As we conclude our Founding Five series, we honor Don Novey—a second-generation Correctional Officer, Army veteran, transformative labor leader and founding Director whose determination helped make corrections safer, stronger and more respected while ensuring that families affected by tragedy would never stand alone.

Don Novey never treated an assault, injury or line-of-duty death as something the correctional profession should simply mourn and then move beyond.

He believed every tragedy demanded a response.

What went wrong? What protection was missing? What policy had failed? What equipment, training or procedure could prevent the same thing from happening to another officer?

For Don, remembrance without action was not enough.

As President of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, he fought for better wages, stronger retirement benefits and professional recognition. But his work went much further. He pursued safer working conditions, protective equipment, better training, stronger screening standards and laws that reflected the dangers correctional professionals faced.

Every loss was a lesson—and Don refused to let the lesson be lost.

That same conviction helped lead him, alongside Glenn Mueller, Larry Corby, Sal Osuna and Richard “Dick” Waldo, to establish the Correctional Peace Officers Foundation.

CCPOA worked to improve the conditions under which correctional professionals served.

CPOF would be there when even the strongest protections could not prevent tragedy.

Together, those efforts reflected the full measure of Don’s commitment: fight for officers while they performed the job, and stand beside their families when the job changed their lives forever.

Raised in a Family of Service

Don Novey was born in Sacramento in 1947, but his childhood took him around the world.

His father served in the United States Army, rising from Private First Class to Sergeant Major. His military career included service in Korea with an early helicopter unit and later in Vietnam. As the family followed his assignments, Don developed an early understanding of duty, discipline and public service.

Military service also extended through earlier generations of the Novey family. Don’s grandfather served during World War I, and other family members later served with distinction.

When Don’s own draft notice arrived, he was preparing to transfer from American River College to San Jose State. Instead, he entered the United States Army.

His aptitude for languages led him to military intelligence training in counter-subversion and espionage. Don later recalled serving in 21 countries, primarily in Europe but also in parts of the Far East and Middle East. His work included investigations, interviews and interrogations, and he eventually became a Special Agent in charge of a field office in Germany.

The experience taught him how to gather information, understand people and evaluate complex situations. Those skills would later prove invaluable inside a prison, across a bargaining table and within the halls of the California State Capitol.

After completing his military service, Don returned to Sacramento.

He had seen much of the world, but California was home.

Following His Father to Folsom

Don initially considered other law enforcement and federal opportunities. While waiting through the application process, he spoke with his father, who was working as a Correctional Officer at Folsom State Prison.

His father’s advice was direct: take the correctional officer examination.

Don passed the examination and was hired on December 6, 1971.

He entered corrections during one of the most violent periods in California prison history. The state was still confronting the aftermath of deadly incidents at San Quentin, Soledad and other institutions. Officers had been assaulted, stabbed and killed.

Don’s father had witnessed violence firsthand, including an officer being stabbed in front of him. Yet he believed his son possessed the judgment and character the profession needed.

“He said, ‘Just be rational about stuff,’” Don later recalled. His father told him that he had the mettle to handle the work and encouraged him to move forward.

So he did.

Don began as a Correctional Officer at Folsom State Prison, working alongside the people whose experiences would shape the direction of his life.

Among them were Glenn Mueller, Larry Corby and Sal Osuna.

At the time, none of them could have known how profoundly their work together would affect correctional professionals and families across the country.

Proud of the Profession

Don believed correctional work was a proud and essential part of public safety.

When he began his career, correctional employees were still widely dismissed as “guards,” their responsibilities frequently misunderstood by the public and undervalued by the state. Don saw professionals supervising some of society’s most dangerous individuals with inadequate equipment, limited protections and little recognition.

He believed they deserved better.

Don also understood that earning respect required accepting responsibility. He wanted correctional officers to be highly trained, carefully selected and held to meaningful professional standards.

“I want the profession to be the best it can be,” he explained in his 2022 oral history. “So that’s why I pushed all these bills to make it a better profession.”

That statement reveals something essential about Don’s leadership.

He was not fighting merely to make the job better compensated.

He was fighting to make it better.

Finding His Voice

During the 1970s, California public employees were moving toward formal collective bargaining. Correctional employees were divided among several organizations, limiting their ability to speak with one unified voice.

Glenn Mueller drew Don into the California Correctional Officers Association, telling him the organization needed someone who could read, write and understand the issues.

In Don’s telling, he was “drafted” again.

At the time, he had been completing a secondary teaching credential at the University of California, Davis, and expected that education might become his future. Instead, his ability to explain complex issues would be used to teach lawmakers, the public and correctional employees about the realities of the profession.

