Around age 12, Gray moved to Dunedin, which he has called home ever since.<\/p>\n
He described himself as a \u201clate bloomer\u201d in regard to his policing journey, joining aged 26 after several years in construction.<\/p>\n
Gray said he joined the police, after talking with police friends, because he felt he had a lot to contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike most police, you feel like you want to look after people, after the most vulnerable in our community \u2013 I felt like I could add value in that space,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n
It was a privilege to be appointed as the new area commander for Manawat\u016b after a \u201chumbling\u201d p\u014dwhiri service.<\/p>\n
He said being an area commander for any district was fulfilling.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got the ability to move between strategic and operational policing and you are responsible for making decisions to ensure our communities are well looked after and safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is exciting for me to work in another district and the added bonus of everything is that I have a son, family and mokopuna in Whanganui \u2013 they were a big pull for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife and I are very happy with the move so we\u2019re feeling good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gray has another son, Regan Gray, who is the senior sergeant for family harm in Dunedin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve traded that son in for the younger one,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n
Kohuturoa Marae near Levin hosted the p\u014dwhiri on February 10. Photo \/ New Zealand Police<\/p>\n
The \u201cbeauties of the job\u201d which had kept him engaged for 34 years included the ability to move within the organisation, opportunities for improvement and the people he worked with.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look to improve and develop all of the time and be better at things than you already are,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remain fully engaged, energised and committed to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt keeps you motivated. I\u2019ve never felt the need to look anywhere else for the things that are important to me because they are all here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gray\u2019s main focus was to get to know the community and build purposeful relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key to effective policing is through relationships with key partners, such as iwi M\u0101ori, because policing requires a whole community response.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about forming those new relationships with purpose, and not simply because it is something you need to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intimacy is important to build the trust and confidence with one another and that means not turning up only in crisis; turn up as a friend, turn up to say hello, turn up before we want something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gray is based in Palmerston North but assured that his Super Rugby allegiance won\u2019t change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I arrived here … my office was green and white coloured with a Manawat\u016b Cyclones rugby top so I am Cyclones hard now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they won\u2019t take the blue and gold out of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around age 12, Gray moved to Dunedin, which he has called home ever since. He described himself as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30857,12635,806,2046,6636,17436,25819,2082,51370,52211,7570,10509,157226,132087,157225,117,111,43,139,69,675,41466,1240,57442,199,80],"class_list":["post-280762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appoints","tag-area","tag-as","tag-career","tag-challenge","tag-commander","tag-deep","tag-for","tag-gray","tag-inspector","tag-longserving","tag-manawat","tag-manawats","tag-marty","tag-matenga","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-policing","tag-south","tag-swapped","tag-take","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}