Second-generation Correctional Peace Officer Perry Speth has spent more than four decades serving the correctional profession. From the California Youth Authority and CCPOA to the earliest years of CPOF and his current role as Treasurer and National Director, Perry represents a living connection between the Foundation’s founders and the leaders carrying their mission forward.
Some leaders enter an organization and help guide its future.
Others have been present long enough to understand where it came from, who built it and why its original promises still matter.
Perry Speth has done both.
His history with the Correctional Peace Officers Foundation reaches back to its formation in 1984. Long before joining its Board of Directors, Perry attended PROJECT 2000, photographed ceremonies for the CPO Family magazine, introduced academy cadets to the Foundation and used his decades of credibility within the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to strengthen the relationship between CPOF and the correctional professionals it serves.
His connection to CPOF’s history is also deeply personal.
Perry was appointed CCPOA State Secretary by CPOF Founding Director Don Novey, following in a tradition established by fellow founders Larry Corby and Richard “Dick” Waldo.
Today, Perry serves as CPOF’s Treasurer and a National Director.
His journey represents more than professional advancement. It is a story of continuity—of receiving a responsibility from one generation of correctional leaders and carrying it forward for the next.
A Second-Generation Correctional Peace Officer
For Perry, corrections was more than a career he discovered as an adult.
It was part of his family.
As a second-generation Correctional Peace Officer, he entered the profession with an understanding that correctional service demands discipline, loyalty and a willingness to stand beside the people who perform one of public safety’s most difficult and frequently overlooked jobs.
Perry began his career in 1984 with the California Youth Authority, later known as the Division of Juvenile Justice, at Mt. Bullion Conservation Camp.
Working at a conservation camp offered a distinctive introduction to juvenile corrections. Staff members were responsible for maintaining security while helping prepare young people for demanding work that served communities throughout California.
The assignment required accountability, sound judgment and the ability to recognize potential in those placed under the state’s supervision.
In 1985, Perry transferred to Karl Holton School. The following year, he promoted to Youth Correctional Counselor at El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility.
As a counselor, Perry’s responsibilities extended beyond custody and security. The position required him to guide, supervise and make decisions affecting young people whose futures had not yet been written.
That experience reinforced an understanding that would remain central throughout his career: people within the correctional system are still people, and the professionals serving them deserve strong representation, dependable leadership and meaningful support.
Finding His Voice in CCPOA
Perry’s involvement with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association began early in his career.
In 1987, he joined the Paso Robles Chapter Board. He later served as Chapter Vice President before becoming Chapter President in 1990.
Chapter leadership placed Perry close to the everyday concerns of correctional employees.
He listened to the people working inside juvenile facilities, understood the challenges they faced and helped ensure their voices reached the leaders making decisions on their behalf.
Perry also became deeply involved in CCPOA’s governance.
He served on the Bylaws Committee beginning in 1991 and later became its chairman. The work required careful attention to the rules and procedures governing the association, as well as the ability to evaluate proposed changes and present them clearly to the State Board of Directors.
Bylaws work may not always be visible, but it is essential.
Strong organizations depend on policies that are clear, fair and capable of surviving changes in leadership. Perry spent years helping write, evaluate and present those policies, developing a detailed understanding of how institutions preserve both accountability and continuity.
That experience would later become especially valuable to CPOF.
Following in the Founders’ Footsteps
In 1997, CPOF Founding Director Don Novey appointed Perry to the CCPOA Executive Council as State Secretary.
It was a position with an extraordinary connection to CPOF’s history.
Before Perry, the State Secretary role had been held by CPOF founders Larry Corby and Richard “Dick” Waldo.
Don Novey, Larry Corby and Dick Waldo were not simply names from the history of the organizations Perry served. They were leaders whose work helped define the correctional profession in California and whose concern for correctional employees and their families led to the creation of CPOF.
By appointing Perry, Don entrusted him with a responsibility once carried by two of the men who had helped establish the Foundation.
Perry understood the significance of that trust.
He served as CCPOA State Secretary and Business Services Manager for more than two decades. His responsibilities required organizational knowledge, an understanding of governance and the confidence of correctional employees across California.
Throughout those years, Perry helped protect the institutional memory of an organization representing thousands of correctional peace officers.
He also remained connected to the leaders who had shown that advocacy could extend beyond workplace representation.
