ST. PAUL, Minn. - In 1989, St. Paul's current Deputy Police Chief Mary Nash was one of just 35 women on a police force with more than 500 officers.
Now, with roughly 630 sworn officers in the department, 92 are women. That's a number department leadership is looking to increase.
“We saw a lot more women coming into the job in the 1990s and early 2000s," Nash says. "That has dropped off and that's changed a bit.”
On Saturday, Nash and SPPD women leaders held their first-ever Women in Uniform recruiting event to try to attract more female officers to the force.
"To hear their stories and what they talked about in their department certainly gave me more confidence in applying and following through with my dreams," said Hugo native and current St. Thomas criminal justice major Erin Lindberg. She was one of more than 30 women who attended the recruitment seminar on Saturday. It was open to anyone over the age of 14 interested in exploring a career in law enforcement.
"I think along the way there are some obstacles that women hit," Nash says. "Some are mothers. There are transportation issues with some of the students to get to school and complete the programming."
Nash says she thinks it's a small percentage of people who see the role of police officer as a "man's job."
"I think we have shown over the last 40 years that women can do this job," she says. "We do this job differently and there is nothing wrong with that."