Mary Hill Gleason squats outside an icicle-covered building in the Arctic Circle in 1943.
By Cristy Shauck
When Laura Lee Lorman announced she was switching majors to go into law enforcement, her mother, longtime Sunnyvale resident Mary Hill Gleason, didn't see it coming.
"I couldn't fathom how my little girl who had played with Barbie dolls could be wearing a bulletproof vest and asking her father for a .357 magnum for her birthday," Gleason says.
Those who knew the family weren't surprised; Gleason had served as the perfect role model for a young woman considering a male-dominated profession.
Gleason studied mechanical engineering in the 1930s, eventually landing a job with Bechtel Corp. She served with the American Red Cross stationed in Panama during World War II. She then returned to Bechtel, where she spent time in the Arctic Circle working on the first Alaskan pipeline with U.S. Army engineers.
"I lived in a Quonset hut for the winter," says Gleason, now 80. "It was so cold the glass beside my bed would have ice on it in the morning." In a photo taken during December 1943, swathed in a heavy fur coat, she squats outside an icicle-covered building.
When Gleason moved her family to Sunnyvale in 1966, she worked for Lockheed as liaison to an admiral in Washington, D.C. "My husband, Larry, said I was the only woman he knew who lived in Sunnyvale and worked in Washington," she quips.
Lugging a briefcase filled with secret documents to Washington every other week was a heady experience. "I attended board meetings on the Polaris and Poseidon missiles with the navy; we talked at a very high level," she says. "Sometimes I wondered, 'What am I doing here?' But I was making decisions and they were being accepted."
Returning home on Friday afternoons, Gleason settled back into her domestic role. "On Saturday, there was the house to clean and the kitchen to scrub," she says, laughing.
Gleason retired from Lockheed in 1980. "They asked me to become a consultant, but I didn't want to carry that briefcase anymore."
Daughter Laura, 43, graduated from Fremont High School and De Anza College, then transferred to San Jose State University, where she says she realized, "with my degree in history, I could probably get a job waiting tables."
After talking to her brother, who was already an officer with the San Jose Police Department, she decided to try an administration of justice class.
She loved it.
Lorman worked her way through school with a job at De Anza's Minolta Planetarium. After earning a bachelor's degree in administration of justice, she continued at the planetarium--where she worked for 10 years--until receiving an offer from the West Valley-Mission College District Police Department.
A year later, Lorman became the first woman to graduate from the Santa Clara County Police Academy with honors as Top Cop, scoring in the high 90s on both the orals and the physical agility tests. She holds a black belt in karate.
While a college campus may not have as much going on as a big city, Lorman says, "I've never been bored."
She taught administration of justice courses at West Valley and took 30 officers to Europe for a course in comparative judicial systems. "We went to prisons, jails and courts; it wasn't the normal things you would see on a European trip." She took another group to Hong Kong and plans to tour Madrid, Spain, next year.
When she was acting chief in the early 1990s, her department broke up an auto theft ring responsible for the theft of more than 2,000 cars in the Bay Area. "They were stealing cars from Mission College," she explains. "We put together a stakeout, made some arrests, got some information, then put together two search warrants in San Francisco. We went up there and served them and found the chop shop where they were breaking down the cars and selling the parts."
One reason Lorman chose police work was to help people. "I have a handmade gift from a student that means more to me than any of my other awards," she says.
A student hung back after one of her self-defense lectures and asked to talk to her. Over a period of several months, Lorman discovered that the student had experienced date rape and helped her find an attorney who took her case pro bono.
"When it was all over, she brought in a framed picture of a hand, a heart and an ear done in felt. She said it represented the helping hand, loving heart and willingness to listen to her," Lorman explains.
"That's why I stick with college law enforcement," she continues. "There is no way as an officer in a big-city department that I could have put in the time with that individual. In college law enforcement, you have that ability to connect. After a shift you can say, 'I think I solved a problem today.'"
On May 21, in the Southern California city of Irvine, Sgt. Lorman was ushered in as president of the Women Peace Officers Association of California (WPOA). A 17-year veteran of the West Valley-Mission College District Police Department, Lorman worked her way up through the seven-year progression of chairs in order to obtain its highest office.
"I think I'm the first college police officer to become president of this organization," Lorman says.
The WPOA was organized by female police officers in 1928, she says, in order to ensure that women could receive the same type of training as male officers.
Men also belong to the WPOA, which presents training courses, awards and scholarships to both sexes.
"I got a lot of mentoring from men as well as women who were trailblazers," she says.
"I attended a luncheon where I talked to the director of law enforcement for the state attorney general's office, a member of the California Peace Officers Association. 'I've heard so much about you. You're coming in as president. That's great,' he said. We had a wonderful conversation. Do you think the director would have known who I, a community college police officer, was? Not without the support of this organization," she adds.
Her career goals include becoming chief of a college police department, getting involved in law enforcement on a statewide level, and becoming a full-time teacher.
Lorman sees a connection between her career choice and her mother's accomplishments. "Mom is my mentor. She's always worked in a man's world. That helped me see I wasn't limited, even though when I first started, there were very few women on patrol."
Beaming, Gleason responds: "I've always tried to be supportive of her. She's my best friend."
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, May 22, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.