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06/28/2017 07:00 AMChristie Hodge has spent the majority of her life in Connecticut and the greater part of her adult life in Madison. She’s currently the executive assistant to Chief of Police Jack Drumm and has been the executive assistant to all of Madison’s police chiefs since 2000.
He first job in Madison wasn’t in the Police Department. She and her family—husband Bob, daughter Tracy, and son Randy—had moved from North Branford to Marietta, Georgia for six years before returning to Connecticut to live in Madison, where they have been since 1984.
“I started with the Board of Education as executive assistant to the superintendent of schools in 1984, working for two superintendents and two interim superintendents,” she says. “I guess I have always been publicly oriented...I just set out to do jobs of that were of interest.”
In 2000, she began working for the Madison Police Department. She will be celebrating 17 years at the department in September.
“The Superintendent’s Office is directly across the street,” says Christie. “I knew two cops here at the time and it just seemed like it was time for a change, time to do something different, and it was the same executive level.”
She is responsible for day-to-day operations of the chief’s office, including processing FOI requests and handling interactions with town officials, state agencies, and more.
Christie says that every day at the Police Department is different.
“It is interesting. Every day is diverse with occasionally emotional, thought-provoking days, which are never boring,” she says. “Sometimes we have a lobby of people and some days it’s just quiet. There is no way to determine what the day will bring.”
The most intense time, Christie says, was the March 2010 murder of Barbara Hamburg.
“That was fascinating to see that whole thing,” she says. “You know all the inspectors and the detectives, and [the State Police] Major Crime [Unit] was in here and that was very interesting. I would see it all, not be a part of it at all, but a part of it by osmosis, if you know what I mean.”
She’s been there through it all—good times and bad, and the Madison Police Department has experienced some tough times.
“That was back in 2008, it spanned a couple of years,” says Christie. “There was a very difficult time, there was a lot of bad feeling about the Madison Police Department because of things the officers were doing”.
Christie says it was very hard on the officers to be out in the public at that time because of what their colleagues were involved with but that they kept their professionalism and made it through.
“It started to turn around at the end of 2008 when there was an interim chief of police, and then Chief Jack Drumm,” says Christie. “He completely turned the department around.”
Since then, Christie says, the environment of the department has been much more comfortable.
She also loves the charity component that comes with working in the Police Department.
“I enjoy the community service aspect of this job in coordinating with Valerie Soule of this department as well as Social Services for the annual Toy Fund collections,” says Christie. “At Thanksgiving, we collect non-perishable food items and frozen turkeys to be distributed to the Madison Food Bank for their Christmas baskets and inventory. Both these programs are very successful and rewarding.”
While the Toy Fund collection and the food drive around the holidays have been ongoing for many years, Christie was the brain behind a new event for the Madison Police Department this year—a blood drive that took place on June 12 at the Police Department.
“As blood drive coordinator of the first Madison Police Department blood drive held this month, I saw firsthand the unselfishness of so many residents and employees who came to donate a pint of blood,” says Christie. “Very rewarding.”
Outside of her job, Christie has many hobbies, including reading and crossword puzzles. She and Bob live on a small farm in North Madison where they keep bees and horses. They also love to garden, a hobby they started as Bauer Farm community gardeners, though now they have a vegetable garden that Bob tends and a flower garden for which Christie is responsible.
In addition to her hobbies, Christie is very involved with dogs—and not just her own, though she does have several including Labs, a Norwich terrier, and a Rhodesian ridgeback.
“I was a puppy raiser for Guiding Eyes for the Blind [GEB] for 12 years; raised five puppies,” says Christie. “More of a satisfying experience than I could ever imagine. Additionally, I was part of the Prison Puppies Program with Guiding Eyes. I would pick up a puppy from a GEB administrator who was being raised by a prisoner at an upstate New York medium security prison with my role being acclimate and socialize the puppy.”
Christie says she would have continued with GEB, but her reason for stepping back makes perfect sense for someone who’s remained dedicated to Madison through thick and thin; at the end of the program, it was too difficult to give up the dogs.