ACOAM Academy Scholarship
Richard “Dick” Stein was the town of Canton’s Animal Control Officer for over 30 years, and he was a founding member of the Animal Control Officers Association of Massachusetts in 1980. With the creation of ACOAM he became a driving force in the move to educate and professionalize the officers in this much joked about and maligned job. Dick was there for the inception of the ACOAM certification course and he helped mold the course into one of the most in -depth educational opportunities available to animal control officers anywhere in the United States.
Dick served as President of ACOAM and later held other board positions as well. In 1995 the Animal Rescue League of Boston and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals honored Dick with the prestigious ACO of the Year award which he richly deserved.
His years of effort to build respect for his chosen profession helped create the recognition that ACOAM has today with local and state government. ACOs who never met Dick Stein will benefit from his efforts on behalf of the organization that he helped to create, and from the tone that he set that has helped to bring Animal Control from the image of the lowly, cartoon-ish, dogcatcher to a respected branch of public safety officer.
This scholarship is offered as a thank you and a memorial to honor the years that Dick Stein devoted to the Animal Control Officers Association of Massachusetts, and his contribution to the certification academy offered by the organization that he helped create.