FARMINGTON – Less than four hours into his first shift and Christopher Chase already has a motto: “Remain approachable and flexible.”

After a four-year tenure as a patrolman for the Farmington Police Department, Chase accepted a position last week as school resource officer at Mount Blue High School, the county’s largest school with more than 900 students and around 90 teachers/support staff. He was one of two in-house officers who expressed interest in the post, vacated by Shane Campbell.

Chase, 29, and of Wilton, is eager about the new challenge and the changes.

He and his wife, Brandi, have a 17-month-old daughter named Haleigh and he’s looking forward to seeing them more.

So, on Monday he made the transition from behind the steering wheel, to behind the desk. It’s a change that suits him, Chase said.

“It just seemed like the next logical step for me. I think it’s a good career move,” Chase explained, leaning back in his chair and glancing out his office window that looks out in the hall as students hustled past. “More so, I think it’s a good job. It’s just one more job to learn.”

Already, he said he misses the camaraderie of working with other officers on the force, but being a school officer, he hopes, is his way to do preventative police work.

“If you can get to them now, perhaps you can give them some guidance. Maybe you can make a difference, he said.

Chase, now a plain-clothes officer who wears only a gun and handcuffs, isn’t nervous about the new job, he said, because he knows the law.

Only a decade out of high school himself, Chase remembers what it was like being a teen. He hopes to right the wrongs so many students face.

“I want to help make people who are intimidated feel safer about coming to school. That’s what it’s all about,” he said. “I am a policeman first, but I am also just here to help and listen.”

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