Fresh out of the New Jersey State Police Academy, Jeanne Hengemuhle remembers asking her mentor as they were patrolling Port Norris why he wanted to stop when he saw some kids on the side of the road shooting a basketball.
“What did they do?” she said she asked him. “Oh, you’re arresting them.”
“No,” she said he told her. “We’re just gonna shoot some basketballs with them.”
“Why?” she said she asked.
“Because it’s the human thing to do. They need to see you as a person.”
That was at the beginning of Hengemuhle’s career with the State Police, and the words of her mentor, known as a trooper coach, stuck with her. She graduated from the academy in 1997 and worked her way up to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 2024, she retired — well, sort of.
In February 2026, Hengemuhle came back to lead the agency after Gov. Mikie Sherrill nominated her for the position of superintendent. The nomination was historic. Hengemuhle, whose title is acting superintendent until the Senate confirms her, is the first woman and openly LGBTQ+ person to lead the State Police. While she is proud to make state history and said it’s “awesome” if she can be a role model for anybody, she thinks her gender and sexual orientation shouldn’t be the lead of the story.
“I’m super proud, but I know I didn’t do it alone,” Hengemuhle said during an interview in her office at the agency’s headquarters in West Trenton. She acknowledged the women who came before her and everyone who helped her in her life. “I know I didn’t do it alone. Sexual orientation doesn’t make a leader. Character, integrity, focus, drive — that’s your leader. My sexual orientation’s just a part of the story. Being a woman is just part of the story. …
“Everybody’s voice should be heard, and everybody belongs at the table. I tell the young kids all the time: ‘Realize you belong at the table, and if you’re at the table, your voice should be heard.’”
Now Hengemuhle, 56, is focused on leading the agency’s 3,253 enlisted and 1,390 civilian employees. Among her objectives are to build diversity, mental health support and public trust.
“We wear the uniform, but I want people to see the person underneath the uniform because that’s very important,” she said.
Hengemuhle said she knew since she was a young kid that she wanted to go into law enforcement. Her father, Joseph, was an FBI agent working in counter intelligence. “I just always knew. That was my earliest memory, which I don’t have a lot of, that it was always law enforcement.
“I wanted to [work in] undercover narcotics, and I don’t know if it was because of my father. He did some undercover work, and he was away for about six months one time. When he came back, he had a beard and a mustache, and I guess he sort of scared me,” she said with a laugh.
Hengemuhle said her father, who died when she was 18, was dedicated to his family, to the FBI and to his Catholic faith. She noted, a bit humorously, that her oldest brother is named Joseph and her oldest sister is named Mary. The acting superintendent’s mother, Agnes, who died in 2022, was a human resources professional.
With four brothers and two sisters, Hengemuhle is the only LGBTQ+ member of her immediate family.
Hengemuhle was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, and said she spent maybe a year there before the family moved back to New Jersey, where they had lived previously. She grew up in Westwood in Bergen County.
In high school, Hengemuhle found a passion for sports, especially softball, and was eventually inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. She struggled academically, though, and said she needed to learn how to study.
She said a coach took a chance on her at Trenton State College, now The College of New Jersey. She wanted to play softball. Her parents were supportive. She still struggled academically, but her coach helped her. She said that if it hadn’t been for her coach — who understood the importance of the academic side in addition to softball — family and others, she probably wouldn’t be where she is today.
Hengemuhle won accolades for softball in college and was inducted into TCNJ’s Hall of Fame in 2009. She has an undergraduate degree in criminal justice and police science and a master’s in education. She also graduated from the FBI National Academy.
Two weeks into her current role, she said, a man who is part of the LGBTQ+ community approached her as she was walking out of a state building. He thanked her and told her she inspired him.
“That made me feel good,” said Hengemuhle, who added that the man’s appreciation made the news media’s and public’s focus on her gender and sexual orientation more tolerable. While she said that’s who she is at her core, she noted that isn’t how she opens up a conversation with someone.
“If I’m a role model for anybody, that’s awesome. I will continue to stand up for what I need to stand up for and remember the position I am in and not take it for granted either,” she said.
Asked to give advice to LGBTQ+ people considering careers in law enforcement, she broadened her answer, saying that opportunities are there and that everyone’s voice is important no matter what field of work they choose. “Be true to yourself. Keep working hard,” she said.
Recently, Hengemuhle received a letter from a colleague of her late father. It said that he would be so proud of her. Asked during the interview what he might say to her if she and her father could speak again, she replied: “He’d say, “Good job, kid.’ That’s my father,” she said, pointing to a picture in her office.
Her father’s work didn’t always make it possible for him to be at Hengemuhle’s sporting events when she was young, although he tried to get to as many as he could. He made up for the absences, though. Everyone in his office knew what her softball stats were, she said, adding that he would tell her, “Good job, kid. Keep it up. Your integrity and your character are what you have, and you’ve proven that, and go with that now.”
Since his death, Hengemuhle sometimes attributes spiritual meaning to something like a street light going out. “I’m like, ‘Hey, Dad.’” And then when her mom died: “So now it’s like, ‘Hey, both of you.’”
Her father isn’t the only one who would be proud. Hengemuhle said her mother “would be doing backflips down the hallway” and “running around to all her friends” to tell them. With them gone, Hengemuhle’s siblings are supportive as is her wife. The two have been together for 23 years.
They live in Middlesex County, and while Hengemuhle said they are really homebodies and can sit on the coach and watch movies, they also love to golf and go hiking.
Considering her father was religious, is Hengemuhle? “You know what? I thank God every day. At the end of every night, I thank God for everything that He or She has allowed me to accomplish, achieve, for my health, for my safety. I can’t put myself into a specific religious background, but I wake up every morning, and I’m like, ‘Thank you.’”
With the responsibility of serving the state’s approximately 9.5 million residents in a society sometimes skeptical of law enforcement, and with the agency’s own challenges, Hengemuhle continues to lead. The weight she has taken on, according to her, is lessened by her confidence, her accomplishments, her faith in something bigger than herself and the support of the men and women she oversees.
What’s more, in addition to those things, is the probably universal desire by children to know they made their parents proud.
Good job, kid.
