From Busting Bad Folks to Breaking Law Enforcement’s Glass Ceilings

Police work is one of those male-dominated fields where women have made some inroads in recent years. But to put it in perspective, how many female captains do you think there are in law enforcement in Orange County?

Up until two weeks ago, that answer was zip. Not a one. The elevator hit the glass ceiling at the lieutenant’s level. And only a small percentage of women countywide have even reached that rank.

The captains numbers changed, however, on July 31, when Lt. Catherine E. Zurn, 41, got promoted. Now we’re up to one.

Our sole female law enforcement captain, Zurn is a 19-year veteran of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. That’s right--the same law enforcement agency that’s been in a ton of hot water over accusations of Neanderthal management attitudes toward female officers.

One of Sheriff Brad Gates’ top assistants, Dennis LaDucer, was forced out last year following sexual harassment lawsuits by two female deputies and other female civilian employees. Gates was also publicly embarrassed last fall after a group of female deputies formally complained about discriminatory promotion practices.

When I asked to meet with Zurn this week, I knew it would be unfair to make those sex-related issues the focal point of our conversation. Zurn’s career has been about putting the bad folks behind bars, and piling up accomplishments. It’s not fair to make her Gates’ defender just because she worked hard to make it.

But then, it seems a legitimate question whether Zurn herself endured any unfair pressures because of her sex. But as I had expected, with these lawsuits pending, she preferred not to talk about it.

But you can read between the lines well enough to figure that Zurn has run into her own Neanderthal or two among her fellow deputies in her career.

“I learned how to handle situations as they came up,” is about all she would say on the matter.

She made it, she said, through determination: “I am very competitive.”

In the training academy, officials read aloud each trainee’s goals. Hers were to work in Harbor Patrol and someday be a captain. She made both.

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As one of the sheriff’s 13 captains, she will supervise the Intake/Release Center at the Orange County Jail. But before she became a captain, for six years she was in charge of the special sheriff’s unit assigned to serve the Orange County Transportation Authority. It’s a division she created.

I went searching for comment among her bosses at OCTA and came across this nugget:

One of its biggest problems was graffiti, costing OCTA about $1 million a year in removal. So Zurn put together a program where she not only trained the drivers how to control vandalism on the buses but worked with other law enforcement officials to identify and track down specific graffiti taggers. The result: That $1-million loss has been cut back to under $50,000.

Not a bad paragraph for anyone’s resume.

Zurn has also set up programs to teach the bus drivers how to respond to assaults and other bus crimes. Zurn’s immediate supervisor, David Armijo, OCTA director of operations, says that because of that one Zurn idea, bus crime went from 1 in every 45,000 rides to 1 in every 67,000.

“She’s one of the most effective managers I’ve ever worked with. Her staff is extremely loyal to her,” he said.

Sounds like someone who knew early on she wanted a law enforcement career. But Zurn almost laughed when I said that.

She grew up in Ridgeland, a small community in the Mojave Desert. “When I was growing up, there were no women cops,” she said. “You just didn’t think about that kind of career.” At her high school, girls couldn’t even earn a letter in athletics.

So her competitive nature led her to specialize in gymnastics. Her first job when she and her former husband moved to Orange County in 1978 was to coach gymnastics at the Mission Viejo Gymnastics Center. But she wanted something with a better future.

The women’s jail was expanding at the time, and Gates was pushing for female trainees. Out of 15 women who began Zurn’s training academy class, eight completed it, and Zurn ranked highest among them. Zurn lights up when she talks about the 16-week training. Her gymnastics, she said, put her far ahead of many of the male cadets.

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Like all deputies, she began working at the jail and then worked her way up through the ranks: to patrol, then a sergeant’s job, then Harbor Patrol, where she became a lieutenant. Along the route she married again, to Pete Gannon, now a sheriff’s captain. Dating non-cops was never easy, she said: “It was hard on your date to see you show up wearing a gun belt around your waist. Or your being late because on the way you had to haul two guys off to jail.”

The one thing she missed in her career, she said, was having so few female supervisors for role models. Zurn isn’t the first female sheriff’s captain--Barbara Ayres preceded her. But Ayres retired about the time Zurn came along.

So Zurn decided she would become the role model for others, both men and women.

Consider: Since her training days, Zurn put herself through college, getting a bachelor’s degree (Redlands College) and a master’s degree (USC), and she also graduated from the FBI Training Academy. Zurn also teaches part time at the Supervisory Leadership Institute classes for law enforcement officers in San Diego.

I asked if there were any times in her career when she thought about quitting. “Lots of times,” she said with a chuckle.

Like when spending three hours in a storm on a Thanksgiving Day hauling in a stranded boat. Or when working the midnight shift and someone you’ve detained isn’t about to cooperate with any officer, let alone someone 5-foot-4.

But the positive experiences have far outweighed the bad, she said: “The things you remember are the people you work with who sometimes look to you for leadership. Seeing them get promoted, things like that mean the most to you.”

And Zurn about her own future: “I’ve got a lot of things left to do right here in the sheriff’s office. I’m not ready to think about anything beyond that.”

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com