Sarah Krebs, Inspector/DEI Officer, Michigan State Police
SARAH KREBS has always attempted to speak out for the lost, the missing, and the forgotten. Early in her career as a young trooper, she spoke before the Michigan State Police (MSP) Executive Council, pointing out the shortcomings of the state’s unidentified remains investigations, arguing that such investigations suffered from the lack of oversight and that there was a deficient number of records stored in state and national databases. At this point she had already spearheaded a variety of programs to help identify human remains cases and had led community outreach to benefit the families of missing persons and allow them find closure. Krebs established an event called “ID the Missing” that assists the county medical examiners with documenting and testing unidentified remains cases, many of which were never documented outside of the county morgues’ archives. Krebs started a non-profit agency called “Missing in Michigan” to help unite the families of missing persons with law enforcement and the media, enabling officers to collect family reference DNA samples, document and publicize previously unreported cases. Missing in Michigan gives these bereaved families an opportunity to be heard, breathing new life into their unsolved cases. These programs are now national models for missing persons–related public events. Inspector Krebs also played a significant role in developing the MSP Missing Persons Coordination Unit (MPCU) in 2014, which combined the efforts of law enforcement and medical examiners to solve current and cold cases. Since its inception, the MPCU has positively identified over 100 unidentified human remains cases as missing persons reported throughout the United States; many of these are homicide cases that now have the crucial identification lead. Krebs has also independently identified more than 200 incidences of previously undocumented, unidentified remains from county archives and unmarked graves.
In 2017, Krebs was named as an International Association of Chiefs of Police “40 Under 40” Awardee. She left the investigative world to promote to leadership and started as a co-chair to the “Women Leading Change” MSP employee resource group. She mentors female recruits embarking on their journey within the Michigan State Police recruit schools and she is an avid promoter of the 30x30 initiative to recruit more women into the field of law enforcement.
Krebs holds a BS in Anthropology from Michigan State University, an MBA in Diversity and Leadership from Cleary University an executive certificate in Public Leadership from Harvard and sue is currently pursuing her DEI certificate from Brown University. She holds the position of the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer for the Michigan State Police. Her continuing work and dedication are motivated by the knowledge that some leaders were born women.