When William Solomon was a youngster, the future Old Lycoming Township officer, chief and elected district judge worked in his parents’ car repair garage.

“My parents had a garage/repair shop and did mechanical work on cars,” Solomon said.

When he was 12 or 13 years old, he said he worked with his parents on cars and said he got to know township Police Chief Sal Casale.

“I told him I wanted to be a policeman,” Solomon said, fondly recalling what Casale said next.

He said, ‘Hang in there. If that is what you want, that is what you will get,'” Solomon said.

Casale hired Solomon when he was 22 years old and he went on to have a 31-year career with the township department.

“He was like a second father to me, a mentor and a great friend,” said Solomon, of Casale, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 84.

He added how Casale would always put other people’s needs before his. “He was a great public servant . . . you don’t find people like him much any more.”

A mentor, a police chief with avant garde initiatives, a guy who cared about youth, especially those at-risk or troubled, and a man who made Old Lycoming Township a safer and better place — were among the tributes given to Casale.

Casale initiated efforts to bring in the first central processing center for suspected DUI in Lycoming County. He was, simply put, the father of what became a modern and dependable township police department, according to numerous colleagues and friends.

Among those speaking volumes of the man were his co-workers and friends — testimonials that will assure residents of Old Lycoming Township and beyond they were blessed to have Casale as a resident, employee, and friend.

Such devotion to his nation and community began soon after graduating Williamsport Area High School’s Class of ’58, when he joined the National Guard Co. K 109th Infantry division in Williamsport, according to his obituary.

Casale started at the department as a part-time officer in 1969, according to a 2017 biographical interview by Philip A. Holmes, Sun-Gazette police and fire reporter.

He was appointed as the first full-time police chief for the township in 1971, but while working out of an office in a boiler room of the township building. The office was nothing to write home about.

“Water would come down on my uniform,” Casale once stated.

He had no telephone, and any time the phone would ring for him he would walk over to the township secretary’s office to answer it.

Soon after becoming full-time chief, he was tasked with setting up a full-time police department.

His annual salary was $8,000 sans a pension, which would come later for police employees.

Initially, Casale oversaw a department with a handful of part-time officers, but the time constraints of the job forced the township to start hiring officers full-time.

“We couldn’t keep up with just part-timers,” Casale said.

When arrests were made there were court hearings and trials that followed, and that sometimes required the part-time officers to be pulled off their main jobs.

Another evolution step to a full-time department was due to the volume of accidents on nearby Route 15. Casale responded to many complaints from residents about the accidents as well as speeding vehicles.

In the early 1970s Casale improvised when the department’s sole police cruiser, a 1965 Plymouth Road Runner, was out of commission and the chief used the family car.

“When you had problems, you had to improvise in order to keep things going,” Casale once said.

A few months later, in March 1974, the Board of Supervisors voted to transition the department from part-time to full-time, with an initial staff of three full-time and three part-time officers.

The township was experiencing what it does with population increase — crime and calls for service, and the township needed to go full-time. Casale wanted it to happen.

Many of the law enforcement procedures developed under his guidance have been adopted by departments across the state and remain in place.

“Chief Casale was a very humble man and a true visionary, who never lost sight of the mission of how can the police department make things better for residents,” said Ann-Marie Brown, current township manager.

“The chief was the first person to say, ‘I didn’t do this alone.’ He acknowledged he was surrounded by great bosses who let him do his job and wonderful officers who carried out the vision for all the residents and business owners, without the committed officers none of this could be done,” Brown said.

“Chief Casale will be remembered for all his unselfish acts of kindness, years of dedication, sacrifice, and service. The loss to Old Lycoming Township is great and will be felt through the generations that knew him.”

“Having known him for over 50 years in different capacities I can say he was a very successful and effective police chief. He was well respected throughout the region and state,” said Tim Shumbat, a lifelong township resident, president and retired Deputy Fire Chief at the Old Lycoming Township Volunteer Fire Company.

“He loved Old Lycoming Township and faithfully served the residents and businesses,” said Shumbat, adding that Casale “used his God-given gift to lead and communicate to people.”

“His mentoring, teaching, and communicating gift was most certainly the greatest. I observed him on numerous occasions over the years be able to calm down the most out of control individuals by using a very calm and persistent approach. He was so good at this he could even find a way to carry on a relationship with those that were his adversaries.”

