Source: US FBI
FBI community outreach specialists serve as ambassadors for the FBI. They forge partnerships with local, state, and national nonprofits, community groups, businesses, and academia to strengthen the Bureau’s relationship with the people it serves; and support our mission to protect the nation and uphold the Constitution.
They accomplish this by researching the things that matter to the people they serve and traveling to literally—and figuratively—meet community members where they’re at.
But outreach specialists also cultivate these relationships by inviting members of the public inside the world of the Bureau through the FBI’s Teen Academy and Citizens Academy programs. These selective programs give outstanding young people and adult community leaders, respectively, crash-courses in all-things FBI.
Some program alumni are so moved by their experiences that they pursue careers with the Bureau. Two such individuals—Teen Academy graduate Bella Crepeaux and Citizens Academy graduate Jay Mroszczak—are now paying it forward as the next generation of FBI community outreach specialists.
From serving his country to serving his community
Long before he became an official ambassador for the FBI Chicago Field Office, Jay Mroszczak was an Army soldier who aspired to become a special agent.
“As a matter of fact, when I was still on active duty in the Army with about 16 years of service in, I put in a packet for special agent,” he said, noting that he made it all the way through the application process. However, he decided not to pursue the job and instead focused on his military career.
Years later, that calling found him again when his friends nominated the retired Army veteran to attend a Citizens Academy at the FBI Kansas City Field Office. Jay might’ve hung up his uniform by the time he was nominated to attend the FBI Kansas City Citizens Academy, but he was by no means finished giving back to his country and community.
Jay recalled being astounded by the professionalism of the FBI personnel who addressed him and his classmates each week.
“They were personable,” he said. “They never acted like we were an imposition on their time when questions were asked and they had to stay late.”
He especially loved the academy’s range day, when participants meet FBI firearms instructors and SWAT team members. “It very much reminded me of the people I worked with in the military,” Jay said.
His experience with the course was so positive that it inspired him to join the FBI Kansas City Citizens Academy Alumni Association. This group is a local chapter of the FBI National Citizens Academy Alumni Association, an independent nonprofit that partners with the FBI on its outreach efforts.
“The alumni chapters work hand-in-hand with the field offices, and they participate in initiatives and events,” said Tracey Ballinger, a management and program analyst with the FBI’s Community Relations Unit, which oversees the Bureau’s Citizens Academy program. “And at the end of the day, they want to help further the mission of the FBI.”
Jay went on to become an officer with the Kansas City chapter before joining the National Citizens Academy Alumni Association’s board of directors. Then, “the opportunity came to go back to work for the federal government again, and I was putting in several applications to the FBI,” he said. He was soon invited to interview for a community outreach specialist position in Chicago.
The opportunity would capitalize on his passion for working with people—and seemed like fun, he said. His experience with the Citizens Academy program and its alumni network and his familiarity with the outreach specialist job also informed his decision to take the job.
“I just felt like I had a very good working knowledge of what I was getting into,” he said.
To his day, he said, he works to emulate the example of the community outreach specialist who steered his own Citizens Academy experience. “She was just a benchmark of what an outreach specialist should be,” Jay said, noting that he works to bring that same energy and hunger for learning when he works on programming for FBI Chicago.