Wernet promoted to Captain in Mason City Police Department

MASON CITY — A longtime member of the Mason City Police Department has been promoted to the position of Police Captain. Logan Wernet has been a full-time police department employee since 1991 and has held progressively more difficult roles over those 34 years. He has been a lieutenant for the last 16 years.

Police Chief Jeff Brinkley says Wernet has numerous ties to several groups and organizations throughout the community.  “Logan fills an important role in our department in terms of helping to mentor our younger command staff. As time goes on here, our generation is starting to retire, we’re going to have some people that he’ll be able to mentor. I think Logan will be good at that. He’s demonstrated a knack for that as a lieutenant in our organization.”

Brinkley says Wernet has played a key role in the department’s field training program.   “I always tell people when they go through the field training program when we hire them, we don’t have a memorial out in front of our department to all the officers that we’ve lost, and being a police officer here is a difficult job, but we train you well, but it’s hard. I give Logan a lot of credit for that because of how he runs the program. I think you’ll see that coming back as an investment in the future of the police department.”

Wernet says he is looking forward to working with incoming Chief Mike McKelvey.   “Captain McKelvey moving to chief, he’s got some great ideas that he wants to do moving forward. He’s shared some of those with me. I think it’s an exciting time for the department and the city. Obviously we need to work on staffing still to bring that up. It’s important for our officers and the citizens both.”

Wernet says succession training is going to be a key focus of his in the department.  “Succession training is going to be big. In about four to five years, you’re probably lose half of your command staff for retirement. We’ve hired some really good officers in the last few years that I think we can count on to lead the department in the years to come.”

Wernet’s promotion comes as current Captain Mike McKelvey will be promoted to the Police Chief position on November 14th, when he replaces Brinkley, who is retiring.