Shattering the
After more than 20 years on the job, Beth Richards’
promotion to Captain makes her the highest ranking
female Deputy in the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.
n the most important day of her career, Beth
Richards was having a rough morning. She
burned her dress pants while ironing. In despera-
tion, she tried coloring the large spot with a marker
and even considered spray paint. Instead, she pulled
an old pair covered in hair (from one of her eight cats)
from her closet and went at them with a lint brush.
Beth Richards is nothing, if not resourceful.
When I meet her, however, she never lets on how di-
sastrous her morning had started. Instead, she acknowl-
edges the crowd of family, friends and fellow depu-
ties who’ve gathered to watch Sheriff Kevin Rambosk
promote her to Captain — the first woman in the
department to hold the third-
highest rank in the department.
Even the sheriff alludes to “Hopefully, I won’t let
Richard’s history-making mo-
ment, calling her aqualified and the women down.”
motivated policewoman.
“But beyond everything else, you’re a law enforcement
officer,” Rambosk states.
After her husband, Kevin, a fellow deputy, pins a new
badge onto her uniform, the newly promoted Captain
Richards finally smiles.
“Hopefully, I won’t let the women down,” she says.
The people who know her best say there’s no chance
of that happening.
In 2010, Richards has broken the glass ceiling of law
enforcement in Collier County, and she’s both excited
and nervous.
“I always wanted to be the first woman (to be
Captain),” she tells me. “I thought it would be neat to
have left my mark.”
It’s an accomplishment not lost on fellow female
deputies like Bobbi Jo Edwards, who considers Richards
both her best friend and mentor.
44 è Bella - August 2010
Glass By Candace Rotolo
“It’s great,” exclaims Edwards of the promotion,
adding that it gives other women in the department
something to strive for.
On Richards’ desk sits the trophy Edwards and fellow
colleagues in the Professional Standards division, which
Richards headed up until her promotion, gave her. It
reads, ‘You broke the glass.’
Nationally, law enforcement is comprised of approxi-
mately 15 percent women, and it’s estimated that only
about 10 percent of females earn a rank of lieutenant
or higher.
“When I started, there was one female lieutenant,”
Richards, a 23-year-veteran, tells me after the ceremony.
Unlikely Officer
Working for the Sheriff’s Office is
practically the only job Richards
has ever had — except for a brief
stint on-air at Cat Country Radio
and working in her dad’s Immokalee pharmacy. In fact,
she never had any aspirations of a law enforcement career.
She just needed a job. Her grandfather had been a jailer,
her dad — a pharmacist — was an auxiliary officer, and
his best friend was a deputy who worked at the Immokalee
Substation. That friend came to Richards one day and told
her he had a job for her as a corrections officer. That was
in 1987. With the $13,000-a-year salary she’d be making,
Credit: Lane Wilkinson, www.wlwphotography.com
Richards knew it was enough to make her car payment and
said yes, eventually being certified as both a corrections and
law enforcement officer.
Although growing up in Immokalee where Richards
was a tomboy who loved riding horses, she was an
unlikely officer. In fact, she admits to being a bit of a
hellion, a wild teenager with a fake I.D. who liked to
drink and party with her friends, although using drugs
was out of the question.
è Bella - August 2010 45
 “My parents wanted to
make sure I didn’t go to jail,
so they moved me from
Immokalee High School
to LaBelle High School. for
a few years,” Richards says
with a slight laugh. She
returned to Immokalee
High to graduate, and by 18
had gotten the partying
out of her system, thanks,
in part, to meeting her
soon-to-be husband, Kevin,
nine years her senior. The
couple met at a Chamber
of Commerce dance, where
he and fellow SWAT mem-
bers were demonstrating
their skills. A romance Daughter, Amber, gets a hug from Richards after graduating from high school.
ensued, and Richards gave
birth to daughter, Amber, now 20.
Fourteen months after their baby’s
birth, the couple married.
Support System
While many corrections officers are
women (there are regulations about
the number of female officers needed
to secure female inmates), not all of
them attend the police academy to
become certified law enforcement
officers like Richards did.
When Richards started at the jail,
she worked the overnight shift for five
years, getting promoted to supervisor
in 1990. Husband, Kevin, also worked
a variety of shifts. With an infant
daughter, the couple relied on the
help of family and friends to babysit.
