Nantucket Police Chief Job Offered To Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper

Nantucket's next chief of police is expected to be Jody Kasper, the current chief of the Northampton, MA Police Department, who has tentatively accepted an offer to become the island's top cop, according to a town government source with knowledge of the hiring.

Kasper is among the three finalists for the job and is expected to take over the reins from outgoing Nantucket chief of police William Pittman, who has served in that role for nearly 20 years. Pittman is retiring in November after reaching the state's mandatory retirement age of 65.

Kasper would be the first woman to lead the Nantucket Police Department.

Nantucket town manager Libby Gibson would neither confirm nor deny that Kasper has been offered the position, stating the hiring process is not complete.

"There are still outstanding steps that have not been completed yet, such as the Town Charter-required 15-day notification of a pending department head appointment to the Select Board, the requisite background check, the employment medical exam, the employment contract," Gibson told the Current in an email. "Until those are final, I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not a candidate has accepted an offer. The credibility of the established process is compromised if a name is confirmed prior to process completion. Especially, if something were to change. That is why we do not announce any confirmations until the process is complete. When the process is complete, we will issue a statement."

Kasper did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The town's offer to Kasper was first reported by Dean Geddes in The Inquirer and Mirror Monday morning.

Born and raised in Western Massachusetts, Kasper has worked for the Northampton Police Department for 26 years. She got her start as a patrol officer, and worked her way up to become a field training officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant, detective lieutenant, captain of operations, and in June 2015, was named chief of police. Kasper graduated from Greenfield Community College and earned two master's degrees - one in criminal justice and the other in public administration - from Westfield State University. In 2021, Kasper was named the Woman Law Enforcement Executive of the Year by the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives.

Kasper was one of the three finalists for the Nantucket chief of police job, along with Richard Flynn, a police captain with the Arlington (Mass.) Police Department, and Mark Newport, the chief of police for the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Police Department.

The finalists participated in an "assessment center" evaluation last Monday, one of the final stages of the hiring process for the town.

The town is prepared to provide housing to Kasper as part of the employment package it is offering.