Meet sisters Susan Kyzer and Peg Gant - 2/3 of an accreditation family trio – and they only have each other to blame.

Susan Kyzer is currently the Executive Director of the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation, Inc. (CFA) and has been NAWLEE’s treasurer for the past 5 years. Her sound financial advice and savvy business acumen has kept our organization solvent, in the black and prospering since she came on board.

So, it’s hard to believe that her first college degree was in Agriculture Business. How did Susan get from a farm in Tennessee to be the Executive Director of the State of Florida’s accreditation commission – she can blame her sister Peg.

Peg Gant has been a Program Manager for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA) since 1998. Her transition to this profession is a little more logical but she, too, can blame her sister Susan for the end result. 

Peg started out as a police dispatcher/matron for the Fort Pierce, Florida Police Department after seeing the job posted at City Hall. After a while, Peg wanted to try police work and when she approached one of the Captains, he said he would consider it, if she could make it through the academy. 

Peg made it through and became the second female police officer in Fort Pierce’s history. Peg did patrol, vice, conducted self defense classes, was a detective and generally filled in whenever a female was needed for undercover investigations. 

Peg’s husband was on the job as well and the two of them remained in law enforcement in Ft. Pierce and St. Lucie County, Florida for 8 years. 

While Peg was busy in law enforcement in Florida, her parents bought a 126 acre farm in Tennessee for their retirement. Susan and her husband agreed to run the farm until her parents (the Gants) were ready to retire. Susan is a city girl born and bred and had no idea how to run a farm. Ever determined, she took classes at the local college that would help her in her quest.

After living in Florida for a while before retiring, the Gants decided to stay there instead of going to Tennessee. When they sold the farm, Susan moved to Florida, near Peg and their parents, and tried her hand at real estate.

Peg and her husband decide to leave Florida law enforcement and go to the Bahamas. They were both offered jobs in security at the General Electric Company located on the U.S. Naval Base on Andros Island.

On the base, General Electric, the United States and British Navys and the Atlantic Underwater Testing and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) were all involved in war games and the performance testing of firepower and ships’ defense programs.

Susan frequently flew over from Florida to visit her sister and she got interested in what Peg was doing. Peg did security work and emergency dispatching and Susan got a job as a dispatcher with the fire/security communications department as well.

Susan worked in fire/security dispatch for a year and then the Navy decided to open up their own civilian run communications center. Susan went to work there as one of the first civilian Navy Communications Center operators.. After a while she was promoted to Watch Commander and was responsible for running shifts. The Navy Communications Center was a 24/7 operation that handled the day to day and emergency communication traffic between the Navy ships on range and their base of operations.

Peg stayed in the Bahamas two years and then moved back to the states, first to Connecticut where she worked in the private sector and then to Florida when she was hired by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in Stuart as a secretary in the Detective Bureau. 

Susan, on the other hand, stayed in the Bahamas for eight years. She returned to Florida in 1988 and began temping with Kelly Services while she worked on another college degree.

One of Susan’s assignments was as a long-term temp with the relatively new Port St. Lucie Police Department as a support person in their Professional Standards Section. They wanted to become accredited and Susan was hired to help with their written directives. While Susan was doing this, she earned her Bachelors’ Degree in Business Management.

Port St. Lucie Police Department was accredited in 1991 and Susan was then offered a job as their Planning and Research Director. During this time, Susan became an assessor and Team Leader for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. and she traveled around the country for them. Sister Peg would meet Susan on some of her trips. They both love to travel and they took advantage of these trips to see some of the sites. Peg would also sit in on some of the training sessions and she began to get the bug for accreditation.

According to CALEA, Accreditation is a process that “requires written directives and training to inform all employees about policies, procedures and practices; facilities and equipment to ensure employees’ safety; and processes to safeguard employees’ rights.” Standards for the training and the written directives may be set by a state accreditation agency like the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation, Inc. or a national agency like CALEA.

In 1997, Susan was hired as the Executive Director of the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA) and Peg, who was now well and truly hooked, was hired as a Program Manager for CALEA in 1998. Peg got Susan interested in the law enforcement side of her career path and Susan got Peg interested in accreditation.

Susan’s job as Executive Director of the CFA keeps her busy in the state of Florida. However, she is still a top assessor for CALEA and a member of their Strategic Planning Committee’s ad hoc Performance Measurement Subcommittee and this has her traveling around the country. She is also the Co-Chair for the Support Standards Sub-Committee of the CALEA Focus Group responsible for reviewing and updating all current CALEA standards and selected operational practices.

As a Program Manager for CALEA, Peg is responsible for assisting over 200 agencies within the country in getting them through some form of the CALEA accreditation process. Peg has also introduced the accreditation process to Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Chihuahua Police Department in Mexico.

These ladies are very busy. They try to meet up whenever their travels take them close to each other and sometimes get lucky and are scheduled at the same function. They do take vacations together and usually bring along their nephews Garrett and Galen. They love traveling with the boys and want to expose them to as much of the world as they can.

So, who’s the third part of this accreditation trio? Brother Paul Gant, a detective with the Deeland, Florida Police Department, is that agency’s Accreditation Manager. Under his leadership, the Deeland Police Department just had a successful on site for their initial accreditation review. Do you think his sisters had something to do with him getting involved in accreditation?