Casale always strived for doing what was best. “He always seemed to do the right thing. The beauty of that was he instilled that in his officers,” Shumbat said.

“His department’s mission was to serve the public, and to have his officers do whatever the residents needed with reason. I heard him on more than one occasion say, ‘We are here to serve the township, and we will do that.'”

Casale was personally at every flood in the township helping.

On his own time, Casale was able to acquire a mobile home, a trailer that had been used for 1972 Agnes flood refugees before the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development donated the mobile home to the township for its first police station. The chief and his officers and other volunteers donated every hour needed to remodel the entire building.

In the 1984 flood he was seen hanging on the side of the township’s frontend loader rescuing residents on Cottage Avenue.

During flooding in 1996, Casale was said to have worked 16 to 20 hour days for several weeks. He established a soup kitchen for flood victims, rescuers and workers in the clean up. The flood damaged properties in Loyalsock Township, Lycoming Township, Hepburn Township, Lewis Township, and McIntyre Township. He coordinated relief supplies and a food and clothing store for any victims to access. When an official said “No” Casale was the man who got the job done, and he did not take “No” for an answer if it meant a better quality of life for residents in the Lycoming Creek corridor.

When fire, rescue, ambulance and police services were asked who the leader of the great flood recovery was, it was Casale who was first on the list for reporters covering the disaster.

He once took the cruiser to go get an elderly woman’s prescription at the drug store because she could not get there.

His police department was the first in the region to require all his officers to be either a certified EMT or First Responder to be able to respond to all medical 911 calls in the township and render care to accident victims. Ensured oxygen was carried in cruisers as part of a quick-response emergency service in the mid-1970s.

Long before regionalization of the department, he expanded full-time police protection to Hepburn and Lycoming townships, doubling the population it serves from 5,200 to 10,600 and geographically tripling its coverage area.

Casale was on a panel in Lycoming County Court that decided on six district magisterial courts for proper case distribution.

He and former DuBoistown Police Department Chief Norm Cowden started the Lycoming Law Enforcement Association as a way to raise money for police training.

Casale cared about the area’s youth. Casale spent many nights and literally hundreds of hours counseling troubled youth. Including midnight shift emergency calls to come in to work at no cost for his services to the township.

He organized and volunteered his time to establish the first youth club that was supervised by police staff.

He acquired a mobile home trailer and put games, pinball machines, soda machines, tables, and television in it to keep youngsters occupied – and away from their idle hands.

The youth groups went on bus trips to amusement parks and field trips on the weekends, with Casale and other police officers donating their time to drive the buses.

Casale established the first police department probation program so at-risk youth were not arrested but placed on community service to pay their debt to society.

Casale established the first Easter egg hunt with an Easter bunny, as the fire department and police handed out candy that was donated.

Casale organized the first Halloween parties at the Old Lycoming Fire Company and again spent many hours donating time to make sure kids had fun.

Casale didn’t let Christmastime escape, with holiday parties each year, complete with goodies and a visit from Santa, who he was able to have arrived by state police helicopter or fire truck.

Whenever Casale heard about a family in township experiencing challenging times, he worked to get donated food or appliances and beds for them to sleep on.

“He was well respected and again I had many opportunities as a volunteer fireman on calls with him to see that residents and businesspeople called him by his first name,” Shumbat said. “They had confidence and respect for his work as the police chief. That was evidence of his success in leadership of the department and how his officers reflected his values for the department.”

Old Lycoming Township was blessed to have Chief Casale serve as the police chief and use his gift to build a, likely, once in a lifetime model police department.

“He was a one-of-a-kind unique public servant and police chief,” Shumbat said, “If all police departments could have a Chief Casale lead their department and develop their officers, we would all experience great policing,” Shumbat remarked.

“He had the vision to see that being a police officer went far beyond police duties and arresting bad individuals. It was fully serving the public, which meant performing duties and tasks outside of the typical police officer paradigm of duties.”

“Throughout the years, Chief Casale’s leadership inspired each of us to strive for excellence, transforming the department into one of the best in North Central Pennsylvania,” said retired Old Lycoming Township Police Department Sgt. Robert J. Burns II who was hired by Casale as a part-time officer in November 1973.

Over the years, whether it was going the extra mile to ensure each officer on duty worked a four-hour shift on Christmas, so that officers could spend a majority of their holiday at home (up to 20 hours).

Casale cared deeply about his department and thereby the community.