Faculty Interview: Peter Klismet

Compiled by Jason Henry

Are you excited? We certainly are! Why shouldn't we be? The 2015 Pikes Peak Writers Conference is just around the corner! It has been an absolute pleasure recruiting the incredible faculty that we have lined up for you this year and the workshops they will be teaching are proving to be just as amazing.

Pikes Peak Writers Conference is known as one of the best and friendliest conferences for many reasons. One of those reasons is that we provide as many opportunities as possible to not only learn from our faculty, but to get to know them. Keeping in the spirit of that very statement, we interviewed all of our faculty members to get inside their heads just a little. Really, we don't see the point in waiting until April. Do you?

Over the weeks to come, we will be posting those interviews along with the responses right here on the PPW Blog. Be sure to check in on Facebook and Twitter as well! We hope you enjoy reading these brief Q&As as much as we have!

PETE KLISMET (Author, Colorado)

1. What are the most compelling elements you feel are necessary for a good read? 

Very easy. Get my attention in the first few pages. I started a novel just last night in which the (rather famous) author felt it was important to blabber on about some esoteric garbage that probably made perfect sense to him, but not to the reader. Perhaps someone else thought it was wonderful prose, but after about 10 pages, I put the book down and picked up another one. On all of my books, I have worked hard at a hard-hitting start, then I get the hook set as they continue to read.

2. What do you see as the pleasures and difficulties of being a writer/artist in today's world? 

The pure pleasure of writing will never go away. People have loved the feeling we all get since time immemorial. And then it stops being fun, and starts becoming WORK!! Finding a publisher or figuring out a way to self-publish are very hard tasks. Once that happens, one must open their creative minds and take a step into “Narnia,” the closet door which opens to the new world of marketing. We are one of many authors our publisher has, and they can’t devote all their time to you. Thus, one must re-direct their creativity and venture into a realm few understand, but all must aggressively pursue.

3. What is the best career/writing advice someone has given you? 

A story is built or told by two things: Action and Dialogue. Learned that at the famed University of Iowa Writers Workshop back in the 1980’s. Never forgot it.

4. Would you pass that same advice on or alter it? 

I would pass it on with no alteration. In my genre of law enforcement-related books, many former officers and agents have great stories to tell. However, I’ve read some of them and most are complete narrative. Just like their reports were. Because you were a good report writer, that doesn’t translate into writing books or novels. Trust me on this. Take a Creative Writing class and I suspect that will be the 1st thing you learn.

5. What do you love most about your career?

 I’ve had several ‘careers,’ and I’m not sure if writing is one of them, or an avocation. I loved being a cop, an FBI Agent and a college professor. I love being a writer. It’s good for my head! Clears out lots of cobwebs.

6. What is something you wish everyone knew (or didn't know) about you? 

Once people find out I was an FBI agent, they go all ‘ga ga.’ Then there are a predictable set of questions which follow, and which I’ve been asked hundreds of times. But, I do have to get that info out there because it’s part of who I am and part of what helps me have ideas for and sell books. It’s just hard for people to understand I can’t be very enthusiastic answering the exact questions (“Was it exciting?” “Did you get to shoot anybody?”) that I’ve been asked a thousand times before.

7. Which fictional character do you relate to the most, and why? What character would your friends/family pick for you? 

If you’re a fan of M.A.S.H., I have been compared most often to Hawkeye Pierce. I don’t take myself seriously, am definitely cynical and irreverent, often self-effacing, like to kid around with people, but when it comes down to working, don’t get in my way.

Quick Qs:

Pen or Keyboard? Love dem ivories! Wrote far too many reports with pens.

Plotter or Pantser? I’m not really sure what a ‘panster’ is, so I guess I’d have to be a plotter. It fits in best with my personality anyhow.

Book or E-Book? I love having a book in my hand. Have never read an e-book.

Spicy or Mild? A little of both is fine.

Sunrise or Sunset? Sunrise. Definitely. I’m an early-riser and love those hours between 8am and noon or so. I get going far better in the morning.

Mister Rogers or Sesame Street? There were a couple of critters on Sesame Street I loved. That would be Oscar the Grouch, but especially The Count. My daughter would race though the house to find me……"Daddy, daddy…..The Count is on." Love them vampires! And, if my dad had been like Mr. Rogers, I have no idea how I would have turned out.

