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Looking for a few good women
Seeking fresh talent, U.S. Secret Service fans out at Navy Pier
By Patrick Kampert
Tribune reporter
The women at the job-fair booth struggled with their display just like their counterparts at other tables inside Navy Pier’s Lakeview Terrace. The gold banner bearing their workplace’s logo wouldn’t stay attached smoothly to the carpeted blue background. When they finally wrangled it into submission, they placed pamphlets neatly on the table and formed a stack of bookmarks emblazoned with the firm’s Web site into a lovely, decorative fan shape.
Then, with guns and handcuffs at the ready, they awaited the crowds that thronged the Women for Hire career expo.
Amid a packed house of insurance companies, retailers, banks and car-rental firms, the U.S. Secret Service was looking for a few good women–not that they didn’t believe they already had a sizable number among the Chicago and Washington agents who served as recruiters on this March day. Nationally, women represent about 11 percent of the Secret Service’s special agents, said Yvonne DiCristoforo, assistant to the special agent in charge of the agency’s Chicago office and a 15-year veteran. (In the Chicago office, only DiCristoforo, special agent in charge Tim Viertel and second in command Russ Collett are allowed to use their full names in print.)
If the women didn’t quite fit the stereotype of beefy agents with crewcuts, dark glasses and earpieces, so much the better, said DiCristoforo, who has protected Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney. She may be 5-foot-1, but she can probably take you.
“There’s a certain military or cop look which is really hard to pass off, so our women have an easier time,” she said. “And also the communication skills. The majority of what they’re doing every day is communicating, working with people.”
Protecting presidents and presidential candidates may be the public’s primary notion of a special agent’s duties, but it’s certainly not the only thing he or she does.
Two-thirds of the agency’s investigators deal primarily with crimes that affect the financial infrastructure of the U.S., such as counterfeiting, identity theft and mortgage fraud. The other third concentrate on protecting President George W. Bush, Cheney, former presidents and visiting foreign leaders. But even the investigators help as needed with protection.
That’s why Agent Bernard (her first name can’t be used), a senior agent who used to be a soccer coach, found herself guarding the Chicago home of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on a recent weekend before returning to her duties on the electronic crimes squad, which include impersonating underage girls online to track pedophiles.
“One thing that’s unique about our job is we don’t really do anything the same each day,” she said in an interview at the agency’s Chicago office. And as someone who used to be part of the corporate world, she’s grateful for that. “I just couldn’t stand sitting behind a desk every day.”
The agents at the job fair weren’t sitting either. For one thing, their display was too large to let them. Photos of female agents at work gave silent testimony to the diverse candidates the agency is seeking.
Jenn Pyle, 23, of Hinsdale, a recent graduate of Hope College in Holland, Mich., had earlier visited a table belonging to the Drug Enforcement Administration but spent about a half-hour at the Secret Service booth.
“There’s a lot of benefits to working with the federal government,” said Pyle, who earned a degree in sociology. She said she was excited that the agency seemed to have much more to offer than “being a human shield.”
Although the risks certainly can be life-threatening, Agent Kaldis, who leads a team on the financial crimes squad, says they’re different from those of a cop on the street.
“You have time to prepare when you’re going to do search warrants and arrest warrants,” she said.
Agent Simms, who spent 10 years as a St. Louis police officer and detective, agreed. “When you’re a cop, you don’t get a chance to plan. You get a chance to react.”
But when the job switches from an investigation to protecting a politician, reaction is critical, said 14-year veteran Agent Jones.
“We train our agents when they’re standing post somewhere to always go over the what-if scenario,” she said. “If this happens, let me pick out a spot right now that I’m going to use for cover.”
But the agents rarely have to use force, they say. The job is not exciting every moment–regardless of how Hollywood portrays it. “It has to be entertaining like any other show,” DiCristoforo said. “They don’t want to watch [Bernard] standing in a back yard for 12 hours.”
Occasionally, Simms said, a relative will spot her on a news channel, but the moment doesn’t seem too glamorous to her after an 18-hour day. “My feet hurt. I have to go to the bathroom. I’m hungry.”
And, to be honest, bathroom breaks can be hard to come by.
“You hold it,” Kaldis said.
“You train your body well,” Simms added.
“Eat when necessary. Don’t drink a lot of water,” DiCristoforo said.
The agents are on call 24 hours a day even when they’re not on a protective detail. They may have to grab a plane at a moment’s notice. They will usually move several times during their career. But there are benefits, and the first one most cite is the travel.
“You get to see history in the making,” said Collett. “I’ve been to about 40 countries myself.”
Kaldis relished a chance to provide protection for an event in London.
“Buckingham Palace,” she said. “You always hear about the queen, but to actually be inside the building and actually see the queen–that was very exciting.”
And while it’s unlikely they’ll have to take a bullet for someone, each agent, they say, has to reach his or her own conclusion about why they’re even willing to put their lives on the line. For Jones, a military and police veteran, part of the answer comes back to what she sees in her travels.
“The good thing about our job is that it affords us the ability to go to other countries and see how people are living and existing,” she said. “We’ve got it very good here, and it’s because of the kind of democracy we live in that we are afforded that opportunity.”
pkampert@tribune.com
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