By spring 1971, Douglas had settled into his job in Detroit, and he was living with fellow agents Bob McGonigel and Jack Kunst when he met the woman who would become his wife. He was out one night with his housemates at a bar called Jim’s Garage when an attractive woman in a blue dress caught his eye. Her name was Pam Modica, and she was celebrating her twenty-first birthday. They met that evening and began dating in the months that followed. Modica was a student at Eastern Michigan University at the time, and she had decided to study abroad during her fall semester in Coventry, England. While she was away, Douglas spent time getting to know her mother and siblings by availing himself of her mother’s hospitality and having dinner with them several nights a week. Modica returned home at the end of the semester, and Douglas proposed shortly thereafter, on Christmas Eve, in front of her entire family.

In his second year with the FBI, Douglas was assigned to Milwaukee, and he moved there in January. His new fiancée would not join him there until after their June wedding. Douglas was assigned to recruiting, and he traveled all around the state as a result, successfully recruiting far more than the quota set by the Bureau.