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Four months on the job, East Naples Substation Commander Lt. Rich Gibbons is new to the position, but not the community.

“It’s like a dream come true that I am back where I grew up,” says the hometown boy, “The fact that I’m back where I once caught tadpoles and ate watermelons right out of their patches, riding my bike, and just doing everything kids do at that age really hasn’t sunk in yet. But I’ll tell you what, even though all of it hasn’t sunk in, I couldn’t be happier.”

Rare indeed is it to find someone who totally loves his job - yet Gibbons appears to be completely in tune with his position, along with all the twists and turns the job entails.

Gibbons was born in Brooklyn, NY, but moved to Florida with his family in 1971. Since that time, he’s lived at Coconut Circle, Kelly Drive before it became Bayshore, and off Glades Boulevard.

“I came to know the area quite well while growing up and I think that serves me as a member of the Sheriff’s Office,” he explains.

Gibbons attended East Naples Middle School and subsequently graduated from Lely High before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps.

“I really didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated from high school, but I thought the Marines were the outfit for me,” he says. “I guess they really were because I spent 11 years in the Corps and I enjoyed every minute of it.”

After he left the Corps, Gibbons returned to Naples and applied with the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.

“I always had a dream of catching the bad guys and helping people,” Gibbons revealed.

He was initially assigned to East Naples and later transferred to Immokalee in 1991. Four years later, he was promoted to Patrol Supervisor for East Naples, a position he held for 10 years before being promoted to commander on Sept. 20.

“It was like a dream come true,” Gibbons smiled, “and since it’s only been about four months, I feel like I’m still a rookie. I’ve come down a little bit from Cloud Nine since then because reality has set in.”

Gibbons says the job is everything he thought it would be.

“I grew up here, I lived here, I came home, and now I’m the Lieutenant of the district where I grew up,” he says. “I drive around the same streets where I grew up riding my bike, where a dog chased me down the street, where I got in trouble, and I just love it.”

Gibbons recalled an experience from his first night on patrol after being transferred to East Naples from Immokalee. A call came in about a disturbance at Bayshore Court Apartments.

“There was a big fight among a bunch of guys with broken glass everywhere and everything was going on,” Gibbons recalled. “It wasn’t anything super serious with guns and at all, but we had to arrest a couple of people and one guy wound up going to the hospital.”

As he walked around the inside and outside of the apartment, he came to a surprising conclusion.

“I said to my partner, ‘I can’t believe this, I just can’t believe this.’ And he says to me, ‘What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?’ I said to him, ‘I used to live in this apartment.’ It was my old apartment.”

In the interim between growing up in East Naples and returning years later, Gibbons has seen many changes - some good, some not so good, but he still remains a steadfast hometown believer.

“I guess Naples has grown from around 30 to 40,000 in 1971 to around 400,000-plus today,” he says of the growth. “I still remember calling my Dad from Okinawa when I was in the Marines and him telling me Naples just got a brand-new Kmart. Hey, that was a big deal back then.”

So much has changed - but not the Gibbons name.

“Every now and then I meet someone who looks at my nameplate and asks, ‘Gibbons, Gibbons... do you remember Rich Gibbons?’ And I have to smile and say, ‘Yes, I do,’ because that was my father who was a member of the Naples Fire Department. Through him, I’ve met a host of wonderful people.”

Which just goes to prove, you can go home again.