Candidate: Shawn Hingson

I  would like to give you some of my background:  I have been married to my wife Carol for 35 years.  We are blessed with two children and four grandchildren.  We own a small farm south of town.  We attend Philadelphia Baptist Church.  I am treasurer of Suwannee County Farm Bureau.  Why do I think I am qualified to be your Sheriff?  Well, here is some of my background in public service.  In the beginning of my career, I worked with Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Forestry for 10 1/2 years.  As a Forest Ranger, I was certified as a wildland firefighter.  While working as a Forest Ranger, I had the opportunity to work all over the state during natural disasters and also had the opportunity to be deployed to Medford, Oregon on a western fire detail.  During my career with Forestry I promoted to Senior Forest Ranger and during that time I assisted with scheduling, property inventory, budget management, and would deploy to any incident throughout the state as a strike team leader or division supervisor.  From Forestry, I transferred to Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Office of Agriculture Law Enforcement.  During my 17 year career in Law Enforcement I would volunteer for deployment on natural disasters as needed and after acquiring experience as an officer, I promoted to Sergeant.  Shortly thereafter I promoted again to Lieutenant where I was assinged to the new Pensacola station to oversee the final stages of construction.  I was also part of an interview board that promoted officers to Sergeants and hiring new officers.  I then promoted to the rank of Captain.  I was in charge of overseeing the day to day operations in my assigned region.  While serving as Captain I was also responsible for managing my regional budget, property inventory, evidence room and interviewing potential new officers.  I would like to take the time now to explain to you about my career in law enforcement with the Department of Agriculture (Ag Law).  Ag Law is certainly a different type of law enforcement than a Police Department or Sheriff's Office.  Their Core mission is protecting Florida Consumers with a safe food source through regulatory inspections.  During these routine inspections, time to time criminal activities would be revealed. This criminal activity ranged from illegal drugs (narcotics), cash seizures, stolen merchandise, stolen equipment or fraudulent animal health documents.  During my career, I have personally made felony traffic stops, DUI cases, domestic violence cases, baker acts, fraud and narcotic seizure and arrest.  As I promoted through the ranks to Captain, I was responsibility to ensure that any officer under my command, performed their duties professionally, were properly trained and followed policy and procedure.  Also, it was my responsibility to maintain my regional budget, fleet of patrol cars and stations to State standards.  Through my career and experience I feel I am well qualified to be your next Sheriff and it would be an honor to serve each and everyone of you.  You can see post on my facebook page, Shawn Hingson for Sheriff, or if you would like to meet or talk to me, you may call my cell phone 386-364-8667.  Once again, I would be honored to be your next Sheriff.