"I wish I had a bunch more sergeants of the same mold," says San Jose Police Lt. Glen McCourtie.

"Mike's done a great job," adds Capt. Jack Farmer.

"He's an exceptionally good officer. He's the poster child of what police officers should be like at the end of their careers," says former San Jose Police Chief Bill Lansdowne, now police chief in San Diego.

Almaden's Sgt. Fehr, 54, is retiring from the police department after more than 32 years—32.45 years to be exact, he says—and for the past four years he's been in charge of the area that includes Almaden Valley.

The officers who have worked by his side, who have reported to him and those to whom he has reported all agree: he's a great guy.

Who wants to say anything bad about a stalwart cop who has dedicated more than half his life to protecting and serving the public? But with all those positives, it leaves one wondering whether he have any faults.

"The one negative side I can say about him is Mike talks too much," says Carm Grande, past president of Police Officers Association and close friend of Fehr's. "He never knows when to quit."

But Fehr's ramblings are not quite as long as his appetite, though, according to Grande and others.

"I've never seen a human being eat as much as Mike does," says officer Dan LeZotte. "He's the original Cookie Monster. That title was stolen from Mike. It's sheer decadence."

LeZotte has known Fehr for 25 years and has worked for him for three years, and Grande has known Fehr for 32 years. They both say that they have personally seen Fehr consume huge quantities of food, particularly sweets.

"I saw him eat six Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars and then eat a quarter of a cheesecake," LeZotte says. "All in about 30 minutes."

Grande says that when officers sit down to eat together, Fehr will gobble down the food on his own plate, then finish off anything left on everyone else's plates.

"Don't get me wrong, he's not a slob," Grande says.

Actually, Fehr, who has a quite tidy appearance, is tall, fit and trim.

"It's unfair," LeZotte says.

Adds Grande, "I don't know where it all goes."

As quick as they are to tease Fehr, they are equally as eager to praise him.

"He's the kind of guy everybody would like to have as a friend," Grande says.

"He's a gentle spirit, but no one should mistake his kindness for weakness," LeZotte adds.

Fehr, who was born in Peoria, Ill., and raised in California, has been a tough cop working in several divisions within the department, among them K-9, traffic, robbery, motorcycles and MERGE, the department's SWAT team.

"I always returned to patrol," Fehr says. "It's like I tell the young guys, 'Patrol is your roots.' You can't forget your roots."

Through it all, superiors such as Lansdowne say they never heard Fehr complain. And in his never-wavering enthusiasm and commitment to the police department and his fellow officers, he spent 12 years involved in the San Jose Police Officers Association; six years as a director, three years as vice president, and three years as president. During that time he successfully negotiated a contract with Lansdowne.

"He has a wonderful ability to find middle ground," Lansdowne says.

Finding a central point in contract negotiations doesn't necessarily translate in his political affiliations, friends say.

"He's very conservative," Grande says. "Very conservative."

Though he may be bent to the right, he has still held on to the photo he has of himself with President Bill Clinton when Clinton came to town and Fehr was assigned to escort him. But Fehr's eyes really light up when he talks about the photos of him with "Bush 41 and Bush 43."

The photos were taken during separate events when George H.W. Bush was president, and when George W. Bush was still governor of Texas.

"They are very down-to-earth people," Fehr says of the Bush family.

When Fehr's two daughters were younger, around 8 and 10 years old, Grande says he liked referring to them as "Republicanettes."

Fehr's daughters—Stacey and Leslie, both graduates of Santa Clara University—and his wife, Carolyn, have always come first in his life, Grande and LeZotte say, and it's an ethos Fehr wants to instill in the younger generation of cops.

"Number one is your family. Number two is the job. It's close, but it has to be second because you get so much support from your family doing your job," Fehr says.

Fehr says he always made time for his family, but come his first official day of retirement on Jan. 29, he'll have even more time for them. Although the first thing he says he's going to do in his retirement is sleep.

Retirement provides more opportunity for tee times too. A few years ago his family gave him golf lessons and it's now a game he says he plays "at," plus he's interested in learning bocce ball, a sport in which Grande is active.

But golf and bocce ball may not raise his adrenaline like the 115-mph car chase Fehr was in—he says it was his first experience dealing with someone strung out on PCP—in the late 1970s. It might not provide the satisfaction he says he felt when he met the adoptive grandfather of an hours-old baby Fehr and another cop rescued from a Dumpster, and learned years later the baby was happy and healthy.

Fehr still finds rewards in the job and says he wouldn't change a thing about his career—not even the order in which it flowed—but he knows leaving the job he has cherished since he was 21 will be difficult to do.

His colleagues are finding it hard to let him leave too.

"He's a prince of a guy. He's going to be missed," LeZotte says.