Nearly three dozen new police officers officially began their careers over the weekend, helping alleviate a manpower shortage which nonetheless continues to pose challenges for the department.

The rookie class, which began training at the academy in January, graduated 39 new officers, making it one of the largest classes in the department's history.

31 of those began their solo shifts over the weekend; another 8 had their training delayed for one reason or another, but will begin patrol in the next couple of weeks, according to TPD spokesman Jason Willingham.

For one of those officers, hitting the street on Sunday was the achievement of a goal which took him many years to fulfill.

"I'm 37 years old," Jason Hamm told KRMG Sunday afternoon as he sat in the breakroom at the Mingo Valley Division Headquarters near 11th St. and U.S. 169. "I always knew this is what I wanted to do, just never pursued it until later in life."

Hamm spent 13 years as a program manager in the aerospace industry.

Then, "in 2003 I decided to go back to school," he said. "That's when I decided that I was gonna pursue this career, so it was easy to pick the major of Criminal Justice at that point."

He graduated in the fall of 2007 from NSU Broken Arrow, and applied several times over the next 3 and a half years to the Tulsa Police Academy.

Hamm says he took the test, passed it, but it wasn't until the third try that he finally got the call. Sunday marked the culmination of an eight-year commitment to become a Tulsa police officer.

Another new officer, Billy White, took a more direct route in his life.

"I'm the first person in my family to get into this line of work," he said. He worked at the University of Tulsa as a campus security officer, and liked the work. He also attended school at NSU Broken Arrow to get his degree in Criminal Justice.

"I just knew that this was what I wanted to do."

And, both men agreed, they didn't want to work anywhere other than Tulsa.

"Growing up in Tulsa, living here my whole life, it just -- that's what I wanted to do. That was the end goal, so, for me I didn't even really consider other departments. That's not a knock on them, it's just Tulsa's where I live, it's where I want to help out."

Their supervisor, Sgt. Cathy Reynolds, is a 23-year veteran of TPD. She told KRMG she remembers well what it felt like to go on patrol for the first time as a new officer without a trainer riding along. "Nervous, anxious, ready to go," she said.

When asked if she's nervous for the new officers, she replied "certainly, it's something I consider not only for them, but for the officers in the squad. We all have family and friends that we want to go home to after every shift.

"That is the biggest issue for me -- that we do what we can to keep ourselves safe."

Also, she added, "we have a wonderful squad. A lot of veterans, a lot of very knowledgeable officers; I know that they remember what it's like to be these young officers, and they will do their part to ensure that their training continues but in a less than official manner."

Willingham recently told KRMG  TPD had about 820 officers just a couple of years ago, at the height of its manpower.

Even then, according to the standards of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the department  was understaffed.

Currently, the city allows TPD to have 781 officers. However, the department is losing between two and five officers a month on average to attrition -- retirement, termination, etc. -- and simply can't replace them.

With all 39 new officers sworn and on patrol, the department will have a total of 743, leaving them 38 short of the number allowed -- a shortage of just under five percent.

To become a Tulsa police officer, a recruit must be accepted to the 26-week TPD Academy, then serve about 3 more months as a trainee.

That's true even if the candidate is an experienced officer with years of duty under his or her belt.

TPD is also one of the few police departments in the nation to require all officers to have a bachelor's degree.

Mayor Dewey Bartlett and TPD Chief Chuck Jordan recently announced the department will hold another academy of approximately 30 officers in December.

Those officers will hit the streets in September, 2012.