Page 53 - profiles in civil service program 2018 version

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

I am Dr. Carol L. Chisholm and I served at the Central Intelligence Agency
as a Psychologist. Despite having received a lucrative job offer from the
Baltimore Gas and Electric Company with generous benefits and an excellent

pension, I decided to take the very large pay cut to join the government,
seeing in it a mission where I could make a difference in American lives.
Although the pay cut would make savings difficult, I felt that the benefits
package and ability to put away money pre-taxes would make it possible for

me, widowed with two children, to follow my heart. I had an extraordinary
twenty-year career and with the choice I made, I did achieve a real difference
in the lives of others. Perhaps the thing of which I am most proud was being

given the task by the Directorate of Operations, with whom I was then
seconded, to find all speakers of Arabic tongues in the United States, vet and
confirm their abilities, and feed these prospects to the Counterterrorism Center
currently tasked with translating a plethora of digital media captured after

9/11. Many months of my life were dedicated to the task, and I also worked
with the language department to create tests that could be used to check
abilities by those who did not themselves know Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, or other

needed languages. My innovation was to include a trap in the test so those
who could do the translation but might be disposed not to do so accurately for
whatever reason, would do so. I did many other unusual jobs in federal

service that mattered: teaching at CIA University, providing psychological and
management services to crisis stations abroad, helping negotiate employee
lawsuits, doing research to provide data for a variety of difficult questions

facing the Agency, conducting employee surveys, and creating and
implementing an upward feedback system required by Congress as a solution
to a problem. I was trained in and practiced Six Sigma analyses, Executive
Coaching, and helped officers maximize their use of talents in service of the

Agency. These and many other tasks over my career allowed me to function
as a trusted internal consultant since I was always a part of the Office of
Medical Services.

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