Troopers take different paths after retirement

Retired Cpl. Jeff Oldham, who was a public information officer for more than four years, has taken the most dramatic turn of the four in retirement. He has gone from patrol car to the classroom.

Filling in a vacated position in January, Oldham is a middle school history teacher at Eagle’s Nest Christian Academy near Milton. The Penn State graduate said he has always been a history buff and is having fun teaching his favorite subject.

Like many Delaware State Police (DSP) troopers, Oldham began his career as a Rehoboth Beach summer officer during the summer of 1988. He joined state police in 1994, was assigned to Troop 7 and was a canine officer for four years.

He was a detective at Troop 4 in Georgetown in 2000-01, but went back on patrol at Troop 7 until 2003 when he was named public information officer for Sussex and Kent counties.

While his new vocation is distinctive, his family dynamics are equally as unique. His wife, Nicole, is a trooper assigned to Troop 7. So for a while, they were one of the few husband and wife trooper couples in the state.

They live in the Lewes area and have a daughter.

“I had a wonderful career and was proud to serve the people of Delaware, but I felt it was my time to leave DSP. And I’m young enough to start a second career,” Oldham said.

Oldham said he and his wife have a dream of opening their own day spa business somewhere in the Cape Region.

Retired Lt. Rick Cohee, who has been in police work for more than 30 years, spent most of his career at Troop 4 in Georgetown where he was one of the few officers in the state who was trained to operate a polygraph.

Cohee worked as a municipal officer in Georgetown and Milford for seven years before joining the state police. He actually worked for one year without attending the police academy, which officers were able to do back in the 1970s. He was a graduate of the 12th municipal academy class in 1977.

As a member of DSP for 25 years, he was stationed at Troop 3 in Kent County and Troop 5 in Bridgeville. At Troop 4, he was assigned to the canine unit and property crimes unit.

He worked in the planning section at headquarters in Dover for two years, and his last assignment was at Troop 7 where he was deputy commander in the criminal division for four years.

No long after he retired, Cohee went on a family vacation to visit a relative in England with a side trip to Ireland. Other than that, he said, he plans to take the summer off. “I’ve not had a summer off since I was 13 years old,” he said. “I worked at a mom-and-pop grocery store 40 hours a week during school and 60 hours a week during the summer.”

Cohee, who lives in Georgetown, has three daughters and two stepdaughters.

Retired Sgt. Ken Hardy is a rarity – he started his state police career in 1988 at Troop 7 in Lewes and remained stationed there until he retired.

Hardy was a Rehoboth Beach seasonal police officer for five years until he was hired to work full time for the department in 1984. He joined the state police in May 1988.

Although he had many assignments during his 21 years at Troop 7, he said being a member of the bicycle safety group was one of the highlights. He worked with Sussex Cyclists on many safety checkpoints on Route 1.

The same year he was hired at Rehoboth, he joined the Delaware National Guard. Command Sgt. Maj. Hardy now works full time for the Guard as a training technician at the Bethany Beach site. He lives in the Harbeson area with his wife and four children. He is active as a coach in Rehoboth Little League and Cape League and is safety officer on both leagues’ boards of directors. He is an assistant football coach at Cape High.

Retired Sgt. Ed Justiniano has not stopped working, even though he has officially retired twice now – once from the police and once from the U.S. Air Force after more than 22 years as a master sergeant. He is working on his third, fourth and fifth careers and is busier than ever.

Living with his wife in Milford, he owns a photography and graphic arts business, is a crisis intervention consultant and a private investigator for Atlantic Bureau of Investigation. The couple has three grown children; one son is a trooper at Troop 5 in Bridgeville. After retiring from the Air Force in 1993, Justiniano joined DSP and was stationed at Troop 4, where he remained for the next 14 years. At Troop 4, he served as community and court liaison, hostage negotiator, police academy instructor and was on the critical incident stress management team. He served as shift commander his last two years while at Troop 7. As community liaison for the county, Justiniano helped develop better relations between police and the Hispanic communities in Sussex County. He also taught English as second language classes.

Using his graphic and photography skills, he helped design state police recruiting billboards used throughout the state.