Gerald Schofield, who has been with the Freeport Police Department for nearly 40 years – 28 of them as chief – will retire March 25.

Schofield said he recently told Town Manager Peter Joseph of his intentions, and Scholfield planned to be on hand this week when Joseph makes the retirement announcement official at Tuesday’s Town Council meeting.

“Internally, we’ve got the best crew I’ve ever had here,” Schofield said Friday. “The same with the (town) manager, the council, the department heads. I think I’m going out with things in a good position.”

Joseph agreed with Schofield that the department is in good shape.

“The police department is extremely well run – everybody there, not just Jerry,” Joseph said last week. “Morale is good, and it starts at the top. He is really accessible to the public. Residents feel they can go in there and talk to him about an issue.”

Lt. Susan Nourse will serve as interim chief during the time between Schofield’s retirement and when a new hire is made, Joseph said. Nourse will be paid a stipend yet to be determined, he said.

“It will likely be for less than a month,” he said.

Joseph said that it can be difficult to be both an effective police chief and an esteemed public figure.

“He’s always been one who has done the second part of that,” he said, “but to be an effective police chief you have to have both of those and Jerry does.”

Joseph said that he and his assistant, Judy Hawley, have begun to review a job description for the town’s police chief that was written all those years ago when Schofield came on board.

Schofield is earning $92,514.24. Joseph and Hawley are working with Town Council Chairwoman Melanie Sachs and Vice Chairman Scott Gleeson on recruitment of a new police chief. They might hire a consultant to evaluate a revised application, and could invite public input through “meet-and-greets” at the Town Hall, Joseph said.

Schofield, 63, grew up in Michigan. His family moved to Watertown, Mass. Schofield earned a degree in applied science from Chamberlain Junior College in Boston, then took a job with a sewing machine manufacturer for four years.

All the while, he had been thinking of going into law enforcement. Friends of the family got a job in Brunswick, and Schofield learned from a Maine Municipal Association bulletin that there were job openings in the field in the midcoast area. He took tests, and landed a job as a patrol officer in Freeport in July 1976.

Schofield became a sergeant in 1978. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1986, and became chief just two years later.

When Schofield joined the force in ’76, there were six full-time officers and four part-timers. There were no copy machines – officers used mimeographs to copy their daily logs. Today, he oversees 13 full-timers, a marine conservation officer and two part-time officers.

Much more has changed in Freeport since those days.

“When I became chief, Freeport was in its early stages of growing from a really small town,” Schofield recalled. “We had to focus more on traffic safety concerns. We were in the early stages of computerization within the department. We focused on marijuana use in those days. Now, it’s harder drugs. And there are more thefts. Second to traffic, that’s the biggest concern.”

Schofield implemented the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE ) program at local schools. In 1996, Schofield obtained a grant to install video recorders in cruisers. He was one of the first police chiefs in the state to start up a juvenile diversion program for minor offenders in 1997.

Freeport’s first full-time detective came on board in 2007, and the department took on its first K-9 dog to help with tracking crime suspects in 2013.

Schofield was president of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association in 1995, and also served as president of the New England Association of Chiefs of Police.

Throughout his tenure in Freeport, Schofield and his wife, Terry, have lived in town.

Once he retires, Schofield will take a vacation. He said he has a list of projects to do around the home, and looks forward to spending more time with his family. A part-time job of some sort is a possibility “down the road,” he said.

Together with Schofield’s 39-plus years of service, Lt. Susan Nourse (33 years), Administrative Assistant Gabi Tilton (33 years) and school resource officer Mike McManus (29 years) have 134 years of service among them.

Nourse started out as a part-time dispatcher.

“Jerry has been my supervisor the whole time,” she said. “You could bring ideas forward to him and he would consider them. He was open to suggestions. He’s not a micro-manager. He supports self-initiative, and independent thought.”

Schofield’s impending departure marks the second time in recent weeks that the town has lost a department head with a long tenure of service. Beth Edmonds, who retired earlier this month as director of the Freeport Community Library, had been with the library since 1981. That position has just been filled by Arlene Arris.

Gerald “Jerry” Schofield will retire as Freeport’s police chief on March 25, nearly 40 years since he was hired as a patrol officer in July 1976.

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