Bedford resident Kianna Beddard received her Master of Science in Homeland Security degree from Tiffin University this spring, an accomplishment that came after years of hard work and perseverance.
The recent graduate is currently an operations supervisor with the Federal Reserve Bank Cleveland, but when she was growing up in Cleveland, she admits higher education was not the top priority. When she was in high school, she said that simply graduating was the first goal.
“The whole idea of going to college wasn’t part of my plan,” said Beddard. “My overall plan was to finish high school because I had a daughter at 14.”
Beddard learned early on to set small goals for herself. She said she did not have a lot of guidance as a youth. She was raised by her maternal grandparents because of her mother’s struggle with substance abuse. She said her father was in the picture, but she chose to stay with her grandparents in the hope that her mother would come back home.
She graduated from Jane Addams High School while raising her daughter Deja, but she said she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do as a career. Her next goal was to get her first job.
“Immediately (I) made sure that I kept a job — so I worked at Geauga Lake,” Beddard said. “I didn’t really have an entire plan on what I wanted to do as far as work, I just knew I needed money. So I worked there and a whole lot of other jobs throughout my life.”
Her college career begins
Meanwhile that summer, she also participated in an offering at Cleveland State University called the CLASS Program. The program was created to prepare incoming freshman for college. She said she and her best friend joined the program, and that started her on her journey toward her college degrees.
“I was at Cleveland State for about a good year and a half and worked at Walgreens,” Beddard said. “I also worked at the school for a student job in the College of Urban Affairs, and I really enjoyed it.”
Beddard moved to Columbus and continued her college studies at Columbus State. At about this time, at the age of 21, she also gained custody of her sister, Tianna, who is 10 years younger than she. She said the process of gaining custody wasn’t easy.
“It was difficult,” Beddard said. “When I think back to what I had to go through to do it, I said ‘How did I do that?’ I had to go back and forth to the court here in Cleveland, and because I lived in Columbus, I had to transfer a lot of stuff there. It was a headache.”
Taking an interest in law enforcement
Eventually, she decided to move back to the Cleveland area with the two girls. Her uncle, who had been a Cleveland police officer, encouraged her to take a test to become an officer since the department was hiring.
“So, I took the test for Cleveland Police and I said, “OK, maybe I can do this,'” she said. “And he took me to the Justice Center where they do their physical agility and I was like, ‘I cannot do this. This is too hard for me.’ I was like ‘I don’t want to chase criminals. I don’t want to do that kind of stuff.'”
So, her uncle asked her if she would consider doing police dispatch. Beddard thought that sounded pretty good, so when her grandmother, who was working at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), told her about a part-time dispatching job there, she signed up for it. Beddard said is was at that time that she also began taking classes at Tri-C.
She said she got a lot of hours working at Tri-C, so she was able to take care or her household, but she also worked other odd jobs, which included calling for a collection agency and helping merchants with their machinery over the phone. After a while, another job working with law enforcement came available.
“At that time, a friend of mine who worked at Tri-C and was also working at the police department in Woodmere, told me that she was getting ready to stop working there because she needed to care for her mom, and she said I should put in for her role,” Beddard said. The job was as a police clerk, and was also part-time.
“I was thinking, ‘OK, I can still juggle this,’ Beddard said. My daughter was probably 12 or 13 at the time, so she didn’t really need me home as much.”
She worked at Woodmere for a few years, when getting a full-time job started to become a necessity, particularly for health insurance. She said Woodmere wanted to give her a full-time job, but they didn’t have the funds, so she put in her two-week’s notice, and began to prepare to work for a flooring company.
Working at the Federal Reserve Bank
She may have had a long successful career in the flooring industry, but law enforcement opportunities continued to arise. As she was in the process of heading to her new job, she attended a recognition event for women in public safety sponsored by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE). This was the first year of the event, and Beddard was surprised at how many women were present.
Carolyn Williams, who is the current director of the law enforcement unit at the Federal Reserve Bank Cleveland, was there giving the address. Beddard said her speech was inspiring.
“Her speech really touched me,” she said.
Beddard also said she liked the part in the speech when Williams said, “We’re hiring.”
