State Police Col. Michael Sperry
State chief ready to rest
Col. Michael Sperry is looking forward to fishing and travel.
By Donna M. Perry
Staff Writer

No matter where he went or what time of day it was, State Police Col. Michael Sperry was known as a police officer. Soon that will change. At 47, he’ll leave a life of public service to enter the private sector.

Those who’ve known Sperry as he worked his way up through the ranks, beginning in 1977 patrolling the Stratton and Rangeley region in Franklin County to 1999 when he was sworn in as chief of the Maine State Police in Augusta, say he’s been a thorough, conscientious law enforcer.

Sperry, who says he’s currently the longest serving state police chief in New England, has guided the force through numerous high-profile investigations in his four years.

Those investigations ran the gamut from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when terrorist Mohamed Atta left a rental car in Maine at the Portland Jetport, to New Sweden’s arsenic poisonings at a church last year.

Even before he became chief, Sperry was involved in cases that shook Maine, including the Mother’s Day murder of Virginia Jackson in 1997 after she and her truck disappeared from a Scarborough supermarket.

During his time at the top, he’s emphasized that troops need to be highly trained and that those who selected for the force are among the best recruits.

The state invests about $100,000 in each trooper, Sperry said, including an initial 28 weeks of training.

Sperry has overseen many firsts, including the installation of laptops in all cruisers, online access in order to provide criminal history checks, electronic Maine sex offender lists and motor vehicle crash reports. He has also shared the state’s resources with police around the state.

Sperry also has made available protection from abuse orders online to Maine police agencies to help protect people from domestic violence.

An ‘aggressive investigator’

Former Franklin County District Attorney Janet Mills, now a state representative and an attorney in private practice, said that when she worked with Sperry she observed a “very bright, thorough and aggressive investigator.

“He was very smart, conscientious,” Mills said. “I thought very highly of him. I still do.”

But being available 24 hours as chief, overseeing 338 state police officers and the other people in the department, and pursuing changes in laws at the state level has taken time away from his family.

He’s looking forward to that changing.

“I want to spend time with my children,” he said. “It’s been a very long, four-year term, a lot of sacrifices … It’s difficult. You miss a lot of things.”

He’ll be spending more time his wife, Nancy, an employee of the SAD 58 school system, and children Andrew and Megan, students at Mount Abram High School in Salem.

Sperry is also looking forward to taking about two months off just to ski, travel, fly fish and relax before pursuing an opportunity in the private sector. He declined to say what that opportunity is.

He’ll retire as chief at the end of March. He said he’ll miss those in the department.

“I’m definitely going to miss the people.”

dperry@sunjournal.com
By the numbers

694: Number of women farm heads in Maine, 1992

1,560: Number of women farm heads in Maine, 2002

28,363: Number of farms in New England

7,213: Number of farms in Maine

189 acres: Average farm size

11,415: Number of farmers in Maine

53.7: Average age

175: Number of Maine farms selling more than $500,000 in product

3,735: Number of farms selling less than $2,500

19: Number of Asian farmers in Maine

SOURCE: 2002 Census of Agriculture, preliminary data

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