The founders of CPOF understood that correctional professionals and their families sometimes faced needs that a labor organization or government agency could not fully address. When an officer was killed in the line of duty, when a family experienced catastrophe or when a child needed help continuing an education, another kind of support was necessary.
CPOF was created to provide it.
Perry witnessed that mission develop from its earliest years.
Present From the Beginning
Perry has been an active CPOF member since the Foundation was formed in 1984.
At that time, CPOF was still a small organization driven largely by the determination of its founders and volunteers. The sophisticated programs, national reach and established annual traditions familiar to members today had not yet been built.
The founders were still developing relationships, raising support and convincing correctional professionals that a nationwide foundation could make a meaningful difference in their lives.
Perry believed in what they were building.
As CPOF grew, he attended many PROJECT 2000 gatherings and often assisted by photographing the ceremonies for the CPO Family magazine.
That role carried more importance than simply documenting an event.
PROJECT brings together surviving families, correctional professionals who have endured serious assaults, Honor Guard teams and supporters from across the United States and Canada. Its memorial ceremonies preserve the names and sacrifices of correctional professionals who died in the line of duty.
Through his photographs, Perry helped preserve those moments.
He recorded families seeing their loved ones honored.
He captured Honor Guard members standing together in tribute.
He helped ensure that people unable to attend could understand the dignity, emotion and fellowship of PROJECT through the pages of the magazine.
Those photographs became part of CPOF’s history.
So did Perry.
Service That Continued Beyond Retirement
Perry retired from the Division of Juvenile Justice in 2014 after approximately 30 years of service.
His retirement from the state did not end his commitment to correctional employees.
He continued serving as CCPOA State Secretary until 2019. When he stepped away from that position, he was appointed CCPOA Executive Emeritus and became an adviser to the president and Executive Council.
The title reflected both the length of his service and the value of the institutional knowledge he continued to provide.
Perry understood the history behind the policies, relationships and decisions that shaped CCPOA. He knew the leaders who had come before him and understood why certain responsibilities could not be separated from the experiences of the officers working inside California’s institutions.
He became a resource for the next generation of leaders.
Once again, Perry served as a bridge between what had been built and what would come next.
Introducing CPOF to New Officers
One of Perry’s most important contributions to CPOF has taken place inside California’s correctional officer academies.
He has regularly attended academy classes to educate cadets about the Foundation and encourage them to become supporting members.
For new correctional officers, the academy is the beginning of a demanding career. Cadets are learning policies, physical skills, professional standards and the responsibilities that accompany the badge.
CPOF adds another lesson.
It teaches cadets that they are entering a profession that takes care of its own.
Perry can explain that promise with unusual credibility because he has watched it develop from the beginning. He knew the founders. He saw CPOF when its reach was small. He attended PROJECT ceremonies and photographed the families whose lives were touched by the Foundation.
When Perry tells a cadet what CPOF does, he is not repeating language from a brochure.
He is sharing history he witnessed.
He can explain why membership matters before a young officer ever imagines needing assistance. He can show that the strength of the Foundation does not come from one person or one generation. It comes from correctional professionals choosing, together, to be there for one another.
Every cadet Perry introduces to CPOF becomes part of the continuation of that promise.
Strengthening a Historic Partnership
Perry also represents CPOF at CCPOA conventions and other gatherings of California correctional professionals.
His decades of service within CCPOA give him an immediate connection with the members he meets.
They know he understands their work.
He knows the pressures correctional employees face, the importance of trustworthy representation and the value of organizations that remain present when a member or family is experiencing a crisis.
At CCPOA’s 50th Annual Convention, Perry helped present CPOF’s history, its longstanding connection with CCPOA and its continuing commitment to correctional employees and their families.
That relationship reaches back to CPOF’s founders, several of whom were deeply involved in CCPOA leadership.
Perry helps keep that history visible.
He reminds members that CPOF did not emerge from outside the profession. It was created by correctional officers who saw unmet needs among their colleagues and decided to act.
Through academy visits, conventions and personal conversations, Perry continues building the supporting membership that makes CPOF’s assistance possible.
His credibility was earned over decades.
He now uses it to strengthen a mission that has mattered to him since 1984.
Joining the Board of Directors
After supporting CPOF for nearly four decades, Perry joined its Board of Directors in 2021.
He did not arrive as someone newly introduced to the organization.
