Sarah Chervenak ’93 SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT FOR THE FBI During Alumnae Weekend 2008, the Wesleyan College Alumnae Association honored Sarah Chervenak ’93 with the Young Alumna Award “for the love of her country; for her dedication to protecting the people of the United States of America; for her commitment to making our world a safer place to live; and for her efforts to end terrorism.” Sarah was, and still is today, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
convicted Atlanta Centennial Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. In 2001 and 2002 she assisted in the John Walker Lindh, a.k.a. “The American Taliban,” investigation which eventually led Lindh to a 20year sentence in federal prison. In the aftermath of 9/11/01, Sarah played an integral role in the investigation of the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil. At that time, Sarah’s office was just two miles from the Pentagon.
was time for me to advance within the FBI. In 2010, after working terrorism for more than thirteen years, I was promoted to FBI headquarters where I have spent the past five years developing, building, and improving the FBI’s domestic information sharing capabilities.” In 2015, Sarah and her small team received the Director’s Award for Excellence in Program Management for their accomplishments.
Coming to Wesleyan from Columbus, Georgia, Sarah was on the basketball and tennis teams and was captain of the soccer team. Her soccer jersey was retired in 1993. A history and political science double major with a minor in biology, Sarah earned a juris doctorate degree from Samford University Cumberland School of Law in 1996.
After the attack, Sarah was assigned to the Washington Field Office national security squad that was known as the PENTTBOM squad named to represent the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. The investigation spanned multiple countries and cultures. Sarah found it physically draining. “The loss of life, which we saw firsthand inside the Pentagon and in salvaged airplane parts, was horrific. Being previously accustomed to crime scenes could not have prepared any of us for what we witnessed after 9/11. On several occasions I felt like my heart would just break seeing the thousands of broken airplane parts and processing the victims’ luggage and personal items. Perhaps the most chilling part was being one of the first investigators to hear the black box recording as Flight 93 descended and crashed in Pennsylvania.”
Sarah said all of her life experiences, including the four years at Wesleyan, provided an excellent foundation for her journey. Wesleyan, she said,
“It was never my lifetime dream to become a lawyer. I knew law school would position me well for a strong career, but I craved more excitement. I was friends with a classmate whose father was an FBI agent. This friend believed that I would make an excellent special agent, so he introduced me to his father who, over the course of the next two years, mentored and recruited me into the FBI.” After passing the Alabama bar exam, Sarah trained for four months at the FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia, then continued her training around the world in counterterrorism, international and domestic terrorism, foreign intelligence surveillance, and cyber investigating. Sarah assisted in the 1998 investigation of the U.S. Embassy bombing in Tanzania. In 1999 she was part of the multi-agency search for
is an environment where she was able to flourish and thrive academically, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. “Wesleyan offers students numerous opportunities to develop leadership skills, which is not always the case in larger institutes of higher education. I believe that leadership is fundamentally rooted in one’s being; it can be improved upon, but it cannot be taught. Good people do not always make good leaders, but leaders (not to be confused with managers) must always be good people. I credit and thank Wesleyan for helping me develop into the woman I am today.”
In 2008, Sarah transferred to the Los Angeles field office with her husband Keith, who retired from the FBI in 2010. Towards the end of her tour in Los Angeles, her son Mikolas, now five years old, was born. With a new baby came new responsibilities and shifting priorities. “Keith and I knew that we wanted to return to the D.C. area, and I knew it Wesleyan Magazine Winter 2015