First woman named three-star chief at Port Authority police encourages diversity in the ranks of New York-New Jersey force
Gloria Frank has broken the glass ceiling at the Port Authority Police Department — and she wants to create a skylight for more women to climb through.
Frank is the first woman three-star chief in the department’s 100-year history. She oversees the department’s recruitment and community relations, and wants to make sure more women and people of color join the ranks.
“The sky’s the limit for women in general who want to pursue a career in law enforcement,” said Frank. “I want them to have the courage to aspire to the higher ranks.”
Frank, who is Black, is currently one of the three highest-ranking PAPD officers.
She and Richard Bellucci are the department’s only three-star chiefs. They answer to Deputy Superintendent Michael Brown, a four-star chief who is the highest ranking uniformed officer in the department.
The Rockville Center, L.I., resident is Chief of Agency Affairs for the PAPD and is responsible for police reform, recruitment, community relations and promotions — key positions to help spur change from within.
And change has begun, Frank said.
“We’re already seeing an increase in women and people of color on the job,” she said. “The last academy class that graduated was one of our most diverse classes in respect to race.” A new academy class, she said, “is more diverse than the last class.”
“We have to see who makes it through, but we’re very confident that in the end we’re going to have a very diverse class of men and women,” she said.
More than half of the 129 new officers who graduated on Jan. 27 were people of color, the department said. About 18%, or 24, were women.
It was a major improvement from when Frank graduated the academy in 1998 — she was just one of three women to join the Port Authority force that year.
Frank graduated from Hunter College with a degree in sociology and had planned to get into the medical field. She was working at the New York City Department of Probation when she learned the Port Authority was hiring.
“I had never thought about being a police officer, but a friend of mine working in the unit basically talked me into it,” she recalled. “But I saw the physical aspect of it as a challenge that I wanted to overcome and here I am today.”
Working in a male-dominated profession was another challenge, but still she charged ahead and quickly moved up the ranks while working in all the airports, tunnels and bus and train terminals run by the Port Authority.
“It was how I was raised. I was told you can do anything — that if you just put your mind to it, anything is possible,” she said. “Despite the fact that it’s a male dominated profession, I wanted to be in that environment to prove that women can do the same thing as their male counterparts.
“We have the same drive and if we’re not equal, we can be better,” she said. “Why not put us at the forefront?”
