November 21, 2019

Renae McDermott Named Assistant Director of the Training Division

Director Christopher Wray has named Renae McDermott as the assistant director of the FBI’s Training Division. Ms. McDermott most recently served as the deputy assistant director for the division, which oversees the education of new special agents and intelligence analysts and provides other specialized training programs, including the National Academy and the National Executive Institute.

Ms. McDermott joined the FBI in July 1989 as an FBI police officer, part of a force that provides security for Headquarters and other Bureau facilities. In 1991, she became a physical science technician in the Firearms and Toolmarks Unit in the FBI Laboratory. She was later accepted to the FBI Academy and graduated as a special agent in 1994.

Her first assignment was in the Miami Field Office, where she worked for 10 years. In Miami, Ms. McDermott investigated violent crime, public corruption, and counterterrorism. She was also the airport liaison agent and a team leader of Miami’s evidence response team.

In 2005, Ms. McDermott was promoted to supervisory special agent and was assigned to the Iraq Unit in the Counterterrorism Division at Headquarters. She transferred to the Dallas Field Office in 2007 as the criminal enterprise supervisor. Ms. McDermott returned to Headquarters in 2009 as a unit chief in the Human Resources Division. There, she established the Onboarding New Employees program, which standardized how new employees are introduced to the organization.

Ms. McDermott was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Criminal, Cyber, and Administrative Branch of the Albuquerque Field Office in New Mexico in 2013. She was later named a special assistant to the director in 2015, before being named special agent in charge of the Knoxville Field Office in Tennessee in 2016.

Director Wray named Ms. McDermott the deputy assistant director for the Training Division in 2018 and assistant director in October 2019. In addition to training agents and analysts, the division runs numerous training programs for U.S. and foreign law enforcement.

Ms. McDermott earned a degree in criminology from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.