdemocrat.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
