Advancing Women’s Leadership in Law Enforcement

By Director Connie Patrick, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
 
Last week, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) hosted 21 women in law enforcement as part of FLETC’s Women in Law Enforcement Leadership Training Program at our headquarters in Glynco, GA. FLETC hosted a week-long leadership training program to help promote and support women’s leadership in law enforcement, discuss current leadership challenges for women in law enforcement, and help facilitate career planning.
 
 During the training program, I had the great privilege to join U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Chief of Staff Julia Pierson and FLETC Assistant Directors Cynthia Atwood and Dominick Braccio for a panel discussion on law enforcement leadership topics. 
 
USSS Chief of Staff Pierson began her career as a police officer in Orlando, Florida and then served as a USSS Special Agent assigned to the Miami Field Office.  FLETC Assistant Director Atwood was a special agent at the United States Department of Agriculture before coming to FLETC 15 years ago to promote law enforcement training excellence.  FLETC Assistant Director Braccio has 32 years of law enforcement experience and recently received the Outstanding Advocate for Women in Federal Law Enforcement Award for his contributions in areas of recruiting, retaining, and promoting women in law enforcement from the Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE) Foundation.
 
During the panel discussion, we noted that, while the law enforcement officers in attendance  represented a diverse spectrum of agencies and functions, they shared common experiences as women in law enforcement. Although women make up 47 to 50 percent of the workforce in the United States, they constitute only up to 20 percent of the law enforcement workforce and are underrepresented in the management ranks.
 
Here at FLETC, we are working hard to advance issues that impact women in law enforcement.  In the coming year, we will hold Women in Law Enforcement Leadership Training Programs at the FLETC domestic centers and internationally at the International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA) in Thailand, Hungary, Botswana, and El Salvador. 
 
We at FLTEC understand that the law enforcement profession as a whole will continue to improve as women bring their skills and experience to leadership roles in law enforcement organizations across the country and around the world, and we look forward to being a part of their good work.                                          
                                     
Connie Patrick is Director of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), DHS’s law enforcement training organization.  Last year, FLETC trained more than 70,000 law enforcement professionals in skills including fingerprinting, tracking financial transactions, counterterrorism tactics, securing a building and searching a crime scene.

Timothy J. Delaney Named Special Agent in Charge of the Criminal Division at the Los Angeles Field Office

Tim Delaney is not only an excellent FBI leader, but he was a military leader.  Check out these military leadership books and become one of the best!

Director Robert S. Mueller, III named Timothy J. Delaney special agent in charge of the FBI’s Criminal Division at the Los Angeles Field Office. Mr. Delaney most recently served as section chief for the New Agent’s Training Program Section in the FBI’s Training Division. In this role, he was responsible for the development and delivery of training programs for new special agents.

Mr. Delaney completed new agent training in Quantico, Virginia in 1991. He worked in the New York Field Office for nine years, where was assigned to the Manhattan office and investigated a variety of white-collar crime matters.

After serving in New York, Mr. Delaney was promoted to unit chief at FBI Headquarters in the Criminal Investigative Division’s Health Care Fraud Unit from July 2000 to December 2004. He oversaw the efforts of more than 400 investigators and managed a budget of more than $114 million. In this role, he was also a frequent lecturer on health care fraud at major conferences and training sessions.

From January 2005 to June 2008, Mr. Delaney served as assistant special agent in charge in the Miami Field Office. He managed division’s white-collar crime, cyber, and civil rights programs. In addition to this, he oversaw the efforts of special agents and intelligence analysts. While in Miami, the division dismantled criminal enterprises resulting in convictions of Washington, D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, several county commissioners, and three police corruption rings.

Mr. Delaney is a native of Queens, New York. Prior to the start of his FBI career in 1991, he graduated from Sienna College in Albany, New York with a degree in accounting. He worked in investment banking at Banque Paribas in New York City and served five years in the U.S. Army Reserves, leaving as a first lieutenant. Mr. Delaney is married and has three children.

Face of Defense: British NCO Trains Future Marine Leaders

This story is about real Marines training real leaders.  Find more military leadership books and become one of the best!

By Marine Corps Cpl. Jahn R. Kuiper

The Quantico Sentry

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va., Aug. 16, 2011 – British Royal Marine Colour Sgt. Richy Asson strives to provide challenging, safe and proper training in his job as the physical training advisor at the U.S. Marine Officer Candidate School here.

Asson works directly with the commanding officer to decide the most effective and safest way for candidates to train, and he also oversees the U.S. Marine physical training instructors.

Few people know how a British Royal Marine earned the position where he helps train future American officers. It began in 1972, Asson said, when two high-ranking officers from OCS and the Royal Marines Commando Training Center in Devon, England, got together.

