He enters his second year as Salt Lake County's top cop with a smaller jurisdiction than ever - far from his vision of a valleywide police force.

His predecessor lost policing contracts in Taylorsville and Draper. Under Winder's watch, Cottonwood Heights has defected. And Holladay soon could follow.

Yet the Democratic sheriff remains a disciple of a centrally commanded cross-county police force - a creed he pledges to continue to proselytize. It's about philosophy, he insists, not power.

"It isn't about salvaging an office or some bureaucracy," Winder said. "I honestly believe the creation of more and more police agencies is wrong."

Winder exits a tumultuous year as sheriff.

He condemned legislation that would have formed a Unified Police District with his office's contract cities, but championed an administrative control board to give those clients a louder voice in day-to-day law enforcement.

He successfully lobbied the County Council for more beds at the high-security Adult Detention Center, but lost his bid to reopen Oxbow Jail.

And he fought feverishly to keep his five contract cities - Cottonwood Heights, Holladay, Riverton, Bluffdale and Herriman - in the sheriff's fold. But Cottonwood Heights voted this month to create its own police department.

Since taking the oath, Winder has proven himself both a hand-pumping politician and a blue-collared street cop - marching side by side with union members in Cottonwood Heights, testifying before the Legislature and responding to wintertime crashes in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

He is committed and confident to some, uncompromising and uncollaborative to others, and undeterred as the newest sheriff in town.

Love of labor

Born into a union-blooded family, Winder keeps his labor roots close as head of the county's 1,400-employee sheriff's office.

"He's still a cop," remarked Dirk Roesler, president of the Salt Lake County Deputy Sheriffs Federation. "He isn't losing sight of that."

Maybe it's because his father, David Winder, defended rank-and-file officers as an attorney for Salt Lake City's police union before his appointment to the federal bench.

Maybe it's because his great uncle, a coal miner, fought so ferociously for labor that family members believe he was killed for it.

Even his grandfather, a first-generation Irish immigrant, carried the union tradition as a coal-mine owner in Kentucky and southern Illinois.

But Winder's labor leanings have much to do with his first foray into management as a twentysomething at Hill Air Force Base, where he worked as a welding supervisor.

He was young, ambitious and commanding a crew twice his age.

Trouble was, his colleagues wouldn't listen to him. So Winder stuffed his front pocket with workers' paychecks - a telltale sign among union members that the boss was about to can whoever's names were on those stubs.

But instead of inducing fear among his crew, the ploy prompted the men to stop working, and Winder soon found his own performance under fire.

"It hit me like a brick," Winder said. "I fell into the trap of management. There is a moment, for all people, when you can fall prey to the management philosophy that you can become the big man."

From that day on, he buttoned up his blue collar and vowed to keep his mind on labor's front line.

Pooch patrol

Law enforcement came naturally to Winder - despite his wild teenage years as the "judge's son."

He transported prisoners as a corrections officer, then ferreted out fugitive parole violators for Adult Probation and Parole. What Winder really wanted, though, was to be a cop.

He volunteered as a sheriff's reserve officer in Magna, patrolling the township's streets. At last, in 1987, the office put him on the payroll.

Winder found his niche in the K-9 unit - first as the man wearing the "bite suit" and later as an officer with his own canine cohort, a Rottweiler named Atticus.

His knack for K-9 cop work later earned him international recognition. He competed in the K-9 world championship in Germany and twice judged it. He coached the top American team and has judged K-9 competitions in Canada and Las Vegas.

Winder's pooch patrol days may have passed, but he still keeps a German shepherd named Bak. He's a search-and-rescue dog, owned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Winder's aspirations for sheriff surfaced in 1999, when he and other deputies began to sense disparity between how the rules were applied to the rank-and-file versus leadership. That dissatisfaction morphed into a union movement in 2003, in which Winder founded the Deputy Sheriffs Federation.

Union members say Winder remains a friend to their cause, initiating reforms during his first term to the promotion system within the sheriff's office.

"He definitely seems to have the well-being of members at the front of his mind," Roesler said.

Secession obsession

Not all of the sheriff's "members" feel that love - particularly cities that contract for services.

Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore described the sheriff as uncompromising in providing his suburb with local law-enforcement control.

Winder protested the formation of a Unified Police District, saying it would create an Articles of Confederation-style sheriff's office with a fractured command structure.

Instead, he molded an administrative board to give the cities more direction over daily law enforcement without cracking the sheriff's countywide command.

Cullimore called the Winder's push toward greater community control "sincere," but said it fell short of his suburb's expectations.

"His style was more centralized," Cullimore said. "and not as consistent with our contract."

He criticized the sheriff as becoming too adversarial in trying to stop Cottonwood Heights from bolting. He described as a misstep Winder's decision to join union members in a door-knocking campaign throughout his community - an effort Cullimore claims spread misinformation.

Riverton Mayor Bill Applegarth also had considered a split from the sheriff's office, but ultimately stuck with it - much to Winder's credit, he said.

The mayor described the sheriff as a confident, in-the-trenches leader who went out of his way to work with the southwest suburb. And, personally, Applegarth spoke of Winder as compassionate in consoling the wife of a man who barricaded himself inside a home and later was shot by a SWAT team.

"I would give him an 'A,' " the retired schoolteacher said.

More beds, fewer breaks

And so this young, but gray-haired, sheriff enters his second year still passionate about metro policing and adding more jail beds.

He calls the creation of city police departments "tribalism," exposing the Salt Lake Valley to the same splintered resources and communication that hindered emergency responses in New York after the World Trade Center attacks.

And he plans to push for the unshuttering of Oxbow Jail - despite the County Council's rejection of any money to upgrade its infrastructure. While the county's jail population pinch hasn't returned to a crisis level (as it did last summer), he said cell space remains cramped.

"We are going to keep bouncing up against this," he said. "The only long-term solution is more beds."

Behind his desk, Winder keeps a glossy photo of his swearing-in ceremony and a black-and-white reminder of the grandfather he would dare not shame.

He believes he has lived up to his oath and his ancestor - all the while keeping the paychecks out of his front pocket.

"All glory is fleeting," he said. "After it is done, leave it better than you get it."

jstettler@sltrib.com

James Winder

Age: 43.

Family: Wife, Shawn; Children, Alex (5) and Atticus (1).

Occupation: Salt Lake County sheriff.

Education: Graduated from East High in 1982; attended Salt Lake Community College and Westminster College; completed training at the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Academy.

Hobbies: Skiing and photography.

Favorite book: To Kill a Mockingbird.

Dream vacation: The Maritime provinces of Canada.

Most admired person: Grandfather, James Andrew Martin.

Fun fact: Competed in the K-9 world championship in Germany and judged it twice.