FBI agent

While attending law school, McWilliams was working part time in a newsroom when a suspected bank robber called the station asking to be put on the news. Instead, the station manager encouraged her to call the FBI. The experience piqued her interest in a law enforcement career.^[2]

In 1985, she became a special agent with the FBI. Shortly after joining the agency, she married her husband, Carl Chandler, also a Special Agent at the FBI.^[4]

Her first postings were to the New Orleans and then the Los Angeles field offices, where it was rare for a woman, and especially a black woman, to be a FBI special agent.^[5]

Chandler described an early encounter in the field:

"I remember once while a new agent in New Orleans, I was working on huge financial institution fraud cases. Well, I needed help carrying boxes to the office. I asked a couple of guys in the office for help. The senior officer looked at me and said, 'Can you carry those boxes up?' I said yes. He then asked if I was a special agent and I said yes. Finally he said, 'Do you carry a badge and gun like the rest of us?' I said yes. So he told me that I was capable of bringing the boxes up myself. At first I was mad. He later took me aside and said, 'You don't want to develop a reputation that shows others you can't do the job because you're a woman.' From that day forward, I carried myself like a special agent. I walked in being like everybody else and people respected that"^[6]

In 1994, she was named as a supervisor of white collar crimes in the San Diego field office.^[7] There, she focused on cross-border crimes such as kidnappings and healthcare fraud.^[7]

After serving 14 years as an agent, in 1997 Chandler became the assistant special agent in charge of the San Francisco Field Office. At the time, she became the FBI's highest ranking African-American woman in the field.^[4][8] In San Francisco, Chandler specialized in financial crimes and health care fraud.^[4]

In 2002, she was named the Assistant Director for Training at the FBI, where she oversaw advanced training for thousands of the Bureau's employees.^[5] In 2003, Chandler was appointed the assistant director of the FBI's Office of Public Affairs, becoming the first woman to hold the post.^[2][9] In this role, she became the first woman to serve as a national spokesperson for the FBI.^[10]

In 2005, Robert S. Mueller III appointed Chandler as the special agent in charge of the FBI's field office in Norfolk, Virginia.^[2][7] She would be the first black woman to lead the office.^[11][12]

Later career

Chandler retired from the FBI in 2008 after 23 years of service. Over the course of her career at the FBI, she received the "Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive Award,” the National Center for Women and Policing’s “Breaking the Glass Ceiling” Award, and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives’ “Phenomenal Woman” Community Service Award.^[13]

After retiring from the FBI, In 2008, Cassi Chandler joined Bank of America to work in the bank's health care and insurance fraud divisions.^[14] After her retirement, Chandler founded Vigeo Alliance, a company focusing on leadership and risk management.^[11][15] Today she serves as a speaker on managing risk and executive leadership.^[16][17][18]