“The story goes that because the [U.S. Marine Corps] doesn’t have a [military specialty] that’s a physical training expert, the American officer asked us to send one of our physical training instructors to head up training here at OCS,” Asson said. “In exchange, they would send an infantry trained gunnery sergeant to be the advisor to one of our platoon commanders and help administrate one of our platoons of enlisted recruits going through the Royal Marines Commando Training Center. It was a classic ‘switcharoo.’”

After 20 years of service in the British Royal Marines, 15 of them as a physical training instructor, and after heading the physical training course at the Royal Marines Commando Training Center, Asson was told he would be making the trip across the pond in 2010.

Asson said he was delighted to be chosen.

“In our field, this is the most prestigious job, and I’m honored to be here,” he said. “This is the job everyone wants, because you get to come to America and be an advisor to the colonel, you’re pretty much on your own, and [you] get to run things how you see fit. And you get to help mold the candidates here at OCS.”

It’s important for the officer candidates to train safely, Asson said.

“I make sure the courses here are safe to train on. For example, if the obstacle course has ice on it, I’ll shut it down,” he said. “I make sure the candidates stay safe and see to it that the instructors conduct training properly.”

The leadership at OCS considers Asson’s role to be vital.

“The Marine Corps doesn’t have a physical training expert as a job, so the knowledge and experience he brings is crucial,” said Col. Rick Jackson, the OCS commanding officer. “He is the one that ensures the candidates are meeting the physical standards expected of our graduates and recommends if they are prepared for the rigors of the basic school.

“He is the duty expert,” the colonel continued, “and without him we would really just be guessing on what the best training would be. Just like a battalion has a gunner as a weapons expert, he is our expert, and I consult with him on all physical training matters.”

But this wasn’t only a commitment for the colour sergeant, but also for his wife and famil,y who came to America with him on the two-year tour.

“I have my wife, Nickey, and my 13-year-old twins, Billy and Megan, here with me,” Asson said. “It was hard, especially for the twins, to adjust with school and all, but now they all are really enjoying being here in America.”

Asson said he strives to excel at his mission at OCS.

“I always make sure I give 100 percent and give a good showing of myself,” Asson said. “If I drop my standard, it looks bad on not only OCS but also the Royal Marines. I’m the only one here, so I must give my all to maintain the image of my service. I approach my mission here with the utmost importance.”

Army Works to Accelerate Leader Development

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Oct. 10, 2007 - The Army is exploring new ways to accelerate the development of leaders prepared for the broad challenges they'll face in what's expected to be an era of persistent conflict, the Army's chief of staff said here yesterday. "We are committed to investing in our officer, warrant officer, noncommissioned officer and civilian leaders," Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told attendees at the annual Association of the U.S. Army convention. "In this era of persistent conflict, it is absolutely essential that we develop leaders that can handle the challenges of full-spectrum operations."

Full-spectrum operations include the broad range of missions soldiers can be called on to carry out: from supporting peacetime operations to conducting major combat operations, and everything in between.

This operating environment requires agile, adaptive leaders, able to shift quickly and smoothly between missions, Casey said.

"Our leaders in the 21st century must be competent in their core competencies, broad enough to operate across the full spectrum of conflict, able to operate in joint, interagency and combined environments, at home in other cultures and courageous enough to see and exploit opportunities in the complex environments they will be operating in," he said.

Just as warfare has changed, so too has the way the Army develops leaders, Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV, commander of the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., said during a panel discussion about accelerating leader development.

"We don't want to teach you what to think," he said. "We want to teach you how to think."

This effort extends throughout the Army's education and professional development system, through a blend of formal education, operational experience and guided self-development, Caldwell said.

Officer candidates are getting more field and operational experience, Maj. Gen. W. Montague Winfield, commander of U.S. Army Cadet Command, told attendees. Officers are getting more educational opportunities and more access to joint, interagency, intergovernmental and multinational training, Brig. Gen. Mark O'Neill, deputy commandant of the Army's Command and General Staff College, told the group.

Warrant officers are attending more officer training courses, said Col. Mark Jones, command of the Army Warrant Officer Career Center. And recognizing that its enlisted force is "taking on more responsibility earlier in their careers than ever before, the Army is adapting its training programs so they're better prepared, said Col. Donald Gentry, commandant of the Army Sergeants Major Academy.

Meanwhile, the Army is tapping into best practices from the private and public sectors to accelerate training and development of its civilian work force that's filling critical positions and maintaining continuity, said Volney "Jim" Warner, director of the Army's Civilian Development Office.

How well the Army develops soldiers and leaders able to operate effectively and efficiently in an era of persistent conflict will have far-reaching impact on the force and its ability to succeed, the officials agreed.

"Soldiers are the strength of this Army, and they make this Army the strength of this nation," Casey said. "It will be our soldiers who lead us to victory over the nation's enemies, and it will be soldiers who preserve the peace for us and for our allies."