If you’ve had to call the Oak Harbor police — or, ahem, been misbehaving — there’s a good chance you’ve met Steve Nordstrand.

He’s worked for Oak Harbor Police since 1985.

After 31 years, he worked his last shift Tuesday. He’s the most senior officer on the force.

When he started, he made $1,400 a month, and Oak Harbor was a much smaller place.

“He’s the epitome of what an officer should be,” said police Chief Ed Green. “He’ll be missed.”

Nordstrand came to Oak Harbor via the Navy. He grew up in Minnesota. The choices were farming or long-haul trucking. He enlisted in the Navy, where he worked as an aviation machinist mate. His first duty station was Whidbey and he didn’t want to leave. He met and married his wife Cheryle. Becoming a police officer just seemed natural.

“My mom said that when I played cops and robbers, I was always the cop,” he said.

He worked for the police as a reserve officer before being hired. Over the years, he’s watched the town change and grow. It’s a much calmer place than it used to be, he said.

In particular, a drunken triangle of bars downtown kept his night shifts busy. And he did love the night shifts. He’d rather be busy than bored. It used to be he’d put away several DUIs a week. Now it’s more like one a month. That’s a good thing, he said.

If he’s too busy at work, it means the city is sick.

“This town has tamed down considerably,” he said.

When he first started, there were few portable radios and he often worked a shift solo. If something went wrong — he was on his own. The city didn’t have its own jailer so he would book the people into jail he arrested. Sometimes he had to step in if the dispatcher needed a break.

He doesn’t normally work nights anymore. Nordstrand, who sports a bristled mustache, pours coffee into a mug that may not have been washed since 1985 and clutches it as he cruises the city. He’s looking for everything and anything. On his last shift, he was busy hunting down someone who had his motorcycle vandalized.

Most calls people make to 911 are not anything the police can do anything about, he said. He rolled his eyes at a recent 911 call from a parent who couldn’t control her 6-year-old.

He’s learned a few things over the years. One of the most valuable skills is learning how to use brains, not brawn to defuse a tense situation.

Nordstrand is not a small man. But there are many moments when he needs to pull another tool from the box. For instance, that moment when he meets up with those two drunk brothers pushing 260 pounds who are loggers: “You aren’t going to take them,” he said. “I learned the verbal skills quickly for self preservation.”

He’s known in the department as the “crazy whisperer.” He can talk the difficult people down from a situation.

“(He) was always very good at talking to people,” said officer Bill Wilkie. “He was our ‘go-to person’ on people with mental health or violent attitudes as he usually could get them calm when other officers or jailers did not have the same success.”

Here’s something Nordstrand didn’t learn in police academy. Sometimes, if it gets hairy, he sits on the hood of his car.

“It has to do with body language,” he said. “I’ll just sit on my car. Maybe they’re thinking I’m in a vulnerable situation. That de-escalates the situation. I’m not here to get you, I’m here to listen to you.”

But, yes, he eventually gets them.

When he talks about his work, Nordstrand maintains a cop’s dry and dark sense of humor. The people left standing are on his mind, so much so he didn’t want to talk about some of the horrific scenes he’s attended over the years. Nobody calls the police when everything is going right, he said.

He’s held a number of roles over the year. He steered children toward the right path as a DARE instructor, and was one of the original members of a joint city-county SWAT team.

He’s a SCUBA diver certified for rescue and evidence recovery. He’s done more recovering of the dead.

He did get to “drive” a F-700 truck under water as it was towed after it rolled off a ferry at Clinton.

In the 1990s he was the handler of Zeke, a 105-pound Rottweiler and Oak Harbor’s finest K9 officer. Nordstrand trained Zeke as a puppy, and the dog accompanied his human everywhere. Zeke would chase down suspects. He’d also serve as ambassador. Nordstrand could let him loose in a class full of first graders to make friends.

“He was one of the friendliest dogs — as long as I was around,” he said. Or if you weren’t running from the police.

Perhaps his most important role has been as mentor, the police chief said. Nordstrand has served as “work dad” to more than one new officer.

He had a trainee in his car during an event that he’s infamous for in the department. He has the distinction of the longest police pursuit in city history.

He chased a suspect all the way to the Canadian border at speeds topping 100 mph.

The driver crashed through the gate at the border and the Mounties took care of him on the other side. They rammed his car.

Nordstrand isn’t going quietly into the good night. He flies a vintage 1957 Piper Apache and plans to take her up as often as he can. He’s working on a commercial rating, just for the challenge.

Would he do it again? Maybe he would have pursued a career in aviation, if his family had the resources. But he has no regrets.

“It’s been good.”