For my current week’s blog post, I will be continuing on with my immediate family members and interviewing my father Ronald Cronk. To start, my father was born right here in Victoria, British Columbia on February 23rd, 1967. In fact he was born in the same hospital as I was!
He was born to my grandfather and grandmother; Noreen and Howard Cronk (whom you will hear from in later posts) and was the first child of 4. Being the oldest, him and my mom share a similar story, but not on as much of a grandiose scale.
Growing up, Ron loved to play all types of sports. He attempted everything he could join including; hockey, baseball, lacrosse, football, track, rugby, and basketball, however, the ones he took to the highest level of play were football and rugby. After graduating from Claremont in 85′ he stopped pursuing his athletic career to focus on his longterm career and degree.
Starting right here at Camosun, my father had an end goal in mind of becoming a police officer, so he went after a degree in criminology. After three years at Cam State, his schooling and passion for crime fighting took him to Simon Fraser University over on the mainland. However, in his final year of school Ron was faced with the tough choice of finishing his degree, or accepting a job with the Victoria Police Department (hint: he took the job).
Starting his career (that he still works today) at the age of 22 years old, it set the stage in my mind that if you love something pursue it no matter what. It was here at Victoria PD that my dad tried all sorts of different positions in law enforcement that caused him to either be home a lot in Victoria, or travelling throughout the nation. Some of these cool positions include; patrol (the paddy wagon), rode motorcycles in the traffic section, undercover operator, surveillance undercover work, drug enforcement, intelligence unit, traffic department, and then is currently in command of CRD Integrated Road Safety Unit (IRSU). It is here at IRSU where Ron plans on finishing his career as a police officer after a long 30+ years.
One of the best parts of being a police officer is the people that you come in contact. Some of these people include; Andre Agassi, Pamela Anderson, John McEnroe, Kid Rock, the Premier of China, Wayne Gretzky and finally Prince William and Kate. Many of these meetings came through organized motorcycle escorts through Victoria. But this job is much more than just fancy celebrity meetings. To my dad he chose this profession because he wanted to help others, and give back to the community he was born and raised in.
As a child, it was great having a police officer as a father, I recognized him as my own personal superhero! As I aged, it became less and less cool as I went through the classic pre-teen/teen rebellious stage. But now being the semi-mature adult that I am, I recognize how much he sacrificed for our family when I was growing up. He had to work twice as hard to create the lucky life I had, and keep my mom at home so she could always be at my side growing up. Understanding this nowadays, makes me excited to enter my future profession to follow in my father’s footsteps of making a difference in other’s lives.
Nowadays, we are just looking forward to the big retirement party next January! Although knowing my dad, I’ll give it 2 months before he has another job out of shear boredom.
PS: These are a few photos of my loving father for reference!
