Mike Perry bench-pressed 375 pounds in June to set the U.S. Police & Fire Championships record in the 50–59 age group and super heavyweight class. It was the most the 50-year-old Lacey Fire District 3 firefighter had ever lifted in competition.

Perry, a 23-year veteran of the Lacey department who has logged roughly 21,000 calls over a 30-year fire service career, has earned eight medals — including three golds — across the U.S. Police & Fire Championships and World Police & Fire Games in 2025 and 2026.

His 375-pound bench press at the June 2026 nationals in San Diego earned him a second consecutive gold in that event, and he added a silver in the push-pull.

The medals mark a comeback. Perry hadn't competed in weightlifting since the 2009 World Police & Fire Games in Vancouver, Canada, where he finished seventh in the eight-discipline "Toughest Competitor Alive" event.

A 16-year gap separated that showing from his return at the 2025 U.S. Championships, where he and Lacey Fire District 3 Paramedic Lieutenant Brandon Dawson broke the 40–49 age group record in the 1,000-meter doubles row by 16 seconds.

At the 2025 World Police & Fire Games in Birmingham, Alabama, Perry won silver in the bench press, bronze in the push-pull and bronze in the 500-meter individual row.

That event drew more than 8,500 first responders from 70 countries.

Perry has been open about his battle with PTSD, accumulated over decades of emergency calls. He first sought treatment in 2018 at the International Association of Firefighters Center of Excellence in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, a facility exclusively for firefighters and emergency medical workers. In spring 2026, he spent 41 days at the Deer Hollow trauma center in Utah and is on a leave of absence from Lacey Fire District 3.

"It's kept me focused. It's kept me driven," Perry told the Nisqually Valley News. "When I would lose my motivation to do things like work out or exercise, I developed this inner discipline, and I would just go whether I wanted to go or not."

Perry started powerlifting as a student at Davis High School in Yakima before entering the fire service as a volunteer around 1996.

His career honors include the American Red Cross Heroes Award in 2010 for helping save a 10-month-old in respiratory arrest, the department's Firefighter of the Year in 2012, and a medal of valor for helping rescue a young man from drowning.

Thurston County Commissioner Wayne Fournier, who served as a trainee firefighter alongside Perry at Lacey Fire District 3 in the mid-2000s, praised Perry in a Facebook post in July 2026, calling him "one of the finest firefighters (and one of the finest human beings) that I've ever had the opportunity to work with."

Perry plans to continue competing at the U.S. Police & Fire Championships each year. High schools in Thurston County have also asked him to judge powerlifting competitions, a full-circle connection to the sport he started as a prep athlete in Yakima.