By Amanda Respess 

B ill Massee (’70) may seem like a traditional Southern sheriff, with his easy smile, strong handshake and deep drawl, but looks can be deceiving. 

Massee is one of the state's longest-serving sheriffs, having led the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office since 1989. But Massee is committed to running a 21st Century operation. He constantly seeks out innovative technologies and new ideas — most recently as a student in GCSU’s criminal justice online master’s program. 

“People will say, ‘We didn’t used to do it this way, so why change?’” Masse said. “But change is not our enemy.” 

Born and raised in Milledgeville, a graduate of Baldwin High School and a Georgia College alumnus, Massee’s first job was with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation after graduation. Now serving his 10th term as sheriff, he’s always looking for opportunities to recruit college graduates onto the force. Over the decades, in fact, he has given dozens of Bobcats their first jobs in law enforcement. 

“I look at Georgia College as, honestly, the most unbelievable recruiting grounds in the world,” Massee said. “We’ve got smart young people who it doesn’t take a seasoned investigator to realize have an interest in law enforcement.” 

Now with the launch of the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office new Real Time Crime Center — which employs six student interns who range in degree focus from Management Information Systems to Math to Liberal Studies — a new unit for career opportunity, and industry innovation, has presented itself. 

Bite Out of Crime 

The roots of the Real Time Crime Center can be traced back to Georgia College. 

Through the criminal justice graduate program, Massee met Evelyn Johnson (’24), who mentioned in a class introduction that she was interested in analytics and had interned with the GBI. Massee messaged her right away. 

“I told her I’m going to start an intelligence program, and I would like to sit down and talk,” he said. 

Johnson now serves as the center’s director. 

“We started an intelligence initiative from scratch, working out of a closet,” Massee added. “What we’re running at the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office is state of the art. We are running programs that nobody else in the state is looking at.” 

Those programs tap into big data. The center pulls together enormous amounts of information from sources including social media, facial recognition software, state and federal databases, jail logs and the dozens of high-tech Flock cameras now installed across Baldwin County. 

“I hope to light a spark in young adults for law enforcement again,” Lt. Johnson said. “There is a whole world behind the badge and gun. … I want to give them the opportunity to see all of it.” 

That’s why she makes sure that the work her interns do matters. No gopher tasks here. Only real cases, real police work. 

Skye Mears (’25) from Sugar Hill, Georgia, majored in biology and chemistry and began interning at the Sheriff’s Office in January 2024. Now a full-time intelligence analyst, Mears first became interested in forensics thanks to Dr. Arnab Sengupta, assistant professor of biology. 

“Working here helped me [in school], especially in my chemistry classes,” said Mears. “[The internship] just angled my brain in a different way.” 

Massee credits close relationships with Georgia College faculty with helping him prepare the next generation of tech-savvy law enforcers. 

“I’ve not only helped Baldwin County and Georgia College, but our entire profession,” Massee said. “We run these students through the same hiring process that we do our employees. They are totally vetted — polygraphed, psych tested, drug tested. They’ve completed training and are certified. I will call any sheriff or any chief in the state of Georgia, and we will try to place them anywhere they want to go.”

Header Images: The Baldwin County Sheriff's Office Real Time Crime Center is a $650 million project more than two years in the making, lead by Massee and alumna Lt. Evelyn Johnson. The center is staffed by Georgia College alumni and students with a wide variety of backgrounds in computer science, mathematics, forensics and liberal studies. (Photos: Anna Gay Leavitt)