Town of Georgetown, MA - Officer Dean Julien

Dean Julien has wanted to be a police officer since he was a youngster growing up in Beverly. Right after high school he joined the Army, training at a military police academy in Louisiana to become a military police officer in 1997.

He remained on active duty in the Army for two years, and then joined the Army Reserves in 1999. He graduated from the Reserve Police Academy in Reading in 1998 and received his associate’s degree in criminal justice from North Shore Community College in 2000. He completed his Army Reserve duty in the fall of 2005.

Since November 2005 he has been a reserve officer for the Georgetown Police Department, and since October 2005, a full-time firefighter in Beverly.

For 15 months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, his Army Reserve unit out of Melrose took oversight of security checkpoints at Logan Airport for day-to-day screening operations. After 15 months, the checkpoints were turned over to the Transportation Safety Administration.

His reserve unit was sent to Afghanistan in April of 2002, where its duty was to secure the Shabaz Airbase in the area of Jacobabad, Pakistan.

The operation, called Raven, was to oversee security of fixed-wing aircraft at the airbase, which also had a fleet of trucks. Julien’s unit also transported troops throughout the entire dangerous area, but fortunately he was never injured.

“It’s a combat zone,” says Julien. “It is what it is. It’s rather tough not knowing who’s your friend and who’s your enemy.”

While stationed in Pakistan, Julien also worked with the USO, and got to meet Robin Williams, Joan Jett, “and numerous generals.”

“I was in the Army because that’s what I wanted to do,” says Julien. “And now I love being a firefighter. We’re always working in teams.”

As a full-time Beverly firefighter, Julien works 24-hour shifts every other day. He was having a day off when the big November 2006 CAI explosion and fire hit just three-quarters of a mile from his fifth-floor Beverly apartment.

“I was sleeping on the couch in front of the TV and the explosion shook me right off the couch,” says Julien. “I thought something fell on my house. I called the Fire Department and they told me about the explosion. I looked out the windows and saw the flames. I was at the explosion scene by early afternoon the next day. It was still burning.”

Julien says many agencies were at the CAI site — HAZMAT, FEMA, MEMA and local fire, police and state police units.

Julien and other Beverly firefighters stood by as a Rapid Intervention Company “in case anything went wrong.” He said there was a powerful odor at the scene.

“It was a real bad smell, a real potent odor,” says Julien. “We didn’t know what it was. People were saying it might be [the common solvent] toluene.”

As a member of the fire department dive team, Julien was sent back to dive and search underwater for debris that might be blocking the Danvers River.

Julien says he has seen the Georgetown Police Department from several different angles over the years, and wanted to join it as well. Master Patrolman Scott Hatch was his field-training officer.

He has now worked all the shifts, done dispatch, and gone on patrol for the department. When the Longview Apartments fire erupted the week after Christmas, Julien helped to evacuate the buildings and maintain the perimeter. He says he enjoyed working with the Baseball Camp last year.

Julien was raised in Beverly and went through the Beverly school system, playing lacrosse and swimming on the school’s swim team. He lives in Beverly with his girlfriend Ericka and his pet, a yellow Labrador retriever.

Julien is available to work with the Georgetown Police Department on the days he is not on duty as a Beverly firefighter. He says the ambitious work schedule, and coming up to Georgetown, does not bother him.

This article originally appeared in the Georgetown Record on Wednesday February 21 , 2007 , By Sally Applegate/Correspondent