Before applying to be in the FBI, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office for Domestic Preparedness Director Suzanne Mencer was a junior high and high school Spanish teacher.
"I was taking razor blades away from kids," she said. "I wanted a job where I could be armed, too."
Mencer spoke to 50 students at the Fels Institute of Government yesterday afternoon.
Mencer spent an hour and a half discussing the 20 years she spent in the FBI, the responsibilities that come with heading the ODP and the effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mencer joined the FBI in 1978 in a class with 135 women -- today there are over 2,000 women in the bureau.
Melissa Caplan, a Penn graduate student studying government administration, said Mencer's speech was "important for women who are looking to get into law enforcement." She also said she found Mencer's "personal story ... of how she worked up through the ranks," very interesting.
During her career in the FBI, Mencer spent some time working in Denver, helping to arrest terrorists hiding in the mountains who were stockpiling pipe bombs. She also processed over 600 leads that helped to trace the trail of Timothy McVeigh and connect him to the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995.
Although Mencer retired from the FBI in 1998, she was asked to serve on the Columbine Review Commission after the tragedy that occurred in Littleton, Colo.
"I guess I did too good a job because then I got a call from Secretary [of Defense Tom] Ridge ... to come back to Washington," she said.
Mencer was appointed to her current position in 2003 and is responsible for enhancing the capabilities of state and local governments to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.
She works with over a $4 billion budget to help local agencies obtain the best equipment -- from new fire trucks to protective suits -- and coordinate training exercises that simulate incidents of terrorism.
Caplan said she felt it was amazing how many lives Mencer affects daily. "She has really been involved in every national crisis on American soil, at least on some level," Caplan said.
When reflecting on Sept. 11, Mencer said, "In spite of the horrific tragedy, a lot of good things came out of it."
She added that agencies are now sharing information with one another, something that did not occur prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center.
"We had all these agencies functioning independently of one another," Mencer said. "We have to learn from our mistakes. We have to learn from history."
