Want to learn more about the leaders of PORAC? In this series of profiles, we turn the spotlight on the dedicated directors who help to govern and represent the organization in the service of our members.

There is a popular saying, “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you found out why.” It’s an idea that deeply resonates with Cat Alvarez, who discovered her “why” when she became a police officer with the San Jose Police Department in 1998. She had found her calling and was passionate about protecting and serving her community, but shares that her mother was less enthused about her career choice in the beginning.

“My mom wasn’t very supportive of me being a police officer due to mistrust within the Vietnamese community,” says Alvarez, who emigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam when she was 3 years old. Her parents had met during the Vietnam War. “She finally became supportive after watching all the training and testing shown in our academy graduation video. I told her that I understood her mindset from her experiences, but wouldn’t she want me to do this job of trust? The woman she raised me to be, with the values and morals she instilled in me, was meant to do that job, which required all of those attributes.”

Those morals and values have guided Alvarez, now a sergeant, throughout her 25 years on the job and have made her a strong leader, not only within the department but also in her local association. She has been a member of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association (SJPOA) and, by extension, PORAC, since the start of her career and has served on its board of directors for the past seven years. Recently, Alvarez became vice president of the SJPOA, which led to her being elected as a director-at-large for the PORAC Board of Directors.

Alvarez says she’s still finding her bearings in her new PORAC role, having been sworn in on August 5, but has a clear direction of where she wants to take her leadership. “I see my responsibilities as a director to continue fostering collaboration among associations and to promote a succession plan focused on collaboration and training for the younger members of our associations,” she shares. 

This forward-thinking focus on building membership and engagement is important to Alvarez because she says that current issues in policing, such as the lack of staffing and overworked officers, have left members too burnt out to be engaged. This, coupled with the “defund” movement, “has taken hope from members and infused a ‘why try?’ mentality among them, contributing to a lack of vision for the future,” she explains. “I have a vision of the tides turning, building on collaboration that helps ease the burden of carrying the weight of hopelessness, showing that our adversity is our unfair advantage. It builds on how we are a special breed with grit. I’ve found that members gravitate toward and take pride in that grit.”

Alvarez’s hope for the future is needed now more than ever, as law enforcement is overcoming challenging hurdles and vilification from the media, politicians and anti-police activists. “It is like we are the law enforcement version of that old TV show M*A*S*H; we are all in the DMZ and just trying to survive,” she says. “I do see the swing back toward appreciation for the men and women who do what many do not have the courage to sign up and do. The only way to aid in the upswing is to get involved, get more members involved and create a larger voice to drown out the voices of the loud, small few.”

A unique challenge that Alvarez anticipates facing as she takes on her new role is balancing her personal life as a single mother of two teenagers with her professional duties as a police officer and a board member in SJPOA and PORAC. “I plan to overcome these challenges with the aid of modern technology through responsiveness in emails and Zoom meetings while also parenting independent children,” she explains. “I have no doubt that when I am successful in one arena, like work, I may be failing miserably as a parent, and vice versa. But I hope to show my kids and my members a well-balanced life between work and home, and to give some mercy to myself when those failures arise.” 

While Alvarez still has much to look forward to as a PORAC director, she says she has learned a lot so far. “Persistence is the key to getting anything done. I see a group of people with the same goal,” she shares. “I have heard it said that ‘All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single flame.’ So I imagine what the many voices of a group of people with the same goal can do to this world.”