Ringsted native goes to work for Interpol
Megan Feddersen — Staff WriterArticle Photos
RINGSTED - Moving from a tiny town in Iowa, with a population of about 400, to work for the world's largest international police organization is quite the transition.
Ali Gunderson, 23, said goodbye this summer to her family and friends in Ringsted to become a criminal analyst for Interpol in Washington, D.C.
Gunderson has a degree in criminal justice from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. She completed an internship with Interpol (short for "international police") last fall, and was given hope at that time that they might be calling her back. In June, they asked her to be a contractor.
"I was really scared when I did my internship to leave smalltown, Iowa, to come to Washington, D.C.," she said. "It was the biggest thing I'd done in my life, but it definitely paid off."
When she tells people about her job, she finds many haven't heard of the organization. Interpol was established in 1923 to facilitate cross-border police cooperation. There are 186 member countries. Each has a National Central Bureau, which is where Gunderson works.
"Once you tell them, people are like, 'Wow, that's awesome,'" Gunderson said. "It's one of those things - it's not as funny when you have to tell the punchline first. But my family is very proud of me and that's what matters the most."
On the other hand, people who are familiar with Interpol often assume she is a field agent, but in reality she spends most of her work day behind a desk.
All Interpol bureaus have fugitives listed in databases, which are searched every time a person's passport is swiped when entering or leaving the United States. A warning is issued indicating the person is wanted, or missing or under surveillance.
"I put the information into the database for people who are wanted to be apprehended and extradited to foreign countries," Gunderson said.
Besides entering the information, she also searches the databases to track fugitives' activities.
"If I find any information, that's counted as a locate," she said.
Gunderson then notifies the fugitive division, which gets a warrant to arrest the person.
"It's really exciting when you 'find' someone to send to the fugitive division," she said. "I've had quite a few. I get more excited than most people, but I think it's because I'm more new than most people too."
She also finds it exciting to work alongside employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Secret Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and Drug Enforcement Administration.
Though Gunderson works under the Department of Justice, she isn't actually a federal employee. She signed a one-year contract, which is a faster way for the government to hire people for a job, according to Gunderson.
"Because normally it takes four to six months to do a background search, and then you can be their employee if you pass all that," she said. "But this way it takes about four to six weeks. ... Then once you're there, you have interim security clearance, and they do an in-depth background search while you're working. I'm going for top-secret clearance."
Her contract will need to be renewed each year, or she can apply to be a full-time government employee. Had she been hired as a government employee, she would have had to work her way up to the position she holds.
"I'm actually content with where I'm at now," she said. "Because our caseloads are so extreme - each person carries about 7,000 cases - you're constantly busy, which I like. The fugitive division is really only busy when our division finds somebody."
With her internship experience, Gunderson felt well prepared for the job; however living in D.C. - or finding somewhere to live in D.C. - was another story.
"It was crazy trying to find a place to live," she said. "I came with no apartment and four bags and hoped I would find a place. That was the biggest thing for me."
Working for Interpol was never something Gunderson envisioned when she was working on her college degree. Her dream was to work in drug enforcement administration, until her internship with Interpol.
"Internships are a great thing," she said. "I highly recommend them for everybody because that's how people find people nowadays."
