Opportunities at the CIA

Black Collegian, Feb 2008

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN offers a glimpse of what it's like to work at the Central Intelligence Agency through interviews with Sue Bromley, Deputy Director for Intelligence; Peter Clement, Deputy Director for Intelligence for Strategic Programs; Gertie Starks, Director for Management, Leadership, and Diversity Programs (MLDP), Directorate of Intelligence; and Brian Martin, Vice Chair, Black Executive Board.

Opportunities are plentiful for students considering careers at the CIA.

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN: Please tell us about your start at the Central Intelligence Agency, your career path and preparation that led to your move into senior leadership?

SUE BROMLEY My Agency career has been very exciting and diverse. While I was working on my Master's degree at the University of Maryland a colleague talked with me about working at the CIA. I thought about it and said "that sounds like an interesting way to make a unique difference in the government." I was very wrapped up in geography, maps, and technology and the Agency was a hallmark of excellence in those areas. About nine months later after going through that process that we all go through, I landed here in the Agency. I began my career as cartographer in the Directorate of Intelligence. Two years later, I was in an executive leadership program. That was a great opportunity, which led to a position in the former Office of Imagery Analysis, just prior to the first Gulf War. I loved it; I was in a position where I used my analytical skills and academic background in geography.

I subsequently moved to a couple of different positions in the imagery world and ended up in the Counter-Narcotics Center, which was a wonderful opportunity for me. It's a mission everybody feels passionate about, to think that you're making a difference, a unique difference, on something like counter narcotics. Stopping drugs before they entered the U.S. was very fulfilling. But beyond that, it was a great opportunity to grow and learn and develop. Although I was home-based in the Washington area, I had many opportunities to travel around the world. I talked to seniors in other governments who were working the supply side of that issue and with senior people from our own government to help form our Counter-Narcotics Program. I was there for over five years.

TBC: Tell us about your experiences in the executive leadership program.

BROMLEY One of the opportunities I had in the Executive Leadership program was to serve an interim assignment on the Afghan Task Force, which is where I first saw the big Agency perspective on things. That was really an important developmental opportunity for me, because the administration at the time had asked the Agency to make a difference on an important issue. I saw everything that the Agency could bring to that issue - support services, science and technology, operations, and analytic insights and thoughts - come together toward a common goal. That experience really shaped the way I felt about the Agency and has had a profound effect on my career.

In the Counter-Narcotics Center, I had good leadership from people who helped me develop. I had an opportunity to run a targeting group in one of the clandestine service offices while working on proliferation issues, where again, I got to see the Agency bring analytic expertise and operational know-how together to make a difference. I believe if 1 make a difference now at the senior level, it's because I probably look at issues from a crossdirectorate perspective.

TBC: What was the actual tipping point that catapulted you from the analytic ranks to senior leadership?

BROMLEY I would have to say it was in the Counter-Narcotics Center and working in a program that was extremely tough. It required me to "speak truth to power," that is, tell other government officials and senior policymakers things that were hard. Being in that environment and having the drive of that mission formulated the tipping point for me.

TBC: Why is diversity important to your directorate's mission and what is your vision for diversity in the Dl?

BROMLEY Our business is helping senior policymakers in this government deal with very difficult issues. 1 want us to be the go-to office for policymakers - if they're dealing with something very difficult, I want them to know that CIA analytic experts can help. "What do we know about this issue? What are the challenges related to the issue?" To be that hallmark of excellence, we need the diversity that the world presents right here in our workforce. We must draw on different opinions and different experiences when we're trying to understand complex global issues. We need lots of different people, with different ideas, different experiences, and who feel comfortable enough, to put their views on the table. We can't do that without a diverse workforce. We just can't. You need different backgrounds, ideas and experiences, to run something as demanding and complicated as the Agency's business. It's having a broad variety of backgrounds, a broad variety of ideas and perspectives, and an environment where you can come to the table and bring other ideas to the challenge and feel comfortable enough to say that. I think it makes us stronger and it makes our product better.