He already knew its founders, its history, its traditions and the families at the heart of its work. He had attended PROJECT, documented its ceremonies and helped introduce generations of correctional professionals to its mission.
Perry joined the Board during an important period of transition.
CPOF had endured the deaths of several longtime directors whose combined service represented decades of knowledge and leadership. The Foundation needed people who could honor what those directors had built while helping prepare the organization for its future.
Perry was uniquely suited to that responsibility.
He had worked with the founders.
He understood organizational governance.
He had decades of experience as a statewide officer of a major correctional association.
And he had already spent most of his professional life supporting CPOF.
Joining the Board formalized a commitment Perry had been living for nearly 40 years.
Stewardship as Treasurer
Today, Perry serves as CPOF’s Treasurer and a National Director.
The position carries a profound responsibility.
CPOF’s resources come from people who believe in its mission—supporting members, donors, correctional professionals, families and organizations that trust the Foundation to use every contribution responsibly.
Those resources provide catastrophic assistance to correctional employees facing serious illness, injury, natural disaster and unexpected hardship. They support surviving families after line-of-duty deaths, provide scholarships and help make PROJECT 2000 possible.
Fiscal stewardship is therefore inseparable from mission stewardship.
Each financial decision affects CPOF’s ability to fulfill a promise to someone who may one day need help.
Perry’s experience with organizational governance, business services and association leadership prepared him well for that responsibility.
He understands that a strong organization must lead with compassion while remaining disciplined in its operations. Caring for people and maintaining accountability are not competing priorities.
Both are necessary if CPOF is to remain strong for generations to come.
Perry’s role is active, not honorary. He participates in the decisions that guide the Foundation, helps protect its resources and contributes the historical perspective of someone who remembers why CPOF was created in the first place.
Carrying Their Work Forward
Perry’s story is inseparable from the leaders who came before him.
Don Novey recognized his ability and appointed him CCPOA State Secretary.
Larry Corby and Dick Waldo established the tradition of leadership Perry followed.
Alongside Glenn Mueller and Sal Osuna, those men created a Foundation dedicated to making sure correctional professionals and their families would not face tragedy alone.
Perry did not simply know their names.
He knew their work.
He watched CPOF grow from an idea shared by five correctional officers into a national organization serving families throughout the country.
He saw PROJECT 2000 become a place of remembrance, healing and reunion.
He saw photographs taken at those ceremonies become part of the Foundation’s recorded history.
He saw academy cadets become officers, members and leaders.
And through it all, he remained involved.
That continuity is one of Perry’s greatest contributions.
Organizations can preserve documents, photographs and meeting minutes, but institutional memory also lives within people. It lives in those who remember the conversations, relationships and decisions behind the official record.
Perry carries that memory.
More importantly, he uses it.
He helps current leaders understand the Foundation’s beginnings while helping new correctional professionals see their place within its future.
A Legacy of Continuity
Today, we recognize Perry Speth:
A second-generation Correctional Peace Officer.
A Youth Correctional Counselor who devoted approximately three decades to California’s juvenile correctional system.
A chapter president who gave correctional employees a voice.
A longtime CCPOA State Secretary and Executive Emeritus.
A trusted adviser and steward of institutional history.
A photographer who helped preserve the dignity and emotion of PROJECT 2000.
A recruiter who introduces new academy cadets to the promise of taking care of our own.
A CPOF Treasurer and National Director entrusted with helping protect the Foundation’s future.
And a living connection between the men who founded CPOF and the generations now carrying their mission forward.
Perry’s Legacy Friday story is not about arriving at CPOF in 2021.
It is about a commitment that began when CPOF began.
For more than four decades, he has supported the people, relationships and principles that made the Foundation possible. He has carried lessons learned from Don Novey, Larry Corby and Dick Waldo into his own leadership and now helps pass them to those who will follow.
Perry stands at an important place in CPOF’s history.
Behind him is the generation that created the promise.
Beside him are the leaders responsible for keeping it.
Ahead of him are the cadets, members and future directors who will one day inherit it.
Perry has helped connect them all.
That is his legacy.
If you served with Perry in the California Youth Authority or Division of Juvenile Justice, worked beside him through CCPOA or CPOF, attended PROJECT 2000 with him or have a photograph or memory to share, we would be honored to help preserve it as part of his living legacy.
