I waited for Nancy Paul to laugh.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, I had to comment on her comment, the one about Jerry Madden leaving some pretty big shoes to fill once he retires from the Friends Program in April.
Madden, you see, is 6-foot-6, with hands the size of catchers’ mitts and feet the size of compact cars.
Big shoes to fill, Nancy? Really? “I guess he’s a powerful presence in more ways than one,” said Paul, who runs the Friends Foster Grandparent Program.
Such is the huge shadow (sorry) this man casts, according to those who work for him. He’s respected to the point where it’s easy to mention his stature without even connecting it to his, well, his stature.
“My eyes don’t see size,” Madden told me during a recent interview at his Friends Program office. “When my family is all together, we’re around the same size.”
It’s convenient that Madden spoke about family, because family, his and others’, has had a giant impact on the man. As director of the Friends Program, the family-oriented homeless shelter on Thompson Street is his responsibility.
So are the other three programs under the Friends umbrella, including the Foster Grandparent Program, the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program and the Youth Mentoring Program.
They are stitched together with a common thread, one of decency and kindness and selflessness. Madden has been in charge of that quilt for 10 years now. At 59, he’s too young to retire for good, just as he was too young when, at 49, he retired as chief of the Concord Police Department.
He wouldn’t budge on what he’s got planned, telling me, “I’ve retired before; I’m making a habit out of this, but I have no immediate plans. I can’t see myself doing nothing, so I expect to move forward with part time employment of one type or another. I have a couple of ideas. I’ll play it close to the vest for now.”
He’s leaving the first week in April. He’s leaving those giant footprints we’ve already discussed, shaped and formed from his days with the city’s police force.
He grew up in central New York State, part of an athletic family that saw two of his brothers get drafted by major league teams. Madden earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Boston, before he and his wife moved here and raised three children.
He joined the Concord Police Department in 1980, moving through the ranks until becoming chief in 2001. Along the way, his mindset toward the root causes of crime and its solutions evolved into a philosophy that demanded he do more than merely scratch the surface.
It had to do with looking to the past to shape a better future.
“As I went further in my career, I subscribed to the idea where prevention plays such a big role,” Madden told me. “I think that it’s fun when you’re young and you want to make arrests and catch the bad guy, and then you realize that wouldn’t it be a better system if we had less bad guys to deal with or less people who had different issues?”
He continued: “It’s probably a little altruistic, but to me, it was what could we do from the standpoint of preventing things, problem solving? I felt if you put more investment in the front end of things, you’d probably have less issues on the back end. I still feel that way.”
Once he made chief, Madden took his views to various boards he joined, such as CATCH, which helps house the homeless, and New Futures, which seeks to help those with substance abuse problems.
“They did foster some of my thinking,” Madden said. “I kind of matured through community policing, age. Problem solving and policing just ticked along until I believed that solving problems in the community is better long term. As you go up in an organization, you tend to look at things a little more globally while also playing a role in the community.”
His police work provided a direct trail to the Friends Program, a logical step. You can hear it when he reflects on the part of police work that still haunts him the most, the part about neglected children.
“Seeing very young kids unattended,” Madden said, “and going to calls and dealing with parents who might have been under the influence and often are not even there, that’s what resonated with me.”
Is it any wonder, then, that once Madden chose to retire as a cop and the Friends Program at the same time needed a director, and he had this background working with neglected kids and homelessness, is it any wonder that in 2007 he landed where he landed?
He’s spent 10 years coordinating the four programs, fundraising, hiring people, lamenting over cuts to staff and resources, and, sometimes, weeding out the trouble makers from the Thompson Street shelter, those who smuggled in drugs or booze.
Madden’s staff decides who goes and who stays. Madden handles the appeal. Here’s where the teddy bear might emerge from the big guy.
“I give them one more chance if I see their errors are a little weak,” Madden said, “but my staff down there knows what I expect as far as what the threshold is.”
That staff includes board chairwoman Joanne Gagnon, who told me, “When you think of the Friends Program, you think of Jerry. He’s very dedicated, he’s a blessing to the community. I’m super sad he’s leaving, but sometimes change is good, mix it up, bring in some new blood.”
Madden admits that burnout is part of the formula here, that 10 years is twice as long as he had planned to stay, that budget cuts and a sometimes shallow volunteer pool have left him “discouraged at times.”
But his staff remained loyal throughout, and Madden said he’s looking forward to splitting time here and at his home in Florida with his wife, Susan, until he figures out his next step.
“He’s made Concord and surrounding communities stronger, and he truly believes in how a team can make Concord better,” Paul said. “He is a big presence, and I think people can forget that he also has an incredibly kind side to him.”
Good luck filling those shoes.