This city owes Mike Sanphy its gratitude for an outstanding career dedicated to public service here in Wesbrook. I want to congratulate Michael not only for a job well done above and beyond the call of duty, but also for being there for so many people and for making so many friends in our community.

Personally, I’ve know Mike most of his career here, being a resident of Westbrook since 1954, I’ve also seen many changes in our city. Mike continues to perform a public service by documenting the many events occurring here and making our historical archives available to us every week in the American Journal, continuing a tradition of historic photos which began long ago by the late Stan Marzul. They document the many years of change here in our city, many of which folks my age, and older, remember well. For those young people who were not around then, it is a reminder of what our city was.

Professionally, I had the distinct honor of working with Mike in his capacity as emergency management director for the city for many years when I was weather coordinator for Cumberland and York County Emergency Management Agencies. Mike and I worked a lot of weather situations, but the most memorable indeed was our 500 year flood in October 1996 when Westbrook was completely cut off from the rest of the world as the river rose to the level of the road decks on both bridges. Mike performed an enormous public service by taking many photographs of that event, and asked me to write a layman’s version of my meteorological paper on the flood, which was published, together with his photos, in the 1997 Westbrook Fire Department Yearbook, a copy of which resides downtown in the Walker Memorial Library, and also with my complete meteorological archives at my alma mater, Lyndon State College, in Vermont, as part of the public record, the likes of which we will never likely see again.

So, Mike, from one of your friends and colleagues in the emergency management business, thanks for 40 years of outstanding service to the city of Westbrook, and I wish you many happy and healthy years of retirement, and please, keep your camera handy!

Marc P. Mailhot

Westbrook