Facebook or Twitter? I’m all about Facebook. Rarely do I take it seriously. I love to post jokes and funny stuff in general. To me it’s there to enjoy and make others enjoy what you put up there. Sounds like writing to me! I hate the way some people use it to tell us what a wonderful relationship they have. “My husband is such a sweetheart. He made coffee this morning.” “Thank you dear, it’s so special doing things for you.” C’mon. Buy a vowel. Get a room.

     

Pete Klismet retired after serving 20 years with the FBI, then spent 13 years teaching at colleges in Colorado. He was chosen to be one of the original ‘profilers’ by the FBI. His career in law enforcement, includes ten years with the Ventura (CA) Police Department. He is the Director of Criminal Profiling Associates, a consultant to the American Society of Cold Case Investigators, and a co-founder of Preventing School Shootings. Before retiring, Pete was named 1999 National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year. Pete is the author of FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil, and the recently released FBI Animal House. Both books are on Amazon, Kindle, and will be available at the conference. He and his wife Nancy live in Colorado Springs.

crimeprof@yahoo.com Website: www.criminalprofilingassociates.com

PPWC 2014 Q&A - Pete Klismet

Pete Klismet, Author/Expert

1. What was the defining moment that made your realize you wanted to be an author?

I had so many experiences in 30 years in law enforcement, and had read some books by former law enforcement officers that made me think “I can write as well as he can.” It was a long process, but I finally found the impetus - a case I’d done a profile on almost 30 years ago in which 6 innocent people were convicted, and wouldn’t have been if only they had paid attention to the profile I’d done. My first thought was “This story MUST be told,” and that led to my completion of “FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil.” It’s one of several cases in the book.

2. What is the one thing you cannot work without? What is your creative vice?

I need two things: Privacy and mornings. The creative juices flow for me between about 8 am and 2 pm. My wife has learned to not engage me in conversation when she sees I’m writing.

3. If you could 'revive' any literary figure from the past for a one hour conversation, who would you choose?

He’s not truly a ‘literary figure,’ but Joseph Wambaugh who was a prolific writer of true crime stories and produced such shows as “Police Story,” in the 70’s and 80’s would be my guy. I’m also partial to Ann Rule who does extensive research into her true crime stories.

4. What is one of your more notable or unusual conference or convention experiences?

I’ve only attended two, the Public Safety Writer’s Ass’n, held in Las Vegas every year. Those have given me so many contacts and friends, plus being critical in getting FBI Diary published, so I think I’ll always be a member. I am really excited about this year’s PPW conference, both as a presenter and attendee. I’ve gotten to know some members and will be thrilled to meet others. I think authors have an immediate bond formed. Sorta' like cops!

5. If we asked your friends and family to compare you to a cartoon character, which would they choose, and why?

We just did some internet research on this, including a ‘cartoon character personality test,’ and the only thing that fit me was Tweety Bird. I thought it would be some type of a big cuddly bear, but it turns out Tweety was a perfect fit. Surprise.

6. What is one thing would you like aspiring authors to know about the road to success?

What is success? For me, it was finally getting a book published. That was a life-long dream. But, it involved failure along the way, writer’s block and finally a lot of persistence. It’s going to take some time. I wrote my first book about 30 years ago, and it was an egg. I attended a couple of writer’s workshops and found out ‘how’ to write. I was good at writing narrative police reports, but that didn’t translate into books. I had to learn how to make that paradigm shift.

About the Expert/Author: Thirty years ago, a small cadre of FBI agents were hand-picked by the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) to receive training in what was then a highly-controversial and ground breaking concept, “Psychological Profiling.”  Pete was fortunate enough to have been chosen to become one of the original FBI ‘profilers.’  Before his retirement from the FBI in 1999, Pete received additional training, was temporarily assigned to work with the BSU in Quantico, Virginia, and put that training and experience to work in assisting state, federal and local law enforcement agencies in investigating violent crimes.  Pete served two tours in Vietnam on submarines.  (Submarines in Vietnam?  It’s the title of a chapter in his newly-released, award-winning book “FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil.”)  After completing college in Denver, Pete served as a police officer in Ventura, California for nearly ten years.  During that time, he earned two Master’s degrees from universities in California, and part of a third. He was named the 1999 National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year, and retired that year. For the next 13 years, he taught in colleges, and is now retired as a professor emeritus. He and his wife Nancy live in Colorado Springs.  He plans to release ‘a couple more books’ in 2014.

