Leo O’Brien found his professional destiny when he was 12 and he went on to have a 36-year with the RCMP. Photo: Compliments of Leo O’Brien
Some people spend a lifetime looking, while others, perhaps luckier, have it delivered when they weren’t even looking. That serendipitous experience befell Leo O’Brien, a retired RCMP superintendent who is currently president of Federal Retirees’ Avalon-Burin Peninsula Branch in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“I was only 12 when I decided I wanted to become an RCMP officer,” O’Brien said in a recent phone interview from his Newfoundland home. “We were doing work on the roof of the family home when an RCMP patrol car parked nearby. The officer stepped out of the car in his shiny boots and his breeches, and I thought, ‘Wow. He looks pretty impressive.’ And from that moment on, I had in my head the desire to become an RCMP officer.”
Of course, his move into police work didn’t follow a straight line. When he finished high school at 17, he was still two years away from the minimum age of 19 required of anyone wishing to join.
“I talked this over with the local RCMP and they told me to further my education while making sure that police work was what I really wanted to do. So I got a teaching degree from Memorial University in St. John’s and then taught for two years.
“After the first year, I formally applied to become an RCMP officer, and after the second year, I went into police training. I was home.”
He remained a police officer for 36 years, then spent nine years as director of business development with Commissionaires Newfoundland.
He joined Federal Retirees seven years ago as the RCMP liaison. He then served on the executive of the Avalon-Burin Peninsula branch, and became president last October. As he looks back on his police career, he especially remembers his time in Ottawa, where, among other duties, he served as a travel officer on the prime minister’s protection detail.
“It was three years of hard work with travel all over the world — to Asia, North America, South America and to many places in Canada.”
He served two prime ministers, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. “Both were great guys, very down to earth and easy to talk to.” He especially enjoyed driving the golf cart when Chrétien was on the links in Florida.
Those three Ottawa-based years were “certainly the highlight of my career,” he now says. Apart from the interesting work, he received a promotion to inspector.
An exhaustive list would be impractical, but his other duties for the RCMP included work as the officer in charge of the violent crime linkage analysis system and, later, the officer in charge of the behavioural sciences branch.
In 2012, he retired and returned to Newfoundland with his wife, Grace, but he never put his feet up. In 2013, he took on the role of director of business development with Commissionaires Newfoundland, serving so effectively that, over his eight-year term, the employees’ roster grew more than three-fold.
And he has additional duties. He is currently president of the Last Post Fund in Newfoundland, which ensures that no veteran is denied a dignified funeral and burial due to insufficient funds.
He is a past-president of the RCMP Veteran’s Association for Newfoundland. And in a lighter vein, he is the vice-president of his curling league.
At 71, after contributing to the country for half a century, he sees no imminent need to slow down.
“A good life is about service — and I hope to remain helpful for years to come.”