WORLAND – Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Erin Devries has been promoted to lieutenant and has taken over the position of first line supervisor for the Wyoming Highway Patrol’s Division G, Worland. Devries is the only female first line supervisor in the command staff right now and is the third female in the history of the Wyoming Highway Patrol to reach First Line Supervisor.

“It’s very exciting and a step in the right direction for my career. Right now, I’m learning everything and will figure it out once I’ve been here a little bit longer,” Devries said. “You have to go through a full promotional process, I put a lot of effort into, and it’s something I was really passionate about. I got elected out of three candidates from around the state,” she added.

Devries said that before joining the Wyoming Highway Patrol in Laramie six and a half years ago that she was a sergeant in the Army National Guard for six years. After the military she moved with her husband, Michael, to Chicago, where her father-in-law and two brothers-in-law are members of the police force. In an earlier interview she stated that her husband, a mechanic, didn’t follow in his father’s and brothers’ footsteps but that his wife did. She stated that her father-in-law and brothers-in-law showed her how interesting police work is.

“I always wanted to be a public servant. In the Army I was a medic and I was going to nursing school until I found out that I didn’t enjoy that profession too much. All my in-laws are police officers, so it was really a job that I wanted to get into and started out on the call-taker dispatch side in Little Italy and decided that I would like to get on the other side and actually help people on the side of the road. This is just another way, as a first time supervisor you are a mentor, a coach, you supervise troopers and make sure that they get what they need to do the job and protect the public,” Devries said.

Devries’ goal in her new position is to make sure that the agency is always protecting the public and that she hopes to add additional troopers to the division to better protect the public, as the division is slotted for seven troopers and they are down to three. She stated that she is always looking for prospective recruits. “We have four empty slots throughout Basin, Worland and Thermopolis. I have done what’s called recruit testing down in Cheyenne that’s where we do oral boards and physical fitness testing for civilians. I have participated in those in the past and I am always, if I see someone who has shown interest in police work, even on the side of the road on a traffic stop I will say, ‘have you ever considered the Wyoming Highway Patrol?’ I’m always recruiting,” she said.