"I'm just your average person really," he said. "There is nothing special about me."

He was 22 when he joined the police academy and despite being surrounded by family who were in the force, he says it was just something he fell into.

"I'm the only one left in my family that is doing policing. I came from a history of policing. My father was an inspector, he retired in 2000. My mother was a policewoman in England with my father and I had cousins and uncles in the force, too. So yes, I suppose it was in the blood to a certain degree," he said.

Now 25 years later, he has been promoted to Tasmania Police Detective Inspector of Property and Drugs Northern CIB Division.

While he had no burning ambition to be an officer, he has developed a passion for stopping crime across the state.

Spending time in the Launceston drug squad and the city's CIB, along with Devonport's CIB, his career started on the North-West coast.

Detective Inspector Fox spent a few years at Stanley, three years on King Island as the Sergeant and has also been posted to Deloraine.

But he said maintaining a good work-life balance was the key to being a good officer and a good father; making sure he has other interests outside the police force.

"I really love coaching football. I've been coaching AFL at a junior level for seven years. I've had the same group of kids come through from under nines, and now they're in under 16s," he said.

"That's a pretty big commitment over the winter, but I really enjoy it. It keeps me involved in the sport I used to play. I still play a lot of sport, I'm not a bad golfer, and I play volleyball. But I'm 47, so things are starting to slow down now."

Learning to miss important events, is one of the downsides of the job, Detector Inspector Fox said.

"Missing out on family and social events that others take for granted is the harder part of it. I just make sure I do what I can with my family when I can," he said.

"Whenever I get the opportunity I go for a bike ride with my daughter, watch her play basketball or touch footy.

"My kids get a lot of stuff at school like 'I saw your dad on TV last night, or in the paper'. My son is nearly 16 so I'm probably the "uncoolest" person in the world."

But here is where he thinks the family tradition of policing will come to an end. He doesn't think his children will follow in his footsteps.

"My son is definitely different to me. But look, if they did, and it's what they wanted to do, I wouldn't discourage them. It's a good job. You work with some really good people. But at this stage I'd be surprised if they continued on with the family tradition."

It's a job that has many hard to forget cases, especially some of his earlier ones.

"I remember being the first officer at a siege on the far northwest coast back in the late 90s where I was shot at," he said.

"The siege went on for about four days. I'd only been in the police about two or three years and I just remember thinking it was also pretty scary getting shot at."

Since then, he has attended a huge number of fatal crashes.

"It's the personal side of things for me. I've had a fair bit to do with the families of fatals and murder victims. It's really hard. I'm a caring person, and I try and understand how they are feeling even though I have no idea. I'm very empathetic about the fact they've just lost someone in terrible circumstances," he said.

"They're high-impact cases."

The Detective Inspector's progression was natural, filling in acting roles for a couple of years before being offered the main role after showing a passion for reducing drugs and crime in the North.

"We don't live in a perfect world, there is always going to be people who do the wrong things. We can't stop it, but if you can try if you can reduce it and make Launceston, and all the north as a state, a safer place for people to live then that's what I'm about," he said.

"Then hopefully being really all over that makes it makes it a safer place for us. It's amazing with Launceston; if you manage to put several people away who are committing probably 80 per cent of your crime it has a really positive effect on our work and the community."

He reiterated that crime doesn't just happen in Launceston.

"I'd like to think that Launceston and Tasmania in general was still pretty much a very safe place to live. We're not immune to the problems the bigger cities have but we definitely have it on a lot smaller scale," he said.

"In the last years we've had some fairly high-profile crimes, with some murders, some good drug intercepts. So people can get a bit of a perception of because it's high profile, is that what Launceston is about? The reality is no. Those type of jobs are still very much in the minority."

His aim is to stay in the role for as long as he can, with five years marked as the minimum.

"My aim is to have made Tasmania a safer community when I'm done. I think it's a better and a safer place than what it was 25 years ago when I graduated, but we still have some work to do," he said.

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