The Police Officer of the Year and Civilian Employee of the Year for 2009 will be honored at the June 7 village board meeting, beginning at 7:30 PM at the Gurnee Village Hall, 325 N. O’Plaine Road.

Each year, two committees made up of rank and file members of the police department, meet to review award nominations that are submitted by fellow employees and supervisors. The committees then select the recipient of the awards.

The recipient of the 2009 Police Officer of the Year award is Detective Michael Mann. Detective Mann has been employed as a Gurnee Police Officer since April 1998. Detective Mann currently serves as an Investigator and has been with the Investigations unit since August 2006. Prior to that he was in the Patrol Division. Mike is also an Evidence Technician (ET), Bike Officer, Gang Officer, Juvenile Officer and Child Safety Seat Technician.

Mike has assisted with technology issues at the police department by organizing, installing software, software updates and hardware as well as providing some systems support to the computer systems in the police department. He has been instrumental with the implementation of the Mobile Crash Reports enabling computer based traffic crash reports to be done in the patrol cars.

Detective Mann also serves as a certified Child Safety Seat Technician and attends numerous safety seat checkpoints and events, helping to correctly install child passenger restraint seats in vehicles so that children stay safe in the event of a traffic crash.

Despite all the demands on his time outside of his primary assignment as a detective, Mike continues to keep up with his investigative caseload and he has put his technical skills to work in electronic surveillance and computer forensics. He has been successful in solving several difficult cases.

The Police Chief’s Secretary, Jacqueline Cepaitis, has been selected as the 2009 Civilian Employee of the Year. Jackie has been an employee since December of 1997 and she has faithfully served the Village and police department as a secretary, first in the Investigations unit and then in 1999 she became the Chief’s Secretary in police administration.

Jackie demonstrates her commitment to the Village of Gurnee and the police department through her excellent work ethic and a sincere interest in performing the best job possible.

Jackie is very involved in charity work outside her position with the Village. She works with the Waukegan Chapter of the Salvation Army. She also does charity work through her church and
she is involved with some neighborhood programs near her home in Trevor, WI.

Detective Mann and Secretary Cepaitis will be presented with plaques by Mayor Kristina Kovarik and Police Chief Robert Jones to commemorate the award at Monday night's Village Board meeting.