Around 1978, Don was elected President of the Folsom chapter. He described himself then as a young, outspoken officer who was willing to challenge both union leadership and the Department.

When the union’s leadership refused to allow Folsom’s newsletter to be published under the organization’s banner, Don published it anyway. The union threatened to expel him, while the state considered disciplining him for distributing material without authorization.

Don stood between two powerful institutions and refused to retreat.

He believed the officers deserved what he called the “straight story” about their work, their place in law enforcement and the dangers they faced.

That willingness to speak plainly—and to take responsibility for his words—would become one of the defining qualities of his career.

Transforming CCPOA

In 1980, Don became the first President elected to lead what would become the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

At the time, the organization represented approximately 2,600 members. Correctional employees remained divided among competing labor groups, and their political influence was limited.

Under Don’s leadership, that changed dramatically.

He helped bring Correctional Officers, California Youth Authority employees, parole professionals, medical technical assistants and other correctional classifications together under a stronger organizational structure.

The word “Peace” was added to the association’s name, formally recognizing the peace-officer status and public-safety responsibilities carried by its members.

The organization was restructured around labor, legal and legislative advocacy. Membership grew from approximately 2,600 to more than 33,000, making CCPOA one of California’s largest and most influential law-enforcement associations. Don served as its President for 22 years, retiring from the position in 2002. CPOF’s official biography documents that extraordinary growth, while contemporary reporting described the influence he developed in Sacramento.

But influence was never the final goal.

Influence was a tool Don used to protect the people he represented.

More Than Wages and Retirement

Don fought aggressively for improved pay and retirement security.

Correctional work carries risks that can shorten careers, damage health and affect families long after an employee leaves the institution. Don believed compensation and retirement benefits needed to reflect those realities.

Through years of negotiation and legislative work, CCPOA secured significant improvements for its members. Don understood the importance of relationships, persistence and keeping one’s word. He developed working relationships across political parties, finding ways to move legislation through a Capitol where no single relationship was enough.

He recalled helping secure passage of 108 bills, with fewer than a dozen vetoed.

Among the victories was legislation allowing qualifying correctional peace officers to carry concealed firearms off duty. Retirement legislation provided correctional employees with greater security after careers spent in demanding and potentially dangerous environments.

But Don’s record cannot be understood solely through paychecks and pensions.

Under his leadership, CCPOA also fought for safety equipment, including batons and protective vests, as well as improved applicant background investigations and psychological screening. Contemporary reporting described these protections among the union’s earliest major victories under Don. The Los Angeles Times summarized the progression from off-duty weapons authority to protective equipment and stronger employment screening.

Each change addressed a vulnerability.

Each law, policy or piece of equipment represented one more effort to help someone go home safely.

Every Assault Was a Lesson

Don did not take the role of a Correctional Officer for granted.

He knew that policies written far from the institutions could have life-or-death consequences for the people working inside them. He also knew that dangerous practices could become normalized when staff were repeatedly expected to “make do.”

When an officer was assaulted, Don wanted to know how it happened.

When an officer was killed, he wanted to know what could be changed.

If equipment failed, better equipment was needed. If a procedure exposed staff to unnecessary danger, the procedure needed to be rewritten. If training had been insufficient, training needed to improve.

The objective was not simply to assign blame after a tragedy.

It was to prevent repetition.

Don believed the greatest respect the profession could show an injured or fallen officer was to learn from what had happened and make certain the next officer was better protected.

This approach helped reshape correctional safety in California. It also revealed the principle that would eventually become central to CPOF: the life and sacrifice of a correctional professional must never be treated as routine.

Every name mattered.

Every family mattered.

Every lesson mattered.

Relationships With a Purpose

Don became one of the most recognizable and influential labor leaders in California.

His political approach was pragmatic. He formed relationships with Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, governors and lawmakers whose philosophies often differed sharply from his own.

Don did not require agreement on every issue. He looked for fairness, honesty and a willingness to understand the profession.

He learned how to count votes, communicate directly and build relationships that could survive political disagreement. He was also willing to tell lawmakers exactly what a proposal would cost or why a safety concern could not be ignored.

His influence was sometimes controversial, but Don never apologized for making correctional professionals visible.

For generations, the men and women working inside prisons had been overlooked. Don brought their experiences into the Capitol and made state leaders confront the realities of the job.

He did not enter those rooms merely for personal access.

He entered them carrying the concerns of the people working the line.

From Professional Advocacy to Family Support

As Don and the other founders worked to improve conditions for correctional professionals, they also recognized a need no contract or piece of legislation could fully address.