The Ability to Write: Nature or Nurture, Part III

By Pete Klismet


(Continued from Part II last month)

My research into the ability to write had to go a few steps beyond where I had taken it to that point, which wasn’t very far. So I searched under the topic of “Are Talented Authors Endowed with an Innate Writing Ability?” and found an article by one Mathew Kulas, who claims to be a professor of writing (do they really have these?).

In his article, Mr. Kulas proposes: “Many people argue that accomplished storytellers are born with this skill, however I am in no way certain. Maybe you might have a degree of predisposition, yet I think that authors are created (my emphasis added). In my opinion certain authors are highly gifted but even so these individuals still had to develop the gift by way of extensive learning, practice, in addition to thinking. For that reason, I think writing to be all three — a skill, a craft as well as a talent.”

That didn’t help a lot, but I also realize research means you form a hypothesis (a theory) and then seek to either prove or disprove it. Thus, Mr. Kulas didn’t help much, because he seemed to equivocate, claiming all three are factors. But maybe he’s also saying if you have the native ability and hone it, you could become a skilled writer. Makes sense. However, I have also learned the idea behind investigating or researching something is to avoid coming up with a theory, and then finding facts to fit the theory, not disprove it. So I needed to press on.

Next I came across an article by one James M. Jaspar. Reviewing his website, Mr. Jaspar appears to be interested in teaching people how to write, particularly when he says: “Anyone can learn to write well. This is not some innate skill like perfect pitch. Solid, even elegant writing is an ability we acquire little by little, learning the proper uses of one verb or preposition at a time, mastering long sentences then short ones -- and then figuring out how to combine the two. We learn to compensate for our own stylistic idiosyncrasies, whether these are an excessive use of adverbs or logical connectors or a tendency to write one paragraph after another of exactly the same length.” His website is located at:  http://www.jamesmjasper.org/Writing.html.

So I concluded: Either he’s wrong, or I’m wrong, but I’ll go with him being wrong, since I have little clue what he’s trying to say. Albert Einstein once said “If you can’t explain your topic simply, you don’t understand it yourself.” I didn’t find Mr. Jasper’s article to be simple. Plus, he seems to want to make money by teaching those who can’t write how to write, so I had to conclude we’d have to agree to disagree. Mr. Jaspar’s article definitely didn’t advance my theory much farther than where it had already been.

Part of the reason for even looking into this somewhat esoteric topic was based on thirteen years of teaching in a community college. I found out that reading the written work of some of my students was almost impossible. Many couldn’t spell, but worse than that those same students were not able to carry out a thought beyond one sentence. Others did quite well. So I was stuck in a quandary, wondering if I was truly accomplishing anything in trying to make my poor students write yet more while frustrating themselves to death (not to mention me having to read what they were trying to say). It took some time to figure out that there was a direct correlation between those who were poor writers, and those who got poor grades.

“Ah-ha!” I thought. “Now I’m onto something.” Perhaps the ability to learn is based on one’s intelligence level. Contrary to what the U.S. Constitution says, my theory is that “All men are NOT created equal.” I had a living laboratory right there in front of me. So, I had a meeting with myself, tried to think outside the box, and formed my own theory: “The ability to write well is based on one’s level of intelligence.” Good writers tend to be brighter people. They can interpret information and think critically about what the information means. Then they can explain it in understandable terms. Those who don’t have this ability are only capable of parroting back rote information. 

Absolute proof of this came in my Human Relations and Social Conflict classes. Part of my final exam consisted of doing essays on topics we’d covered over the course of the semester. Being the nice professor I was (!), I let them use their notes to do the essays. I would pose eight questions related to topics we’d covered, tell them to pick the four they liked, and finally to create essays on those four. Without fail, the better students could take their notes and explain what we were covering. By contrast, the poor students would simply re-write their notes, meaning they had written down the information, but had no clue how to explain it, so they just simply parroted their notes back to me.

In the Criminal Profiling class I taught, I did the same thing, only with a higher degree of difficulty, since it was the most advanced course in our program. I’d give them four fact patterns and ask them to do a ‘profile’ of an unknown offender, based on the fact pattern of a murder case or a sexual assault. Voila! Exactly the same results. Some would just re-write a laundry list, but could not explain how they’d come to the conclusions. The better students would do an in-depth analysis and explain every point they were making. It was a pleasure to read the latter, and whether they were right or wrong was less important than how they explained the conclusions they arrived at.