“It’s a very tough environment for
women — especially women with fami-
lies,” Richards says of law enforcement,
noting that women in the profession
have to overcome not only professional
obstacles, but personal ones as well.
“If it weren’t for my family, I would
have had to quit or find another line
of work.”
A small ‘village’ of friends and fam-
ily helped the Richards’ raise their
Capt. Richards brings her
miniature horse, Cowboy,
to schools and 4-H clubs.
46 è Bella - August 2010
daughter, first by letting the little
girl stay overnight with them while
the couple worked, and later on by
picking her up from school and taking
her to activities.
As the years went by, Richards
realized that the job she took just
to make a car payment could be-
come her career, and she utilized the
department’s educational plan to attend
college, first at Edison State, where
she earned an Associate’s degree in
criminal justice; then “I learned a lot, especially how to Amber, who’s sitting at her mother’s For her part, Richards plans on man-
a Bachelor’s in busi- talk with people,” Richard’s says of her desk, nods in agreement. aging as she always has — expecting
ness management time on the job. In her new position, Richards over- workers to be professional and account-
and a Master’s in An appointment to commander fol- sees as many as 1,000 inmates in the able for their actions — on and off duty.
criminal justice ad- lowed, along with assignments oversee- two county jails, as well as the Bailiff And she leads by example.
ministration from ing the professional responsibility, train- Bureau — in all, about 400 person- She knows that everyone, especially
Hodges University. ing division and professional standards. nel. Despite the promotion, she admits her female colleagues, are looking to her.
“It was very easy to With each promotion, Richards says she had to think about taking the job, “There are so many women who look
spot her talent,” says her husband has been her biggest wondering whether she was ready for up to me, but really, I’ve learned from
Chief Greg Smith, cheerleader and supporter. She often it. In the end, she realized she’d be them,” Richards says. “They support
one of her first bosses. takes new ideas to Kevin. “If he hates it, coming back to the department where me and want me to move forward.”
“We just supported I know that’s how it might be received she started her career — a good way The next step on the career ladder
her and let her grow.” on the front line.” to retire should she choose to do that could be Chief, but Richards has no
After 25 years together, the couple has in five years. ambitions of higher office.
Making Rank learned that at home, they sometimes “She’s direct and pragmatic, but com- “I need to be successful at this
By 1996, Richards was have to agree to disagree. “The secret is passionate and courteous with staff,” job, first!”
a sergeant assigned not letting him know I’m in control,” Sheriff Rambosk says of Richards.
to the Training Divi- Richards jokes. In their off-hours, they “She makes things happen for her team.”
sion, overseeing new enjoy playing with their eight cats, two
deputies. It was an dogs and two horses, including Cow-
unusual step to transfer over to the boy, a miniature quarter horse and the
law enforcement side of the profession, Sheriff’s Office mascot.
especially since Richards has never An avid horse rider since she was a
been assigned to street patrol. kid, Richards brings Cowboy to 4-H
Taking an untraditional path didn’t fairs and elementary schools to teach
stop her from climbing the ladder. horse safety and promote the Sheriff’s
In 2000, Richards was appointed lieu- Mounted Patrol, a part-time division
tenant and served as the department’s Richards started in 2000, after many
staff inspector, a sometimes contro- other attempts had been made. She
versial position where her job was to wryly explains that a fellow deputy —
make sure fellow deputies and depart- a man — told her “the patrol couldn’t
ments were in compliance. be done, since many other good men
had tried.” Today, the division has
seven deputies who provide crowd
control at large events and patrol dur-
ing holidays and the county fair. Each
member owns his or her own horse,
which the sheriff leases for just $10
a year.
All in the F amily
With two law enforcement officers
as parents, and her brother, who’s a
Sheriff’s detective, Richards jokes
that there isn’t much their daughter,
Amber, can do without their know-
ledge. “We’re probably a little over-
protective,” she says of raising the
20-year-old. “It’s a little intimidating
for boyfriends.”
(back row from left) Step-son,
Kevin; Richards’ husband, Kevin;
Sheriff Kevin Rambosk; and daughter,
Amber, pose for a picture after her
promotion ceremony in June.
è Bella - August 2010 47