Cheryl Blake fell in love with Michigan State University by accident. The first in her family to go to college, she only saw colleges via bus tours arranged by her School District. Trips included MSU and other Michigan-based universities. Despite receiving multiple acceptance letters and offers from other places, Blake chose MSU because, as she puts it, “When I stepped onto campus, I simply knew I belonged here.”
At MSU, Blake was enrolled in the Honors College and declared Psychology as her major. She took CJ 110: Introduction to Criminal Justice in her first term, which led her to explore classes in the major. By the end of her Freshman year, she officially changed her major to Criminal Justice.
Blake’s tuition was covered by the Michigan Education Scholarship, but she often worked three jobs to cover living expenses. Still, Blake found time to be highly engaged in campus life by being actively involved in Intramural (IM) Sports as a participant and official, and Student Government, including RHA rep for Williams Hall.
Blake’s experience as an Umpire was one that stuck with her throughout her career. Initially, Blake signed up to umpire for the women’s league but was told at the beginning of orientation that the infield fly rule was not called for women’s teams because “it was too hard for girls to understand.” Blake says, “with bravado I didn’t know I had, I got up and walked out of the room and across the hall where they were doing interviews for the men’s league.”
Despite passing the written test, Blake was told at umpire tryouts that the men’s league would not be hiring a female umpire…Yet, from 1975 to 1978, Blake was an umpire for the men’s league – the only female umpire for men’s intramural baseball at Michigan State University those three years.
After changing her major to Criminal Justice, Blake set her sights on a future career in Juvenile Justice, but an internship showed her that it was not the right path for her. However, that internship did show Blake what she really did like: investigations. This realization led Blake to a Pre-Law track, with intentions of working as an investigator for the State of Michigan. Unfortunately, when Blake graduated, the State was in a hiring freeze that temporarily closed that door.
To bide her time until the hiring freeze ended, Blake took a job at the department store E.J. Korvette. Her job was to catch shoplifters. She caught her first one in 15 minutes. Blake officially entered the world of Retail Loss Prevention. The field was a one-dimensional focus on catching thieves, including not only shoplifters but employees who were stealing. This role eventually led to a management role with Lord & Taylor, and then a multi-store position with Toys R Us.
At this time, Toys R Us was a company that was transitioning from a “cops and robbers” approach to a more holistic approach focusing on prevention and loss in other parts of the business, and was looking to hire more professionals with Criminal Justice degrees. Blake was the second person hired with a Criminal Justice degree. There, she oversaw 15 stores in Michigan where she worked with store managers to prevent shoplifting, fraud, and other forms of loss. Eventually, Blake would be promoted and became the first female Loss Prevention Director for Kids R Us stores.
At that time, loss prevention professionals were formally trained to approach dishonest employee investigations utilizing an exploratory interview technique with potential suspects. These interviews were non-confrontational interviews and conducted face to face with a witness present, which was a dramatic change from previous techniques. Over the course of her career, Blake interviewed more than 1,000 people and had a 95% admission rate. However, with large geographic coverage levels, face-to-face interviews were difficult to schedule on a timely basis. Blake helped pioneer adaptation of the interview process to be successful over the telephone. In 1999, the National Retail Federation invited her to share these insights and techniques with other loss prevention specialists. Today, telephone interviewing is a widely utilized process and Blake was credited by Wicklander-Zulawski, a firm that trains interviewers across the retail industry, with originating the practice.
Blake’s career would eventually lead her to the loss prevention software company Aspect Loss Prevention where she worked directly with retailers to identify internal theft risks through analytics and predictive metrics for point-of-sale data, enhanced with data from other sources such as human resources and customer information. After Aspect Loss Prevention was bought out by a larger firm, Blake became President of the division and oversaw its acquisition by Appriss Retail, a firm with more footing in Artificial Intelligence. She retired from there in 2024, completing a 46-year career in the retail loss prevention sector.
Blake is truly a trailblazer in the field of Retail Loss Prevention, and credits much of her success to being able to capture the moment and participate in shaping the future of the field, saying “I was fortunate that everywhere I went, I happened to be coming in just as things were really starting to change, and it allowed me to be on the ground floor for many things throughout my career.” She was one of the first women to serve as a Director of Loss Prevention in the country, and the fifth woman to receive the prestigious Ring of Excellence Award from the National Retail Federation.
Blake notes that the thing she is most proud of from her career was being part of integrating the entire organization into the loss prevention effort and helping to bring forth a Total Loss approach to profit protection, saying “when I started, everything was so siloed and departments didn’t work together. Loss Prevention looked only at theft, not the whole picture.”
In retirement, Blake finds herself busier than ever. Between biking, photography, a book club, wine club, staying involved in the Twin Cities Alumni Association, and spending time with her family, Blake and her husband, also a Spartan alum, maintain an active lifestyle. Blake also returns to campus annually to cheer on the Spartans with her friends and family.
Blake’s advice to Criminal Justice students is to seriously consider a career in retail loss prevention since it is a broader field than most students realize. The field includes investigations, interviews and interrogations, testifying in court, digital forensics, cybersecurity, and an ever-evolving network of physical security tools and processes. Blake also recommends those interested in the area gain business experience to stand out in the field, saying, “understanding how business is done is going to set you up really well and make you very effective in that role.”