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Cindy Reed THE HISTORIAN'S SPOTLIGHT

F B I N A A . O R G | J U L Y / A U G 2 0 1 9

Hello from your newest Historian!

I consider this quite an honor to have been appointed by the Executive Board and will do my best to ensure I fulfill my obli- gations over the next four years. At various points in my life, I have met all three official As- sociation Historians and consider the two remaining Historians as both friends and mentors. I intend to reach out to others I con- sider our “unofficial” Historians over the years such as George Graves and Billy Gibson . So who is this new Historian? Following established prec- edent, I will tell you a bit about myself and the goals I hope to achieve in my upcoming term. I grew up in Eastern Washington in the small town of Yakima, and then went to colleges close to Spokane, WA where I got my degree in teaching English in the secondary schools. Through a series of life-changes, I found myself working first as a limited commission campus dispatcher from 1973-1975 at Washington State University in Pullman, WA, then in 1976 attended the Police Academy in Spokane, WA to become the first female commis- sioned officer for the Eastern Washington University Police. So where did the National Academy come in? I had been working as Detective Sergeant during the time of the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979-1981. We had several Iranian students who were caught in the confusion between not being able to locate their parents (remember, this is BEFORE the Inter- net - can you imagine how apprehensive they felt?) and getting death threats from angry ill-informed citizens in the area. I was contacted by the local FBI agent assigned to Spokane and we worked together to re-assure the students that we were there to help them through this very scary time. When the hostage crisis was finally resolved in 1981, I had several conversations with this agent and our local police chief, Jerry Gardner Session 103, about what the experience of attend- ing the National Academy could mean to me. I had never heard of it and didn’t know anyone who had attended. However, I loved the idea of challenging myself with a new environment. What was the worst that could happen, right? I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend the 134th ses- sion in the summer of 1983. I had never been on the East Coast, so my first challenge to myself was to drive alone across the country to Quantico. As I drove onto the campus, I was worried that I would not be accepted: I was a woman from a small college campus and didn’t have close to the experience that many of my session mates would have. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to meet the other 3 men frommy state before I left. I met the two other women in our session ( Lynne Johnson from Palo Alto, California and Carole Gaul Rigney from New York City) and we became the Three Musketeers. I found that my worries were mis- guided. That was one of the positive aspects of the Academy – it was not necessarily about your rank or the size of your agency.

It was about what kind of person you were. Those are the things we remember about our session mates. After I returned home I decided it was time to broaden my experiences and applied for another state position as a Special Agent with the Washington State Gambling Commission. I retired from the Gambling Commission in 2003, one year after my hus- band passed away after losing a four year battle with cancer, with 30 years state service. I have managed to stay busy in retirement. The most fun part time job since retiring has been working in the tasting room for Heritage Distilling in Gig Harbor. I am also the Youth Exchange Officer for my Rotary Club and do lots of volunteer work around my town. I love to travel and often do it with NA friends or to visit friends I have made through the NA. I started attending Washington State Chapter meetings around 1988. I was encouraged by our FBI Coordinator to run for their Executive Board in 1994 as its first female executive board officer; thus started over 30 years of service in various capaci- ties to my chapter. I became Chapter President in 1998, and was elected to the position of Chapter Secretary/Treasurer in 2000, where I served for another 15 years. I “retired” out of that posi- tion after the 2015 Seattle conference and currently am primarily responsible to produce a chapter newsletter every quarter. In order to get ready for our chapter’s Seattle 1999 confer- ence, I attended my first National Conference in 1995 at the MGM in Las Vegas. I have attended every National conference since then (except the Philadelphia conference when my good buddy Laurie Cahill was National President – darn the luck). Thanks to Laurie’s encouragement, I also started attending several international conferences starting in 2005. Now, I count many of our international graduates as personal friends after having the chance to meet them in their own country. So... enough of me. What are my responsibilities, goals and plans for my four year term? 1. Write an article of historical significance every other month for The Associate Magazine. To that end, I have about 5 articles already in the works about people, traditions or

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