LUDLOW — Following nearly four decades serving the community, Ludlow Police Chief Paul Madera will officially retire at the end of next week.
Chief Madera joined the Ludlow Police Department in December 1982 as one of the youngest-ever officers — just 20 years old — to be appointed to the agency in modern times. On Jan. 24, he’ll finish his service to the Ludlow community after just over 37 years.
Prior to being named chief in 2014, Chief Madera served as a Sergeant and Lieutenant over the course of tenure with the department, as well as Acting Chief for slightly more than a year following the retirement of his predecessor, James McGowan.
Following his promotion to Sergeant in 1992, Madera served as a shift supervisor and was also one of the department’s first designated Community Police Officers and Bike Patrol Officers. He also helped develop one of the first civilian police academies, as well as the Ludlow Police Department’s Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) program.
As the department’s primary grant writer in the 1990s and 2000s, Chief Madera helped implement the department’s first civilian dispatch operations, which is now combined in the police/fire central dispatch.
Chief Madera is a graduate of Westfield State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice (1990) and of Western New England University with a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice Administration (1996). He also graduated from the FBI National Academy in 1997. Currently, Chief Madera is a guest lecturer at Western New England University and he is a certified instructor with the Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee. He is also a Massachusetts certified EMT.
To mark his retirement, members of the Ludlow Police Department joined Chief Madera for a celebration during his last active shift as Chief on Friday, Jan. 17, though his official last day comes next Friday.
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