When Colleen Mestas became police chief of Visalia in December 2009 after serving as interim chief for three months, the law enforcement veteran achieved a rare milestone – with a little help from her husband.
With Carlos A. Mestas serving as police chief of nearby Hanford since 2003, the two instantly became only the second husband-and-wife team of police chiefs in California history.
Carlo Cudio was police chief of Monterey in 2005 when his wife, Paulette, was appointed police chief in Gonzales in 2005.
Both Colleen and Carlos Mestas say the demanding job of running police departments has made for some fascinating pillow talk, but that they try not to bring their work home with them.
“It can be difficult,” says Colleen Mestas, 46. “You have to make a concerted effort to say to yourself, ‘I’m at home now.’ We have to remind ourselves that we are people outside of work.”
Carlos Mestas, 62, says he finds it easier than his wife does to avoid talking shop.
“She’s a police chief 24 hours a day,” he says. “I can turn it off, much like turning off a light switch.”
Although the police chiefs have shared wedding vows and now share the same job title, they are very different people who oversee law enforcement in two distinct cities.
“She’s a lot smarter than I am,” Carlos Mestas says. “She’s also a very Type A person who is quick to make up her mind, while I’m more likely to sleep on things.”
Visalia, in Tulare County, is a city of 124,000 that is patrolled by 144 sworn officers.
Hanford, in Kings County, is a more isolated, rural community of 55,000 patrolled by 53 officers.
Carlos Mestas sometimes is asked if it bothers him that his wife runs a larger police agency.
“As long as she makes more money than me,” he tells people, “I don’t care.”
The two met when both were working for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department — she was a deputy, he was a lieutenant.
After about three years of dating, the two married, in 1991.
Colleen Mestas has spent most of her life in law enforcement, starting as an explorer for the Clovis Police Department. She was hired as a full-time deputy for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department in 1988.
When she became Visalia’s permanent police chief in 2009, Mestas made history another way, too: as the first female to ever hold that in the Visalia PD.
Carlos Mestas spent 28 years with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department and left there in 2003 as a captain to accept the police chief position in Hanford. He currently is the director at large on the California Police Chiefs Executive Board, which represents the state’s 335 police chiefs.
With two police chiefs as parents, it’s no surprise that the couple’s 18-year-old daughter, Illissa, grew up hyper aware of law enforcement.
Her father recalls driving one day with her when she was around 5. They pulled up to a car driven by a sketchy looking person.
“Dad,” Illissa asked him. “Do you have your gun?”
Alissa recently moved to the Los Angeles area to attend California Lutheran University. She is not interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement but rather something in the communications or advertising field.
“She’s seen all the weekends we’ve had to work,” Colleen Mestas says.
Not only does Colleen Mestas have the larger police agency, but she also has the shorter commute. The couple lives in Visalia, which is about 15 miles from Hanford.
And now, with Illissa out of the house, Colleen and Carlos Mestas have more time to focus on each other instead of their daughter’s education and water polo practice and tournaments.
For at least the foreseeable future, though, their careers will continue to be their focus.
“I’m not thinking about retiring,” Carlos Mestas says. “I just love this job. The day I come here and I feel tired of doing this will be the day I leave.”