From her office at the Le Sueur Police Station, surrounded by thank you notes and objects from her decades-long career, including a toy trooper cruiser still in the box that no one gets to touch, Pilar Gimenez Stier, a 1996 Gustavus Adolphus College graduate, answered the question, “Why did you choose law enforcement?”, with a smile.
“When I was really young, I wanted to be Wonder Woman,” she said.
The process, though, took a long time, from her little kid Wonder Woman dreams in Argentina, through immigration to the United States as a teen, through her criminal justice major and club rugby at Gustavus, and her full-time work at Campus Security, through the decade-long wait for U.S. citizenship so she could join Minnesota law enforcement, then two decades as a state trooper near the Twin Cities metro and St. Peter-Mankato (plus a short stint as a commercial vehicle inspector).
Now, as the chief of police of Le Sueur — the first Latina police chief in the state of Minnesota — she is undeniably a wonder of a woman. Dream achieved.
But, in 1989, she was an Argentinian teenager living through political strife with her mother, her stepfather, and a blended family of siblings. When Argentina’s destabilization led the family to leave, several of them — including Gimenez Stier and her sister, Alejandra ’94 — landed in Orono, Minnesota, with a foster family who would help them through their first years in America. It was the Myrna Thorsell Wolf (1951 Gustavus graduate and Ted Wolf (1950 Gustavus graduate) family.
Adjusting and learning
“We didn’t have much,” Chief Gimenez Stier said of those early days in Minnesota.
The Wolf family was gracious and helpful and introduced them to Gustavus. But high school? “That was horrible. I was learning English, and when you start hearing people talking bad about you, start understanding what they’re saying, you just get really mad.” She shrugs. “And then you move on.”
Alejandra, who is older, came to Gustavus first. Gimenez Stier followed her sister.
“The best part was the scholarships. I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to go to Gustavus — or anywhere for that matter — without scholarships,” she said.
The second best part? “The whole community was so welcoming, not only Gustavus but the city of St. Peter.”
Still struggling with English, Gimenez Stier cried to her sister more than once. She’s grateful for her sister’s support, because her parents didn’t know how to navigate American higher education.
“I knew where to go for help,” she said.
Her sister majored in Art and Art History. Today, Alejandra Gimenez Berger (a 1994 Gustavus graduate) is a professor of Art History at Wittenberg University and director of its Honors Program.
Gimenez Stier. meanwhile, majored in criminal justice, with an emphasis in administration and psychology. She tutored Spanish. She did a January term at the Nicollet County Courthouse. All of it solidified her Wonder Woman dreams of a career in law enforcement, even though she was not a United States citizen.
Her diverse friend group provided her with another layer of support. Because Gimenez Stier did not get her green card until her junior year at Gustavus, she was considered an international student.
“To have that community of international students made me feel so comfortable,” she said. “Even if you don’t speak the same language, you figure it out. You always have that little family.”
Also, there was rugby. When Gimenez Stier talks about Gustavus club rugby, she seems to shift into super hero mode, like Wonder Woman leaping into action.
“It has that physical thing you don’t get in a lot of women’s sports,” she said. “I love it.”
She played on the front line.
“When you get that first hit, you’re like, ‘OK, can I do this?’ When I came into law enforcement, I knew I could,” she said.
In fact, Gimenez Stier was a defensive tactics and taser instructor.
“That confidence — or pretending to have that confidence — came from playing rugby. Always polite, always respectful, but I’m still in charge,” she said.
Living the dream
After graduation, she worked for Gustavus Campus Security, St. Peter Police Dispatch, and Le Sueur County Dispatch. When U.S. citizenship was imminent, she studied law enforcement at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Then she began living the dream.
“I had five years to go with the State Patrol. I asked myself if I was satisfied with my career, and I wasn’t,” Gimenez Stier said of the great shift that began to take shape in her a few years ago. What she was missing, she said, was a sense of community.
As a trooper, “Our community is the highway. The mission of a small police department connected to the community feels really important to me at this time in my life.”
She found that community just up the road from her Gustavus and St. Peter community, and just down the road from Belle Plaine, where her husband is the chief of police.
“The city of Le Sueur is a hidden jewel,” she says.
Just over 4,000 people, it’s an agriculture and manufacturing town along the Minnesota River, in the valley of the Jolly Green Giant (hence the billboard along Highway 169).
“The community is very supportive of the police,” she said. There are outsiders who come to work, visit, and sometimes cause trouble, and twenty percent of the population lives below the poverty line, but there is lots of communication between the community and the police.
“Policing is about having that engagement,” she said.
Under her leadership, Le Sueur police attend civic events, visit local schools, and generally demonstrate that the police are there for residents beyond enforcing laws.
Case in point: “Recently, I was sitting down with the school principal and teachers and students to talk about a crisis response,” Gimenez Stier said. “To have that connection, that’s my favorite part right now.”
And forging these bonds helps people see each other’s humanity — and contributes to de-escalation during highly charged times.
It’s still early in her tenure as chief.
“There is a lot I don’t know,” she said.
What she does know is that she can call on a long list of chiefs of police and hundreds of officers she’s met or instructed during her career, including those she served with on the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training.
“My network is big,” she said.
So is her responsibility. One of her personal missions is to inspire others like her to join law enforcement and assume leadership roles.
“Throughout my career, I didn’t see many women or people of color in leadership positions,” she said. “You can’t be something if you don’t see it. I’m hoping that people see me, and kids see me, and say, ‘I can be that, too.’”
One of the POST Board changes hit close to home: expanding eligibility so that legal residents can serve as law enforcement. Gimenez Stier had to wait 13 years — until she was a U.S. citizen — to join law enforcement.
There is still a long way to go. In the U.S., Black and Hispanic groups remain underrepresented in the field. Among police chiefs, 47% in large cities are White, 38% are Black, and 13% are Hispanic. In towns of less than 10,000, like Le Sueur, 92% of police chiefs are White.
There is no public data about the race of Minnesota police officers. There is state data about gender. Only 13% of Minnesota officers are women, though that number is increasing. In 2023, 20% of new officer licenses went to women.
By the end of summer, in addition to Gimenez Stier, Le Sueur will have a diverse staff of 14 that includes Latino and Asian officers, plus two women officers. She is now the leader she wished she could see in the world.
Thirty-five years ago, when she was a teenage immigrant suffering through high school, harboring dreams of a life in law enforcement, “I would tell myself, ‘Keep working really hard and you will get there.’”
She did. And she will not be the last.
“I am the American Dream,” she said. “And anybody can be that.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0