“We’re thrilled with it. We not only wanted to highlight the department, we also wanted to highlight how great it is to live around here and all the things that are available to one who does.””

Police Chief Ed Delmore

GULF SHORES — City employees came together for a recent project for the police department and the results were quite stunning.

Using mostly in-house talent from fire and police personnel, the Gulf Shores Police Department has a new recruiting video for perspective officers.

Chief Ed Delmore introduced the video at the July 11 city council meeting. The department currently has no openings.

“We’re thrilled with it,” Delmore said. “We not only wanted to highlight the department, we also wanted to highlight how great it is to live around here and all the things that are available to one who does.”

Delmore said when he got the idea for a recruiting video he was directed to one produced by a department in the West.

“The inspiration for that actually came from Teton County, Wyo.,” he said. “My son (Ryan Delmore), who is a Baldwin deputy sheriff, I told him we were going to do one here, he said look at Teton County. They are a ski resort area near Jackson Hole, so it’s a different kind of place but they did the same kind of thing.”

City Firefighter Justin Parks was the director of the project and served as a cameraman along with Travis Willis and Nick Scheer, who did the drone camera work as well. Willis and Scheer are city firefighters as well.

Also on the project as production managers were police officers Sgt. Paul Maliska and Cpl. Josh Hoguet.

“We’re blessed in that we had Justin and a couple of guys who assisted him in the fire department that had the creative ability and technical ability to pull it off,” Delmore said. “I think it looks very professional.”

Mayor Robert Craft, who used the reveal of the recruiting video to lure Delmore to a commendation ceremony, was pleased with the outcome as well.

“It’s excellent,” Craft said. “It depicts our city and the professionalism of our police force really well. Of the things that we’ve done with that group since Delmore has been here, the quality of the officers that we have. He has been able to recruit at the highest levels.”

Parks said as the director, the police officers in the video weren’t in need of much instruction.

“I’m a firefighter, I’m not a police officer so I couldn’t tell them what to say because they knew more about their jobs than I do,” Parks said. “When we got together with each person we just established what we wanted to highlight and I let them develop their own dialogue. We just worked together until we got to where we want to be.

“They, the talent as I like to call them, developed their own dialogue.”

Among the scenes are several on the water, golf courses, training and even one of Delmore, a certified pilot since 2009, flying a plane over the city.

“I’m really happy with the way it turned out,” Parks said. “It started out with us just forming a bunch of ideas together and it just really came together great. I was really impressed with the way the guys with the police department put the effort forth. It just turned out to be a great project.”

Parks said it took just more than a month to get the project completed. The group first met to discuss the video in June.

To view the video, visit the Gulf Shores Police at gulfcoastnewstoday.com at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEp72HPRdBY.