Lieb Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Illinois FOP

By Benjamin Cox on August 5, 2022 at 1:30pm

Lieb with FOP State Lodge President Chris Southwood

Jacksonville resident Jerry Lieb received the Bill Mehrtens Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police State Lodge during the Illinois FOP’s annual conference held July 27 – 28 in O’Fallon.

Lieb helped to charter the local Morgan County FOP lodge in 1982 and was the lodge president from 1983 until he retired and left the department in 1990. When state legislation was passed in 1986 that gave police officers collective bargaining rights, Lieb began a more than 32-year career with the state’s largest police labor union, the FOP Labor Council, representing active duty officers throughout the state. Lieb became a member of the Jacksonville Police Dept FOP Lodge in 1990 and served many years as both vice-president and president of that Lodge.

Lieb is currently the vice chairman of the Illinois FOP State Lodge board of trustees. Lieb helped to develop the Illinois FOP State Lodge Disaster Response Unit, a trailer outfitted with emergency supplies that can be sent to assist officers and their neighbors who are hit with natural or man-made disasters. Lieb also assists with the Illinois FOP State Lodge’s Project Blue Life, a police shooting situation simulator for civilians that graphically demonstrates the split-second, shoot-don’t shoot scenarios that police officers can face every day.

Lieb was elected chairman of the Illinois FOP Foundation, which raises tax deductible funds to help the families of officers who die in the line of duty. He is also the chairman of the Illinois FOP State Lodge Award Committee that recognizes officers across the state for extraordinary valor, life-saving and meritorious actions.

The Illinois FOP Chardy Lieb Memorial Award, named in memory of Lieb’s wife of 35 years who died of cancer in 2016, is presented to an FOP member’s spouse for their active and dedicated support to the organization.