Bonni Tischler earns top cop award

The National Center for Women in Policing honored Assistant Commissioner for Field Operations Bonni Tischler, while Assistant Commissioner for Investigations, with its Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual March conference in Baltimore, Md. The award is given to female law enforcement officers with exceptional service and career achievement who have helped other women in law enforcement as mentors and role models.

"It was a very exciting moment, and I was extremely pleased," says Tischler, who has been in law enforcement for almost 29 years. "I thought that it was a real compliment, not only to me, but to all the women who are in law enforcement in the federal sector."

The trail-blazing Tischler, one of the very top women in federal law enforcement, will be similarly honored at the annual Women in Federal Law Enforcement conference in July, in Washington, D.C.

Breaking the glass . . .
In 1971, when President Nixon signed the executive order granting women equal status in the federal law enforcement community, it was necessary for a few pioneering women to open the doors and eventually break the glass ceiling. Tischler helped do that.

When "women in federal law enforcement" was very nearly an oxymoron, Tischler became a Customs Sky Marshal, eventually joining the ranks of Customs Special Agents in 1977.

As a Special Agent, she pioneered an oversight function, which would act as a clearinghouse for various problems facing women in the federal law enforcement community.

As Tischler sees it, the job of law enforcement demands an enormous sense of humor: "You must be able to laugh at your mistakes while learning an intense lesson from them. You must learn to tell a good war story and make fun of yourself. You must laugh. You must employ humor if you are to succeed."

She received her first big break in 1980 when she became the only female agent assigned to the newly-formed task force in Miami known as Operation Greenback, which became the first major federal investigation into drug money laundering.

When detailed to the Office of the Federal Women's Program at the Office of Personnel Management, she recruited other interested individuals and developed what is now known as the Women in Federal Law Enforcement Interagency Committee (WIFLE). She co-chaired the Committee in 1984, and became the first recipient of the Julie Y. Cross Memorial Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements in law enforcement.

Her expertise in money laundering investigations coupled with successful undercover assignments landed Tischler in Washington where she became the Director of the Financial Investigations Division, which later became Smuggling Investigations, when narcotics and marine interdiction were added to its duties in 1986.

In 1987, she was promoted to Special Agent in Charge of the Tampa office where she supervised agents investigating money laundering at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in what was to become one of the largest money laundering cases ever prosecuted.

In 1995, Tischler returned to her home turf as Special Agent in Charge for Miami, to supervise Customs' biggest and most active group of 360 agents and investigative personnel. In 1997, she was summoned to Washington where she was selected to become Customs' first female Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Investigations.

On June 19, 2000, Tischler was appointed Assistant Commissioner for Field Operations, effective July 1. She is the first woman to hold this post with responsibility for all cargo and passenger processing of the Customs Service. She will oversee approximately 13,000 Customs employees at more than 300 Ports of Entry, Customs Management Centers, and Field Laboratories.

Tischler has combined her expertise, poise, and confidence to become a highly visible and popular representative of the Customs Service both in the media and on Capitol Hill where she regularly testifies on behalf of the Agency.

The road less traveled
Tischler likes to quote the Robert Frost poem "The Road Less Traveled" in her speeches before women's law enforcement groups: