Upanup Clone of Executive Leadership

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Taking lead on the administrative operations for the Grande Prairie Police Service is Executive Director Darrin Balanik. Balanik joins GPPS following a 32-year career with Edmonton Police Service, primarily working in frontline operations. He spent the past two years on secondment to the Government of Alberta’s Public Safety and Emergency Services Ministry as a special advisor on policing to the Alberta Provincial Police Service Secretariat.

Balanik brings a solid theoretical and operation background in frontline policing and community partnerships, emergency response command and management, human resources development, employee relations and complaints resolution, executive leadership and communication, and judicial procedures and partnerships. He also has experience as a sessional instructor and field placement coordinator for the Police and Investigation Studies Program at MacEwan University.

At GPPS, Balanik is a strategic advisor, taking the lead on the HR and transition plans and developing policies and procedures. Having grown up in a family of public servants, he says he sees working to serve the people in his community and noble, and within policing the best means to ultimately achieve citizen satisfaction through strong public safety and public confidence in those entrusted to protect them.

Outside of work, Balanik is a music lover who is methodical in completing yard work, landscaping projects, and flowerbed and lawn maintenance. He loves camping in provincial and national parks, especially Jasper National Park, and enjoys boating and yard work, along with following the CFL. Balanik is married to his wife Leanne and has a 23-year-old daughter Madison. He originally hails from rural Saskatchewan and mainly grew up in rural Alberta.

Serving as Superintendent in charge of the Police Operations Division for the Grande Prairie Police Service is John Respet. Superintendent Respet’s may be a familiar name to some, having worked for the RCMP in Grande Prairie starting in 2013 as the detachment’s plain clothes commander.

He also served as District Advisory NCO and the commissioned Operations Officer before being transferred to Edmonton to spend two years as the Director of CISA (Criminal Intelligence Service Alberta) before retiring as the Officer in Charge of the Integrated Internet Child Exploitation Unit in ALERT. He then retired from the RCMP and served as a Director with the Government of Alberta in charge of Contract Policing and Policing Oversight before joining GPPS in October.

Superintendent Respet's extensive law enforcement career spans more than three decades, beginning with a Diploma in Law Enforcement and taking role of Commercial Enforcement Officer with Alberta Transportation in Whitecourt in 1992. Superintendent Respet joined the RCMP in 1995, working General Duty in Grande Cache and Stony Plain and serving plainclothes duties in Project KARE, the task force investigating high-risk missing and murdered sex trade workers in the Edmonton area, and the Serious Crimes Branch, including Major Crimes, and was integral to the creation of the modern-day version of the RCMP’s Missing Persons Unit.

Having been born in Croatia, Superintendent Respet is bilingual and has had opportunities to provide translation services for national, provincial, and local investigation. With his experience in the community and the appeal of building a brand-new municipal police service model, Superintendent Respet says it was an easy decision to pursue this role.

He shares a passion for policing with his wife of more than 36 years, who has 27 years of experience as an RCMP Inspector in Edmonton. They have two sons, the youngest of which is pursuing a law enforcement career with the hope of joining GPPS, and the eldest an accomplished musician. Superintendent Respet is also an avid runner, golfer, and world traveller.

Heading up the Corporate Services & Community Support Division of the Grande Prairie Police Service is Superintendent Greg Redl. Redl comes to GPPS following a 21-year career with the RCMP, finishing in the City of Grande Prairie as an Inspector.

Between 2002 and 2023, Superintendent Redl was posted to High Prairie, AB, Calgary, AB, Cambridge Bay, NU, Fort St. James, B.C., Leaf Rapids, MB, Port Hawkesbury, N.S., and Airdrie, AB, before moving to Grande Prairie. Over that time, he has been honoured with numerous bravery and lifesaving awards and medals, including a bronze medal for bravery from the Royal Canadian Humane Association and a Commissioner's Commendation for Bravery from the RCMP.

Policing has been a part of Superintendent Redl’s entire life, as his father was a police officer, and he wanted the opportunity to make a positive impact on a community in the same way. He has now joined GPPS for the challenge of creating a new police service that is well trained and innovative.

Outside of work, Superintendent Redl enjoys experimenting with new technologies and software, as well as using drones and playing videos games with his brothers. He has a wife and two children, who are all ready to stay in one place for a while.

The Staff Sergeant of Training and Recruiting for the Grande Prairie Police Service is Mike Lefebvre. His role is to work with trainers, experts, and external agencies to develop and oversee training programs for new recruits and experienced officers, as well as to develop and execute a recruitment process.

Originally from Timmins, Ontario, Staff Sergeant Lefebvre joined the RCMP in 1998 and spent his first five years posted in general duty at the Fort St. John, B.C. detachment. He then spent nine years developing his investigative skills in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, splitting his time between street-level drug investigations and projects focused on complex investigations and organized crime, as well as instructing.

He and his family transferred to Grande Prairie in 2012, which led to four years in general duty, a promotion to corporal and then sergeant, getting further involved in instructing. From 2016 until his retirement in March 2022, Staff Sergeant Levebvre took over the role of Staff Sergeant in charge of plainclothes and specialized investigative units and represented the RCMP on various committees in the community.

After retiring, he took on the role of a director with Grande Prairie Enforcement Services and jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the development of GPPS. Grande Prairie is home to Staff Sergeant Lefebvre and he sees the new police service as a fresh start, implementing innovative ideas and developing tailored approaches to address the specific needs of the city.

Staff Sergeant Lefebvre is passionate about cultivating and developing outstanding, ethical, empathetic, and professional officers in a culture where they are esteemed and consistently uphold principles of fair treatment within the community. His other passions are his family, including his wife, four children, and three grandchildren, and spending time outdoors.

Serving as sergeant in the training unit for the Grande Prairie Police Service is Shawn Graham, who spent most of his 25-year career with the RCMP in Grande Prairie. He will be responsible for training new experienced police officers and new applicants, as well as the ongoing training on members.

Sergeant Graham has been involved with tactical training for his entire career and has worked in Community Policing and as a School Resource Officer. He was promoted to corporal in 2015 in Grande Prairie while on general duty and then to sergeant in Community Policing in 2018.

After a quarter-century with the RCMP, Sergeant Graham says it was time to take on a new challenge and jumped at the unique opportunity to help start up a new police force in Grande Prairie. He hopes to bring a high level of training for officers, helping to develop a police service that meets community needs and create a safe environment for residents.

Outside of work, Sergeant Graham enjoys coaching volleyball for the South Peace Volleyball Club.

Graham Bourke has joined the Grande Prairie Police Service as a Senior Constable working on developing and delivering training for new recruits and experienced officers. Bourke is excited to have made his way home for the position, having grown up in northern Alberta.

He comes to the city from Langley, B.C., where he spent seven years with the RCMP as a constable, working in frontline policing, collision investigations, and training as a police instructor. Prior to that, Senior Constable Bourke put in seven years of service with the B.C. Sheriff Service, including four years in northern B.C. and three as a sergeant in B.C.’s lower mainland, after completing Sheriff Recruit Training Academy at the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

Senior Constable Bourke brings with him a strong desire to teach and train in policing, along with a sense of pride in what he does, and a passion for serving the community. Outside of work, his wife and five children keep him busy, and he enjoys spending time outdoors hunting, fishing, and hiking.