When she went to talk to the representative from the Federal Reserve Bank at the event, the chief was there and another female officer. They both were strongly encouraging Beddard to apply for the job as an officer at the bank. She said she was interested, but then she began wondering what she would need to do to get the job.
“I’m thinking, I’ve got to go through an academy?” she said. “… What am I getting myself into?”
In the meantime, Beddard’s daughter was graduating from high school and was planning to go into the Navy. As her daughter was heading off on her new adventure, Beddard decided to embark on her basic training at the bank as well.
“I was thinking well, if you’re going do to it, I’ll do it,” she said. “So, we decided to take this journey.”
It was 2014 when they both began their respective trainings. The Federal Reserve has its own cadet program that readies candidates for the particular issues that are faced at the bank.
“So I went through the training,” she said. “It was very difficult. I was the only person that they were training that had never had experience with a weapon. They would actually say, ‘Don’t worry, it will be fine, this is actually good that we don’t have to retrain you our way.’ So, I had extra time because of my inability to really know how to handle a weapon, but they took their time with me and I got through it.”
She was happy that her new job would not include a lot of “chasing people,” but she said, “When all hell breaks loose, I am going to know what to do because of my training.” She worked for a while under a field training officer to gain first-hand experience at being an officer at the bank.
“All of my family could not believe that I’m a police officer,” she said. “It literally took me a long time to understand that, yes, I am a police officer. I do carry a weapon. I do have a badge. I do help people. I can arrest people.”
Taking on a supervisory role
Beddard received her Associate of Arts degree in general studies from Tri-C the following year, and although she really enjoyed her job at the bank, she was looking for more challenges. She decided to begin her Bachelor of Criminal Science degree at Tiffin University, which she completed in 2018.
In the middle of pursuing that degree, the chief was encouraging her to put in an application for a supervisor role.
“I (thought), I don’t know how to supervise anybody,” she said. “I don’t want to supervise these people. They’ve been here longer than me, and they know more.”
She told the chief she would think about it. Which she did, and decided to put in for it, even with some of the concerns she held.
She thought, “Well, alright, they must see something in me I don’t see in myself, and that is still my struggle right now,” she said. “But I have a mentor at work who is helping me out with that.”
At the interview, she was asked what she thought about leadership and about her leadership qualities. She said she had never really led anyone before except for her daughter and her sister.
“They were like, “‘Well, if we would select you for this role then we would definitely put you through specific types of training to guide and grow you as you go through the process,'” she said. “‘You already are almost receiving you bachelor’s degree so we can see your drive.'”
She said it was a struggle at the beginning to be in charge of people who had been there longer than she had, but she said she rode it out and really enjoys her role now.
“I, personally, do love being a supervisor and being in charge of the people I am in charge of,” she said.
The bank has a program to pay for college tuition, which Beddard took advantage of to get her Criminal Justice degree. After graduation she began to get emails from Tiffin about its master’s degree program. In speaking to her mentor at the bank, she began realizing that getting another degree could really help open more doors for her.
“I said (to myself), ‘OK, the bank is going to pay for it. Let’s just do this,'” she said. “‘It’s (just) 10 more classes.'”
She chose to pursue a degree in Homeland Security because she said it would give her the skills that would allow her to help in the community, which is a passion of hers.
“It just kind of meshed with I was doing,” she said.
Beddard has lived in Bedford since 2008, and both her daughter and sister attended the Bedford Schools. She would have walked to receive her master’s degree this spring at Tiffin, but was unable to because of the coronavirus restrictions. Still, she was able to get some pictures of herself down in the Bedford square in cap and gown.
Also, if you happened to have driven by the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Cleveland recently, you may have seen a picture of Beddard on the side of the building.
“They had started doing some serious human resource recruitment for people to work at the Fed,” she said. “They were taking photos and, ironically, I was kind of in (the area) and I got my photo taken, and the were like, ‘Oh, we want to do a human resource card on you.’ So, I literally have my face on the bank, me and someone else. … There is a big banner and it has some information about working at the bank and my photo is out there … and a little write up.”