When a Correctional Officer or staff member died in the line of duty, the family left behind needed immediate and lasting support.

At the time, assistance was often informal. Coworkers might pass a hat, collect what they could and help a widow or family through the first difficult days.

The compassion was real, but the system was not enough.

A family’s needs did not end when the collection was counted.

Don joined Glenn Mueller, Larry Corby, Sal Osuna and Richard “Dick” Waldo to create an organization devoted to the spouses and children of fallen correctional professionals.

In 1984, their vision became the Correctional Peace Officers Foundation.

The First Families

In his oral history, Don recalled one of the first line-of-duty deaths to which the young Foundation responded.

Les Macarro, a California Youth Authority employee and job steward, was conducting an escort when the individual in his custody fled. As Macarro attempted to intervene, he was struck by a vehicle and killed.

He left behind a family, including children preparing to move forward with their education and adult lives.

CPOF stepped forward.

Don remembered the assistance as a defining early example of what the Foundation was created to do. The Macarro children continued their education and later built successful lives and careers.

The relationship did not end with the presentation of financial assistance. Don remained connected to the family, including Mark Macarro, who would become a respected tribal leader.

That continuing bond demonstrated what made CPOF different.

The Foundation was not created simply to deliver a check.

It was created to build a family around those who had lost someone—and to remain.

Two Parts of the Same Promise

Don’s work with CCPOA and CPOF reflected two parts of the same promise.

Through CCPOA, he fought to ensure correctional professionals were properly trained, equipped, compensated, protected and represented.

Through CPOF, he helped ensure that when an assault, catastrophe or line-of-duty death changed a family’s life, they would have somewhere to turn.

One effort sought to prevent tragedy.

The other promised that tragedy would never be faced alone.

Don understood that correctional professionals needed both.

They needed a strong voice before something happened and a strong family beside them afterward.

The Founding Five

The creation of CPOF required different strengths from each of its founders.

Glenn Mueller provided commanding leadership and guided the Foundation as its longtime Chairman. Larry Corby helped shape its publications, history, traditions and care for the children of the fallen. Sal Osuna rolled up his sleeves, sacrificed his own time and found creative ways to raise the money needed to help families. Richard “Dick” Waldo provided decades of steady financial stewardship.

Don brought the instincts of an organizer and advocate.

He understood how to take an idea, develop a structure, build relationships and persuade others to believe in it. He knew that compassion needed resources, credibility and a national network if it was going to reach families throughout the country.

Together, the five men created something none of them could have built alone.

Their shared vision became a national organization that has assisted correctional families throughout the United States and distributed more than $40 million in support.

A Living Connection to the Beginning

Don remains a living connection to the earliest days of CPOF.

His memories preserve the realities that first brought the founders together: officers working dangerous assignments with limited protection, families left vulnerable after a death and a correctional profession still fighting to be recognized as an essential part of public safety.

The profession has changed significantly since Don first walked into Folsom State Prison in December 1971.

Equipment has improved. Training has expanded. Laws and employment protections have evolved. Correctional professionals have a stronger voice and greater professional recognition.

Those changes did not happen on their own.

They happened because people like Don refused to accept unsafe conditions as inevitable.

They happened because he believed an assault should result in prevention, a death should result in reform and a sacrifice should result in remembrance.

He Refused to Let the Lesson Be Lost

Don Novey’s legacy cannot be measured only by the size CCPOA reached, the number of bills he helped pass or the influence he developed in Sacramento.

It can also be measured in the officer wearing protective equipment that an earlier generation did not have.

It is found in the employee able to retire with dignity after decades of dangerous service.

It is present in the professional standards that recognize corrections as a serious public-safety career.

It lives in the families who received a call, a visit, a check or an invitation to PROJECT after their lives were changed by tragedy.

And it remains within the organization he helped establish—an organization built upon the belief that correctional professionals take care of their own.

As we honor the Founding Five, we recognize Don Novey: Army veteran, second-generation Correctional Officer, Lieutenant, advocate, labor leader, founding Director and one of the most consequential voices in the history of California corrections.

He fought for better wages.

He fought for secure retirements.

He fought for stronger protections and safer working conditions.

But, above all, he fought to ensure that the sacrifice of a correctional professional was never dismissed, forgotten or repeated without change.

Every incident taught a lesson.

Don made certain someone listened.

Don Novey
Founding Director, Correctional Peace Officers Foundation

If you worked with Don, witnessed his leadership or have photographs and memories from the earliest years of CCPOA and CPOF, we invite you to share them with us. Your stories will help preserve the history of a leader whose determination changed the correctional profession and helped build a nationwide family.