My educated guess would be that the ability to write is a function of one’s intellectual capability. Those with higher intelligence simply write better. Sort of the old “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The best example of that would be personal observations in my college classes. In fact, I eventually learned to minimize the amount of writing in my classes, because I found a direct correlation between good writing and good grades, and that the reverse was true. The other thing I found was that students who couldn’t write, or were too lazy to do so, would get someone else to write a paper for them. Or wouldn’t write it at all. 

In conclusion, I believe you’ve either got it or you ain’t got it. I’ve thought that for years, and I now have myself even further convinced. If your intellect isn’t fairly high, you probably have failed to learn the basics you needed to learn about writing well in the early grades. And if you missed that, or ignored it, then it will influence your ability to write the rest of your life. I’d like to think I proved my theory, but I’m still not sure. It was fun thinking about something I’ve wondered about for years. The question would then be, am I a good enough writer that you understand why I wrote this and what it all means? If the answer is “yes,” then I’ve done my job in expressing my opinion.

About the Author: About thirty years ago, a small cadre of FBI agents were hand-picked by the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) to receive training in what was then a highly-controversial and ground breaking concept: Psychological Profiling. Pete Klismet was fortunate enough to have been chosen to become one of the original FBI “profilers.” He received additional training, was temporarily assigned to work with the BSU in Quantico, Virginia, and put that training and experience to work in assisting state, federal and local law enforcement agencies in investigating violent crimes. 

He was named National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year in 1999, the same year he retired from the FBI. For the next 13 years he taught in colleges, and is now retired as a professor emeritus. He and his wife Nancy live in Colorado Springs.

Pete’s award-winning book FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil is available at www.houdinipress.com and www.amazon.com. He plans to release ‘a couple more books’ in 2014. 

The Ability to Write - Nature or Nurture? Part II

By Pete Klismet

In Part I of this article, I explained how important a person’s writing ability is to the eventual solution and prosecution of crimes. Having seen a lack of this over the course of many years, I decided to explore it in a more systematic manner.

Since research on the ability to write would be helpful, I decided to start mine by asking my wife a simple question. “Was your mother a good writer?” My wife and her sister both are excellent writers, more than able to convey their thoughts, whether in an email or some other form of written communication. For the record, my wife’s answer was “Yes.” I thought that was an excellent start to proving my theory that the ability to write is inherited, thus genetic.

Believing this topic deserved more extensive research, I asked myself, “Was my mom a good writer? How about my dad?” And the answer to both questions was an unequivocal “yes” for both, despite the fact that my dad had only an eighth grade education (the required standard for the time he was in school). Then I asked myself, “Are your kids good writers?” Again the answer was yes. So I quickly advanced my theory ahead a few more spaces on the board.

Then I asked myself, “Am I a good writer?” And the answer was “I think so.” I know when I was a police officer in California, some of my reports were deemed to be “legendary.” And I always enjoyed writing them. I enjoyed doing research papers in college and graduate school, seeing these as an opportunity to think outside the box. In the FBI it is said that only about ten percent of all agents can put together a complex investigation, explain it in reports, and then write a wiretap affidavit (which is basically longer than the worst term paper you ever did, and has to be reviewed by tons of lawyers). In twenty years, I wrote about ten of them. So apparently I was capable of writing at a high level while in the FBI. 

But, did being able to write good reports, search warrant and wiretap affidavits predict a good writing career? Those reports are generally narrative, and that type of writing doesn’t necessarily translate directly to an ability to write a novel. I found that out with the first book I wrote, which was deemed “horrible” by a literary agent after she read only part of one chapter. I was floored. Result: Writer’s block for about five years. I was a hopeless case. My self-esteem plummeted. My hopes and dreams of someday becoming a best-selling author were dashed. 

