The longtime Sunnyvale resident is the police chief for West Valley-Mission Community College, where she has worked since 1979.

The association--which she will head for a two-year term--is active in bringing the voice of community college and university law enforcement departments to Sacramento, where policies and laws are set. Lorman says laws are often written without consideration given to colleges and universities.

Lorman says penal codes don't always include language that applies to colleges or universities. And colleges and universities are often overlooked when funding is appropriated from such sources as Homeland Security dollars. Yet when people enter a college or university campus, they are protected by the law

enforcement divisions within them, she says.

"Anything that can happen in a city can happen [at West Valley and Mission colleges]," Lorman says.

Everything has happened there too, she says--everything but murder.

Lorman graduated from San Jose State University's School of Administration of Justice and says when she got the job as an officer at West Valley she thought she would only be there a short time.

"I thought it would be a stepping stone," she says. "I loved it. I enjoy coming to work every day."

Her office is located on West Valley's campus in Saratoga. She likens running the security services there to running a small city law enforcement staff--all the officers are fully sworn and certified law enforcement officials, and they are fully armed.

But Lorman has many facets to her personality and they are reflected on her office wall. She's somewhat of a collector.

One wall reflects Lorman's love of history--before switching her major to administration of justice, she wanted to be a history teacher. Antique magazine covers hang there, depicting old-time police officers. All are original covers and one frame holds an entire Sept. 2, 1958, Saturday Evening Post, including an intact mailing label.

Lorman explains the history of an 1874 issue of Harper's Weekly depicting swine dressed in police officers uniforms socializing with "ladies of the night." She says this was the beginning of using the term "pig" for a policeman. The caption under the drawing says: "Jewels Among Swine."

In one corner of her office Santa Claus-styled policemen figurines with roly-poly bellies and long white beards sit atop a table. They are gifts and, although she is teased about the dust collecting on them, she can't bring herself to put them away.

A couple of large frames hold dozens of police patches Lorman's gathered from her travels. Each city she visits she takes along patches of her own police department to trade with the locals.

Lorman's older brother, a now-retired San Jose police officer, was the one who suggested to her that law enforcement might be a good alternative to her first choice of education. At the time education hiring was at standstill thanks, Lorman says, to the passing of Prop. 13.

Law enforcement seems to be a family thing, too. Lorman's nephew is an officer in San Jose Police Department.

Born on Sept. 11, she jokes that her 9-11 birth date must have been a sign that she should go into police work. But since the terrorist tragedies, she has switched her birthday celebrations to Sept. 12.

Lorman has also managed to incorporate her love of animals with her job as police chief. About four years ago she started a feral cat program on the campuses. She and Investigator Natalie Sweet trap the cats and take them to a local veterinarian to be spayed or neutered, and then they find homes or release them back on the campus.

Sweet is also an artist who designs and makes cards that they sell to help raise money to cover the costs for the program.

Lorman speaks fondly of the school and her job, showing no regret for not moving on as she first anticipated.

"We're a small department. We're like a family. It's a good atmosphere," she says.