Tuesday, July 04, 2000
After 23 years, chief steps aside
Trenton police leader begins his retirement
By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer
TRENTON — Excitement lured Joe E. Richard into law enforcement but colleagues say level-headedness carried him through a career spanning almost four decades.
“Joe was always one of the most laid-back, non-excitable kind of administrators that I've ever had the pleasure of working with,” said Butler County Sheriff's Capt. G. Michael Grimes. “In our business, that's good. You need that kind of calmness during the storms when they hit. You need common sense to prevail.”
Mr. Richard, 59, spent 39 years in police work, 23 of them as Trenton's chief — making him one of the Tristate's longest-serving current chiefs. He retires today.
Those who know him say the city has benefited from his wisdom, commitment and unassuming nature. Employees are having a hard time imagining work without the only chief they've served.
“They told me: "We're gonna lock you in a room and not let you leave,'” the chief said, laughing.
But he said it's time to step aside, particularly because last year was so tough; he went though a divorce and his 6-year-old granddaughter died of brain cancer.
Now he wants to spend time on the College Corner farm where he and one of his two daughters, Melissa Wright, raise livestock.
“We're happy for him, sad for us,” said Kathy Allen, 39, a dispatcher for 13 years. “He's been a great boss, and he's been a family friend for almost as long as I am old.”
Mr. Richard has always preferred the simple life, said Senior Dispatcher Shirley Ledford, an employee since 1978.
Once, she said, a pair of overly zealous religious missionaries were upset about being asked to leave town, so they asked to speak to the chief. “It was his day off and he was there in his bib overalls and a straw hat,” Ms. Ledford said. “They couldn't believe that was the chief. But being laid-back, that's when he's most happy.”
Mr. Richard said his career has been satisfying.
“Being a police officer in a small town, you know people's high points and their low points,” Mr. Richard said. He hopes his successor will follow his philosophy: “Enforce the laws as needed, and, at the same time, have a little humanity.”
Mr. Richard grew up on a farm near Defiance, Ohio, and in 1961, became a cadet dispatcher at the Ohio State Highway Patrol there.
“I was always interested in cars, and they had fast ones,” he said. “Once I started dispatching, I got more interested in the work they were doing.”
From 1962 to 1970, Mr. Richard was assigned to the patrol's Hamilton post. He spent a year at the sheriff's office before joining Trenton police in 1971; he became chief in 1977.
Mr. Richard dislikes talking about himself. As Rod Hale, who has known Mr. Richard since boyhood, puts it: “The chief is a man of a few words. He doesn't speak a lot, but he knew you by your name. That impressed me. And if you ever had a conversation with that man, you knew that he knew what he was doing.”
A Middletown police sergeant and Trenton resident, Mr. Hale recently resigned from his city council position to apply for the chief's job.
When Mr. Richard joined the force in 1971, Trenton had recently crossed the 5,000-person threshold into city-hood, and, Mr. Richard recalled, “I was the only full-time officer they had.”
Today, Trenton's population is about 9,000 and there are eight full-time officers and four full-time dispatchers.
But, Mr. Hale said, to the credit of Mr. Richard and his department, the city has retained much of its low-crime, folksy atmosphere.
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