A Boothbay Harbor man with a background as a small-business owner and retail manager has joined the Damariscotta Police Department.
Jim Dotson, 38, started work July 14.
Dotson has been a jack-of-all-trades in recent years – a carpenter, a cook, a maintenance manager at a resort, an assistant manager at a gas station and at Rite Aid in Boothbay Harbor and Damariscotta, and an aide at local nursing homes.
For a few years, he was the proprietor of his own business in Boothbay, J.D.’s Smokey Pit Barbecue, across Route 27 from Hammond Lumber.
“I knew I needed a career change and was looking into it, and knowing several officers and talking to them about their jobs, the passion they have for their jobs stuck out in my mind,” Dotson said.
He completed the Law Enforcement Pre-Service Training Program, which includes 40 hours of online study, 80 hours of classroom and defensive tactics instruction, and 80 hours of field training.
Before starting work in Damariscotta, he shadowed Damariscotta Police Chief Ron Young and Officer Jason Warlick.
“I just felt immediately like our personalities clicked and I could see myself working here with them,” Dotson said. “We have a really awesome chief.”
After a month on the road, “I see now why they have a passion for their job,” Dotson said. “I really enjoy it.”
“I like the fact that, not only do you get to make a difference in a community, you get to actually see the difference you’re making and the impact it has,” Dotson said. “I just think there’s no other job out there that’s quite like it.”
He likes the physical discipline of the job and the incentive it provides to stay in shape.
“I was way out of shape,” Dotson said. “The discipline involved with the physical part of it was tough at first. Now I actually enjoy it.”
Dotson continues to undergo field training as a reserve officer with the goal of joining the department as a full-time officer.
Chief Young described Dotson as intelligent and “eager to learn.”
“I saw some things in him that I thought would be good for the department,” Young said. “He’s picking things up pretty quickly. He’s a good fit for the department and for the town.”
Dotson is originally from northern Illinois. He graduated from the World of Life Bible Institute in Pottersville, N.Y., where he met his wife, Jeannie, originally from Dexter, Maine.
The young couple moved to Boothbay Harbor 14 years ago, where Jeannie works as an assistant bank manager.