Or so I thought. I was living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the time, and about twenty miles down the highway was the University of Iowa. Somehow, I found out about their famed Writer’s Workshop, and decided to see if I could attend. No problem. Pay the tuition, attend for two full weeks, and hopefully come out a better writer on the other end. And so I paid and attended. We did a lot of evaluating of each other’s work. When my chapter came up for review, it prompted an extensive lecture by our instructor. And finally the light bulb went on and glared brightly. I remember him saying, “You build a story by using action and dialogue.” You mean narrating won’t work? Nope. But I was really good at writing police reports and stuff like that. Doesn’t matter, that was narrating, and it doesn’t work if you’re trying to advance a story in a novel. Oh, now I understood why I got that scathing rejection – I can write great police reports, but that doesn’t translate to writing a book someone will want to read and which will hold their interest.

It was just the jolt I needed, but then came the problem of adapting my writing style to my newly-learned knowledge. You can’t tell a story with dialogue only, and if you revert to action, you’re back to narrating. This caused a significant paradigm shift for me. I had to see if I had the ability to blend both of these concepts together. And quickly learned it wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be. There was going to be some work involved. I had to ask myself if I had the commitment. The only way to find out was to start writing again. But, don’t write fiction. I didn’t need to do that. All of my years in law enforcement, about fifteen by that time, gave me enough experiences to write more than one book. In fact, I now have about eight in my head. It’s a tight fit, in case you were wondering. 

I continued my research on the Internet and found there was no shortage of information about the ability to acquire language as an innate ability. But what most of that referred to was people being more able than others to learn new and different languages. I knew that didn’t apply to me and was not what I was trying to discover. I did, however, find some short articles about the ability to write being an inherited trait. Which I was very excited about, except that the answers were clearly maybe or maybe not. That didn’t advance my theory a whole lot, either.

I found a somewhat compelling blog by someone who calls himself “Rodismay.” The blog had a ton of advertising links, so his goal is apparently to teach people to be better writers and make money in the process. There were a number of comments by various people who said they felt their ability to write was “God-given.” Mr. Rodismay also commented, “When I am in the mood, one word heard or read can be expanded into more than 1000 words.” Hmmm, I thought, that sounds a lot like me (and surely some of you). It’s almost like being an alcoholic, by way of analogy: Once you start, you can’t stop. Maybe that’s not the best analogy. A better one might be getting the so-called “Runner’s High.” I’ve had all of these things happen, so maybe writing is akin to an addiction? And maybe, just maybe, I’m onto something here. Research on addictions shows a high degree of predisposition, such that if one is an alcoholic, someone above you on the food chain, whether mom, dad, grandpa, etc., was or is an alcoholic as well. So maybe this guy Rodismay has me headed in the right direction. And maybe I was starting to think outside the box as I wanted to be.

And I continued my research. I’ll explain that and how I tried to connect the dots in the third part of this article.

About the Author: About thirty years ago, a small cadre of FBI agents were hand-picked by the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) to receive training in what was then a highly-controversial and ground breaking concept: Psychological Profiling. Pete Klismet was fortunate enough to have been chosen to become one of the original FBI “profilers.” He received additional training, was temporarily assigned to work with the BSU in Quantico, Virginia, and put that training and experience to work in assisting state, federal and local law enforcement agencies in investigating violent crimes. 

He was named National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year in 1999, the same year he retired from the FBI. For the next 13 years he taught in colleges, and is now retired as a professor emeritus. He and his wife Nancy live in Colorado Springs.

Pete’s award-winning book FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil is available at www.houdinipress.com and www.amazon.com. He plans to release ‘a couple more books’ in 2014.

The Ability to Write: Nature or Nurture? Part I

By Pete Klismet

This is Part I of a three-part series by Pete Klismet, a PPWC 2014 speaker.

At my core, I suppose I am and always will be a criminologist. So, you might ask, what on earth does that have to do with the topic of writing? In truth, it has everything to do with writing. Compiling a set of facts through investigation does no one any good unless those facts can be transmitted to others in some meaningful way. In law enforcement, that means constructing a report which explains not only what happened, but more importantly how it happened. These two concepts are far more different than one would think, and the ability to think outside the box and write a report which tells the story is much more difficult for some than others. It turns out to be a process of connecting the dots, telling the story, and as the complexity of a crime becomes more involved, so does the ability to explain a set of facts in a report that makes sense to other people.

