By By SPIROS GALLOS
Niles Daily Star
NILES - The Michigan State Police Niles Post received its first new trooper in four years Sunday.
Trooper Brenda Kiefer, 36, fulfilled a life-long dream Thursday when she was one of 89 recruits sworn in as troopers after almost six months of recruit training in Lansing.
Before attending the Michigan State Police recruit school in July, Kiefer worked at the Genesee County Sheriff's Department in Flint for 5 years. Two of those years, Kiefer worked as a deputy for the sheriff's department.
Kiefer originally entertained the idea of joining the Michigan State Police in 2000 when she first took the Civil Service Test to be admitted to the Michigan State Police recruit school.
Unfortunately, the department was in a hiring freeze and didn't have any recruit schools open to accept potential applicants.
When the hiring freeze ended in early 2004, Kiefer saw it as an opportunity to move away from her child-hood home of Flint and to pursue her goal of being a Michigan State Trooper.
Kiefer is currently in the process of moving to the Niles area and is excited to settle into the area.
Becoming a trooper for the Michigan State Police also allows Kiefer to pursue different fields of specialty within the department that she is interested in.
While Kiefer is not sure exactly what specialty she'd like to work in, she said she has always been interested in computers. Crime scene investigation and accident scene investigation also hold some interest, she said.
For the time being, Kiefer will have go out on patrol with a field training officer while she completes the 17 week Field Training Officer Program.
During the program, Kiefer will learn post procedures, familiarize herself with local county sheriff's departments, and learn policies and procedures of the department, such as booking arrests.
With the addition of Kiefer, the Michigan State Niles Post now has a staff of 16 troopers.
Post commander F/Lt. Michael Brown said the Niles Post should normally be staffed with about 22 troopers.
Since the post received its last new troopers in 2000, six troopers have left the post.
For the past two years, the post has been operating understaffed, Brown said.
The Niles Post has done its best to provide traffic patrols to assist the public, a service which becomes even more important to the area as inclement weather moves in, Brown said.
Although Kiefer adds another trooper to the understaffed post, Brown said it usually takes about four to six months for new troopers to get acclimated to the area and become productive in the shift rotation.
As the new troopers go through the Field Training Officer Program, Brown said the post tries to pair new troopers with a variety of more experienced troopers to provide them with many different situations to train in.