Women Taking Charge Fbi, Atf, Customs All Get Female Leadership

Callers looking for “the man in charge” at regional offices of the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and U.S. Customs Service will soon be out of luck.

Women are taking over the top jobs at the Northwest regional offices of all three agencies.

“What is happening is that all of us that have been around for about 20 years are finally making it to the SAC level” - the special-agent-in-charge level, said Shelley Altenstadter, slated to take over at Customs for Lawrence LaDage in March.

Other women taking over top regional posts are Burdena Pasenelli, a Lynden native now running the U.S. office of Interpol, tapped for the top regional post at the FBI; and Margaret Moore at ATF.

Pasenelli, 50, the first woman FBI agent to rise to the level of special agent in charge, on Dec. 26 will succeed Tom Kuker, returning to his Oklahoma City hometown.

Pasenelli began her career in law enforcement as a Seattle police officer. She said she did some of her best field work in the 1980s, when she was a field agent in Kenosha, Wis., and helped capture serial killer Alton Coleman, who murdered seven people and for several weeks in 1984 preyed on black communities in the Midwest.

Altenstadter, a 20-year Customs employee, said she’s looking forward to getting back to the front lines of law enforcement. Interpol “is much more tame than everyone thinks,” she said.

LaDage, retiring after 32 years in federal law enforcement, received numerous honors including a White House commendation for the arrest of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh, imprisoned for multiple violations of immigration law.

Moore, who will take over at ATF early next year, will be that agency’s first and only female special agent-in-charge. A 19-year agency veteran, she began her law-enforcement career with the New York City police and now heads the ATF office in Baltimore.

She will oversee bureau operations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii. Moore succeeds Chris Nelson, who will take over the ATF office in Boston and who created the task force that in 1992 ended the deadly spree of serial arsonist Paul Keller.

“There are a number of capable women moving into the top echelon,” said U.S. Attorney Kate Pflaumer in Seattle, one of several women in top judicial posts here, including Chief U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Barnes and Rosa Melendez, who heads the regional office of the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

“It is exciting to be on the cutting edge,” Pflaumer said.

Other top federal jobs in the region also are turning over.

At the Drug Enforcement Administration, George Cazenavette III succeeds Fred Rodriguez, who left earlier this month for his new posting as DEA attache at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Cazenavette, 50 and a fourth-generation Cajun, is moving here from New Orleans.

“New Orleans is the kind of town you can get into like an old shoe,” he said after a cross-country drive that ended Nov. 12. “And it’s time to change pairs.”

At the Secret Service, Special Agent-In-Charge Lane McNitt, 50, is retiring Jan. 6 after a 25-year career. No successor has been appointed.

McNitt said he has lots of memories, but no stories to share.

“You hear and they tell you stuff you would never repeat to anyone,” he said.

One of his highlights was arranging protection for President Clinton and other world leaders who gathered here for the 1993 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.