2 minute read
Old dog's new bricks
Editorial: Danielle Ford
Photography: Jesse Wray-McCann
When Danny Vakulcyzk was 17 and working as an apprentice bricklayer on the C Block building at the Victoria Police Academy, the thought of being a police officer never crossed his mind.
“When we were working on C Block it was all scaffolded up and I would be standing up there watching the recruits out the back running around the oval,” he said.
“I’d have a bit of a chuckle every now and then and think ‘You’d never catch me out there'.”
Thirty-eight years later, the now 55-year-old is a detective senior constable at Heidelberg Crime Investigation Unit (CIU), having joined Victoria Police when he was 47.
“After finishing my apprenticeship, I continued to lay bricks right up until I joined Victoria Police,” Det Sen Const Vakulcyzk said.
“I’d always been looking for something other than bricklaying to do, but it was more a question of what exactly I wanted to do.
Det Sen Const Danny Vakulcyzk traded in bricks and a trowel for a gun and handcuffs when he left his 30-year bricklaying career to join Victoria Police at the age of 47.
After working for just over two years as a general duties officer, Det Sen Const Vakulcyzk completed two secondments with the
Heidelberg CIU before applying for full-time placement with the unit.
Showing that age is no barrier, Det Sen Const Vakulcyzk completed his detective training in June, which at 55 made him one of the oldest people to have gone through Victoria Police’s Detective Training School.
“A few of the jokesters in the office like to say Danny was adamant to tick it off his bucket list,” Heidelberg CIU Detective Sergeant Andrew Beames said.
While joining Victoria Police at an older age has made for some good-natured workplace banter, Det Sgt Beames said Det Sen Const Vakulcyzk gives a lot of the younger police a run for their money.
“He may be one of the oldest at the unit but he’d have to be the fittest,” Det Sgt Beames said.
“He is always out there at the coalface doing the heavy lifting, which was evident in his first shift back after completing Detective Training School, which ended up being a 15-hour stint.”
As a 17-year-old bricklaying apprentice, Det Sen Const Danny Vakulcyzk worked on the C Block building at the academy, never thinking about joining Victoria Police at the time.
Det Sen Const Vakulcyzk said he has loved every minute of his career change and said he had one piece of advice for people hesitant about making the switch to a career in policing.
“Give it a go, you won’t regret it,” he said.
“I’m certainly glad I’m not out in the cold weather laying bricks anymore.”
