Tamara Kowalski has leveraged a highly successful, 12-year career with the University of Wisconsin – Madison Police Department while being a mother of three and devoted wife. During her career, Tamara has taken on increasingly responsible positions from starting as a Security Officer and being promoted to Police Officer then Sergeant in 2001.    Tamara has served as a Sergeant at the University Hospital and Clinics as the Associate Director of Hospital Security.  In this assignment, she supervised three Security Supervisors and a civilian security division of 18 officers.  While in her next assignment, Planning and Development - Emergency Management Division, Tamara was a consultant to the UW System schools assisting them in developing Continuity of Operations Plans.  Tamara is currently assigned to the Personnel, Recruitment and Training Division. 

Tamara instructs courses such as, Preventing Mass Casualty Shootings in a Campus Setting, Crowd-Control, Defense and Arrest Tactics, Taser, Krav Maga, Non-violent Crisis Intervention and Child Passenger Safety. 

She holds an Associate Degree in Police Science, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice and graduated from the Northwestern School of Police Staff and Command as their elected Vice President.

Tamara has been a member of NAWLEE since 2002 and serves as the Midwest Regional Conference Coordinator and participated in the Conference Ad-Hoc Committee.  She was elected to the Board of Directors at the 2007 annual conference and proudly serves as the Associate Member-at-Large.