Law, Public Safety, Corrections & Security

The FBI,  does complex work to achieve a simple mission: protect the American people and uphold the U.S. Constitution. Today, that translates to multiple careers for people with diverse backgrounds who all work to keep their communities and the nation safe.  Special Agents bring their skills, compassion, and integrity to stay ahead of threats, uphold the law, defend civil rights, and protect innocent people. They seek out cybercrime, infiltrate organized crime rings, and investigate terrorists.  A day for an FBI special agent might entail surveilling a subject in the morning, tracking terrorists’ online social activity before lunch, testifying in court in the afternoon, and addressing a public forum on identity theft in the evening.

Special Agent Lester Kwok has investigated financial crimes for over 18 years and is a member of the FBI Evidence Response Team (ERT).  He is a graduate of Aragon High School.  Special Agent Alexandra Bryant has investigated for the past 6 years and is a member of the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST).

Speaker: Special Agent Lester Kwok & Special Agent Alexandra Bryant  

The general counsel of a company is the lead attorney in a company or organization. A deputy general counsel is second-in-command, helping the general counsel oversee the other lawyers in the department and provide legal advice to cases affecting the business. As a deputy general counsel, your job duties include conducting legal research, preparing legal documents, reviewing contracts, and appearing in court for legal proceedings. You report directly to the general counsel. Attorneys aspiring to become a deputy general counsel typically work in the business sector for several years before moving into this career. 

Michael works at Carta, a SF-based startup company, as a lawyer advising on Carta's business offerings. 

Speaker: Michael Wu

 Firefighters put out fires using water hoses, fire extinguishers, and water pumps, as well as find and rescue victims in burning buildings or in other emergency situations. Paramedics respond to emergency calls, perform medical services, and transport patients to medical facilities.

Paul provides emergency service response to the community. Emergency responses include medical emergencies, structure fires, cliff rescues, vehicle accidents, and hazardous material incidents. A couple of Paul's career highlights include rescuing an unconscious person from a burning building, rescuing a paraglider from a cliff after she had an accident and delivering four babies so far in his career. Paul graduated from Aragon and has  three daughters; one at San Mateo High School and two at Borel.

Speaker: Paul Verducci

Compliance Officers help organizations manage risks and avoid lawsuits by ensuring business operations are performed in compliance with state and federal laws. Compliance Officers are tasked with everything from developing company policies, creating metrics to help track compliance and performing compliance audits. They must also continue studying state and federal laws related to their industry and ensure that the company conducts business according to new regulations that arise. 

Lauren worked for the US State Dept. (no - she wasn’t a spy), for an Attorney General, and for a Governor. Now she's a healthcare, privacy, and compliance attorney. She may not discover the cure for cancer, but she can help make sure the cure gets to patients and is safe/effective. Her job is to ensure companies follow the rules and don’t hurt patients/consumers, keep data safe from bad actors, and stay out of jail.
She negotiates, advocates, and is constantly problem-solving, and never repeat the same day twice.  

Speaker: Lauren Wu

Police officers swear an oath to protect and serve the citizens they represent.

Police Officers perform law enforcement and crime prevention work; control traffic flow and enforce state and local regulations; perform investigative work; participate in and provide support and assistance to special department crime prevention and enforcement programs and do related police work as assigned. 

Speaker: Carlos Basurto

The City Attorney’s Office serves as the legal department of the City of San Mateo.  The attorneys in the office provide legal advice and representation to the city council, the city’s boards and commissions, and to the staff of the various city departments. 

After graduating from law school, Jan became a litigator specializing in medical malpractice defense. A few years later she changed firms and became a complex business/IP litigation attorney. She loves being in court. Desiring more of a work-life balance, she became a Deputy County Attorney in 2011. She is in court on Children and Family Services and Probate matters daily. She handles appeals for Children and Family Services. She feels being a government lawyer is extremely rewarding. 

Speaker: Jan Ellard

Crime scene work encompasses the recognition, documentation, collection, and preservation of physical evidence. In order to accomplish these tasks, the crime scene team may be required to: photograph; sketch/diagram; document with notes; take measurements; interpret blood stain patterns; determine bullet trajectories; process items for latent prints; collect biological material, firearms evidence, impression evidence (tool or tire marks, footprints, dust lifts,...), and other items of evidence that need to be processed at the laboratory. 

Cindy Anzalone is a Senior Criminalist with the Forensic Laboratory. She has worked in the Controlled Substances Unit, Toxicology Unit, and is currently assigned to the Forensic Biology & DNA Unit as well as the Crime Scene Investigation Team. She enjoys working on Cold Cases and seeing a case from crime scene to evidence examination to the courtroom. 

Speaker: Cindy Anzalone

A juvenile dependency attorney is an attorney who represents the parents or guardians of a child who has been removed from their home by child protective services. The juvenile dependency attorney's job is to advocate for the parent or guardian in court and to ensure that they are reunited with their child as soon as possible. 

Sherrie started her career in the field of Psychology and then noticed that the children she met with in child abuse cases did not have lawyers that met with them. So she went to law school when she was 30 years old. She started at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office and now represent children, parents and guardians as part of the San Mateo County Private Defender Program. She loves her job and feels lucky to be in a position to help children grow up in an atmosphere of safety. 

Speaker: Sherrie A Friedman