Over 45 years of involvement with law enforcement can make you think a little differently, particularly if you have an inquisitive mind. I always seemed to have one of those. I can remember back in the 1970’s, when I was a young and impressionable police officer in Ventura, California, I would often wonder why people who committed crimes did what they did. Was it an irresistible impulse, lack of control, a reaction, anger, greed, or what? While other officers would be busily examining and collecting evidence at a crime scene, I remember just looking and wondering why the woman plunged a huge knife into her boyfriend’s sternum. Or why a man chose to shoot and kill his ex-wife, her new boyfriend, and then himself. Or why a 19-year-old man would sneak across an alley, enter a woman’s house, and rape her, but worse yet, cut her throat to the point where her head was nearly severed from her body. Why, why, why? It’s just not ‘normal’ behavior. But what defines normal, and how do we go about explaining it?

Theories of criminality generally break down into three relatively simple explanations:

1.  There is a psychological cause, meaning a person had or has deep-seated issues from life experiences that cause them to act out later in their lives. These experiences are deeply embedded and will never go away, although they may be repressed for many years. For example: There appears to be a relationship between having been molested as a child, and later going on to become a molester. At least, this is true with boys. Abuse as a child causes anger, even rage, to build. About 75% of murderers claim to have been abused as children. Thus, this theory would hold that past events may predict future behavior, particularly violence. Having a diagnosed mental illness also plays into this equation.

2.  Sociologists would contend the cause is more about where one grew up, or perhaps with whom the person grew up. This can include family, friends, and the area that influenced a person’s later life. Theories abound on this as a causal factor, and many people ascribe to this approach as more meaningful, as we did years ago. We’d generally call this the Sociological Theory. But then, how do we explain a Jeffrey Dahmer, who grew up in an upper-middle class home, with a dad who was a Ph.D. chemist, and a family that was probably a whole lot better than most of ours? Or how do we explain a Dr. Ben Carson, who grew up in an ultra-tough, Chicago ghetto, yet went on to become the most eminent pediatric brain surgeon in the world?

3.  And then comes the most controversial of them all, what we’ll call Biological Theory; namely the belief that we were born with a genetic predisposition to commit crime and violent acts. In other words, were some born to be criminals? As an undergraduate over forty years ago, I remember this theory being posed in a criminology class, and thinking, “That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Since then, with discoveries in genetics, DNA and other research, I’ve made a significant turnaround. Consider this: Virtually everything about us is determined at the time of conception. For example, will we have asthma? Will we become schizophrenic, or have Down’s Syndrome? And thus I wondered, since some criminal acts are quite impulsive, is impulsiveness an inherited trait? Seems possible to me.

Congratulations! You’ve just completed Criminology 401. While you may understand these concepts, can you relate one or more of them to a particular crime, then explain it? Or do you need to do anything more than collect the facts, establish probable cause of who committed the crime, and thoroughly explain it? That’s exactly where the importance of being able to write becomes critical to both identifying and prosecuting the offender. But, before I confer a degree upon you, let’s go back to the comment I made in the first paragraph: “Think outside the box.” As a full-time college professor, I used to tell my students that if I accomplished nothing more in my classes, I wanted them to be able to both think and think critically. To take some information, put it together with something else, and see how it matches up. Or maybe to find a way to make it match up. Thus, thinking outside the box. Let’s try these on for size:

What do we see here?  A ravaged tree?  A man and a woman?  Or a lot more than that?

How about this?  A deer looking at us?  Or more than that?

To conclude, what I would like you to understand is that some people can see a set of facts, gather information, and form a theory of what happened. But then comes the true litmus test: Can you explain them so others can understand and make use of what you’ve written? In my years of law enforcement experience, I’ve discovered many times that some can, and some can’t. We’ll explore that concept in Part II of this article.

About the Author: About thirty years ago, a small cadre of FBI agents were hand-picked by the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) to receive training in what was then a highly-controversial and ground breaking concept: Psychological Profiling. Pete Klismet was fortunate enough to have been chosen to become one of the original FBI “profilers.” He received additional training, was temporarily assigned to work with the BSU in Quantico, Virginia, and put that training and experience to work in assisting state, federal and local law enforcement agencies in investigating violent crimes. 

He was named National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year in 1999, the same year he retired from the FBI. For the next 13 years he taught in colleges, and is now retired as a professor emeritus. He and his wife Nancy live in Colorado Springs.

Pete’s award-winning book FBI Diary: Profiles of Evil is available at www.houdinipress.com and www.amazon.com. He plans to release ‘a couple more books’ in 2014.