Lauren Pettey

I would say I've had some really good mentors along the way that have helped guide my career with different assignments and promotional opportunities, so I've been very, very grateful for that. I've always surrounded myself with a good group of people that have been very supportive. One mentor I want to highlight is Kevin Hall, who is currently the Chief of Police for Spokane, Washington. I was lucky enough to work with him when I was a brand new sergeant and he was my captain, and then when I was a lieutenant, he was my assistant chief. He helped kind of navigate me in a leadership role, which I'm grateful for.

I don't know if I've received it, but it's kind of my mantra: be comfortable being uncomfortable. I always do things even when they make me nervous, because why not do it and get out of your comfort zone? That's how you learn, that's how you grow. The things that I have experienced in my career that make me the most nervous, that I had to prepare for and that scared me - anytime I am told to do something and I don't want to do it, I push myself to do it, because that's how you get better. A great case in point is when I was a lieutenant for Specialized Response Division, I had to do news interviews all the time, and that's not something that I was excited to be on camera for - it made me nervous. But the more I did it, the easier it got, and the better I got at it. You have to keep practicing, and those opportunities don't come very often, so I was grateful for the opportunity. Did I enjoy doing it at the time? No, but you learn and you grow from it.

I think a lot of women are apprehensive for joining law enforcement because of either their gender, because they are smaller in stature, or because women tend to second-guess themselves a lot. If they don't feel like 100% ready, they don't feel like they want to test for the job. But the thing is, women can bring so much great things to law enforcement. We have the power to de-escalate, we work very well in a team environment, and we're empathetic, and we're good communicators. So don't think that just because you're a woman, you can't do this job. You can absolutely do it, and you will have women supporting you 100% of the way in it as well. Times have changed over the last 30 plus years in this profession, and we are a lot more supportive of women entering the field.

I think these are total law enforcement challenges right now, not specific just to me, but recruitment and retention right now in law enforcement is very difficult nationwide. It's a dangerous job, and I think when kids that get out of college have the opportunity to potentially work from home making decent money, or work doing shift work, dangerous shift work, it's hard to recruit that. But it's definitely a calling - you have to have the right kind of people that like it. Another big challenge recently has been budget concerns, which are nationwide problems too - doing more with less, not only with staffing, but also with budgetary restrictions.

I think teamwork is extremely important. In this job, you can't do anything by yourself - everything involves being part of a team. Obviously, in this profession, integrity is very important. Doing the right thing when no one else is watching, you have to have integrity. It's a very important value. And then another thing that I would also say is resilience. That's extremely important because, obviously in this job and in life in general, you go through some serious hardships, and it's how you cope through those hardships which defines you as a person and learning and growing from those experiences. Our department actually all goes through a training called Struggle Well, so it's learning how to struggle and deal with some of the obstacles that we deal with, but taking them in a positive light, and learning from them and growing.