Welcome from the AMBER Alert Regional Liaisons
As a Native to Florida, I began my career in law enforcement in 1997. In August of 2000, I became Special Agent Florida Department of Law Enforcement, investigating narcotics, organized retail crime, crimes against children, missing and abduction children and was assigned as the Child Abduction Response Team Coordinator. During this time in my career, my desire to help and protect our children from predators became a passion that reflected in my investigative work.
After my retirement in 2012, I continued my passion through mission work and sharing my work experience with hopes to help others in their pursuit. Ultimately, this granted me the opportunity to work for the AMBER Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) as a Regional Liaison. Being a member of the AATTAP, I have had the honor of facilitating and helping our National and International AMBER Alert partners to expand their own capacities and capabilities resulting in a more confident approach in their own investigations. As a result, I have learned that by sharing our Best Practices and Lessons Learned, collectively we can find better solutions and approaches in protecting locally and globally.
I have been blessed to be in law enforcement and public safety for 36 years and I have found my work with missing children's issues my most rewarding experience. My work with Fox Valley Technical College has afforded me another opportunity to work with wonderful people working toward the noblest of missions.
Welcome to the AMBER Alert Website! We are fortunate to have a site that will give us the opportunity to share information, best practices, and to ask questions of our fellow AMBER Alert partners! As a past AMBER Alert Coordinator, I learned from other AMBER Alert Coordinators best practices, new initiatives and key strategies. Networking and sharing best practices can be the direct result of finding missing and abducted children. I am honored to work with AMBER Alert Coordinators as we continue to improve AMBER Alert Plans and bring kids home safely!
I became involved with Missing Children/Child Protection/AMBER Alert work when I developed a proposal to implement the AMBER Alert Plan in Minnesota in 2000. After extensive collaboration with other Agencies, that plan was accepted. I was involved in the implementation of the AMBER Alert Plan in Minnesota in 2001 and served as the AMBER Alert Coordinator for 16 years. I also supervised the Missing Persons Clearinghouse.
Working with the AMBER Alert Program has been some of the most rewarding work I have done. I am inspired each today to see the dedication and commitment from AMBER Alert Coordinators throughout the country. I want my work to add to the great work that is already being done. I also want to continue to see the AMBER Alert Plan remain as the successful and well regarded program that is it throughout the world!
I hope to contribute to the program and our AMBER Alert partners the extensive experience I have gained in terms of what has worked, and many times, what has not worked with AMBER Plans. I have been very involved at the legislative level and have worked with many Senators/Representatives and Administrators to help build a successful plan including evaluating other programs like Blue and Silver Alert. I have also made collaboration within the AMBER Alert Plan that I have worked with a key initiative.
I have learned from working with AMBER Alert Partners that each state faces different issues, different government structures, and different legislators. That has helped me to understand that no one AMBER Alert Plan will work for every state. We have to work together to share best practices so that we can use what works best in each state, while accomplishing the same end goal – safely recovering missing children.
I began my career with law enforcement in 2006 with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Tucson, Arizona. I worked as an investigator with Domestic Violence, Homicide, Burglary, and Crimes Against Children at the Southern Arizona Children’s Advocacy Center. I responded as a peer support member to support law enforcement who were involved with a traumatic stressful events providing support and stability for post-traumatic stress . While working Crimes Against Children I focused on programs to assist law enforcement with chronic teen runaways related to sex trafficking. While at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, I was the liaison and the key speaker for international guests seeking out law enforcement initiatives against sex trafficking.
I have a passion for assisting the victims of sex trafficking grow into strong successful women. Ten years ago, I began volunteering at a foster home of 10 teenage foster girls who all experienced emotional and physical abuse as well as being sex trafficked throughout their youths. While volunteering with foster children, I spearheaded law enforcement to work with teen homes for mentorship. Additionally, I worked alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security on investigations involving sex trafficking of minors. We worked closely with the majority of our cases involving luring through social media and utilizing the resources provided by National Center of Missing and Exploited Children to help recover victims.
In 2009 I became involved with AMBER Alert as an instructor for education and prevention on Sex Trafficking for law enforcement and chronic runaways. I continued my efforts serving with the Arizona Human Trafficking Council for the Governor’s Office as well as The Department Homeland Security as a certified instructor for the state of Arizona. I am the Combating Trafficking in Person coordinator for 162nd Wing Morris Air National Guard Base providing training to the military base on recognizing, investigations, and interviewing of a victim of human trafficking. I continue my efforts working the Initiative for Southern Border Abductions occurring into Mexico and our efforts of working together to safely recover our children.
My passion carries on as a Regional Liaison for AMBER Training and Technical Assistance Program with outreach throughout the United States and Mexico for educating on recovery and investigations of our missing children. I continue to work closely with teen fosters and law enforcement.
My career started in 1991 with the Washington State Patrol Communications Division as a first line dispatcher. I spent almost 20 years with the Communications Division as a trainer, shift supervisor and finally the Training Program Manager. I was involved with the Washington State AMBER Alert legislation in 2004 and roll out of the state plan and training law enforcement statewide. We were the first state in the country to use an alerting web portal system to distribute AMBER Alert information via subscriber lists. In June of 2012 I took over as the Washington State AMBER Alert Coordinator and the Chairperson of the Washington State AMBER Alert Advisory Committee. In this role I consult and advise on all aspects of the AMBER Alert system in Washington and this includes all of the various missing person alerts including Silver Alerts and Endangered Missing Persons Advisories.
In the fall of 2017 I began as an Associate with the National Criminal Justice Training Center to assist with the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program. In August of 2018 I became the Region 5 Liaison. I have a passion for all aspects of AMBER Alerting including training and outreach. This important system has been successful across the country to rescue children in danger of death or serious bodily injury. There is no greater cause than the safety of our children!