DOVER — Brittney Finnegan was a barber until deciding to pursue a career in law enforcement at age 30.
She put down the shears, entered the Dover Police Department Academy and is now a 33-year-old patrol officer.
For Melissa Zebley, the choice to enter the profession was far clearer.
Now superintendent of the Delaware State Police, one of Col. Zebley’s grandfathers was an officer in Wilmington, the other a firefighter there. She received tremendous encouragement from her parents, Diane and Jack Zebley, as well, she said.
Col. Zebley said an Explorers Program she participated in at St. Mark’s High School convinced her to seek the field.
During it, she took a ride-along with a state police trooper. “When I had that opportunity to sit in the right front seat of that cruiser, I knew I was hooked,” she recalled.
Col. Zebley’s and Pfc. Finnegan’s wide-ranging journeys have led them to the same destination: working as a female police officer in Delaware.
The colonel will reach the Delaware State Police’s mandatory retirement age of 55 on Nov. 1 and will step away from her post. She joined the agency in 1992 — since then, witnessing great progress for troopers who are women, she said.