Joseph Peter Emond was born on July 12th,1952 in San Francisco.

His mother Helen is 100% Irish, his father Charles was 3/4 Irish and 1/4 French.

Both of his parents were born and raised in San Francisco.

Joe was an only child.

Later on, Joe went to night school and received his Bachelors in Administration of Justice from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.  His masters (a general with an emphasis on Law Enforcement) he received from Humboldt State.

Joe worked for a dairy store part time through high school and city college. He later took tests for the California Highway Patrol and San Francisco Police Department. He passed both. While waiting to be hired by either department, Joe was a traffic controller for the city, working downtown San Francisco.

The CHP academy was five months long and Joe graduated on September 30th, 1974.  Since he was not married at the time he was sent to the South LA office. (Watts, Compton area)

Joe finally received a transfer back to the San Francisco CHP office the latter part of 1977.

Joe and Chris bought a home in the Noe Valley section of San Francisco, where both their children were born.  Joseph in December of 1982 and Kristi in April 1985. During this time they started a vending company, which they both worked part-time. Mostly soda and candy machines, they sold the business after three years.

Joe then decided to study and take the test for sergeant. He passed and in July of 1987, Joe accepted a position in Crescent City.  The family followed February of 1988 while Chris stayed behind to sell the house and get things in order.

Joe was the one to find their home in Hiouchi. They were only going to stay in Del Norte for one year and had plans to move back to the city.  But the year turned into years, and not wanting to pull the children out of school...they stayed.

Chris got involved with the volunteer fire department, so she joined in 1989.  Shortly after that she joined SAR. Joe followed, joining the Smith River Fire Department and SAR.

While in the Crescent City office, Joe started as S-2 (second sergeant). He was on the response team for any shootings in the CHP Northern Division.  He helped organize and stage local emergency response training's. (MOC trainings) He organized training burns for the fire department in Hiouchi and helped implement the cadet program in the fire department so that Joseph and Kristi could get involved. 

In 1997, Joe became S-1 (second in command of the CHP office) and also taught "Administration of Justice" at the College of the Redwoods for three years.

By 2003, Joe was the Training Officer for Search & Rescue and became a Captain with the Smith River Fire Department.

When Joe passed away on November 2nd, 2003, he was with the CHP for 29 years (sergeant for 16 years).

Joe and Chris were married for 27 years and both their children were off to college.

Joe would of retired in April of 2004, with 30 years of service.

 

For those of use who were lucky enough to get to know Joe, knew that without question, he was an outstanding father, husband, and friend to many. His dedication to family and his co-workers was unprecedented and with him now gone, one can only feel lucky to have known him.