The state of Utah may be setting an interesting precedent for the rest of the country when it comes to federal law enforcement. That’s because three of the top federally appointed law enforcement positions in the state are held by women.
Carlie Christensen is currently serving as Utah’s acting US attorney, Nicki Hollmann is the Drug Enforcement Administration’s assistant special agent in charge, and Mary Rook serves as the special agent in charge with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All three are the first females to serve in these positions in the state which comes as something of a surprise to many considering the fact that Utah was found in a recent study to be the state with the lowest potential for women to hold government leadership positions relative to other states.
For the men in high positions throughout the state of Utah, however, the appointment of all three of these women to the positions they currently hold is no surprise at all. Former US attorney for Utah David Barlow stated that each of them is a “very dedicated [and] hard-working public servant” while Chris Burbank, the Chief of Police of Salt Lake City, stated that he has “been honored to work with these three women and they represent their organizations extremely well. Burbank also serves as chairman of the Rocky Mountain High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas task force, which work closely with all federal agencies throughout the state of Utah.
Christensen, Hollmann, and Rook all worked themselves up their respective career ladders and into their current federal law enforcement positions after serving in local law enforcement and various areas of the judicial system in Utah and around the country. To hear Hollmann tell it, “this is really a great law enforcement community. There’s a lot of great police work going on every day.”