Most of what I’ll talk about here will be writing and the business related to it. I just got back from ThrillerFest, and had a great time (more about that in a subsequent post), and I’m heading out to Los Angeles this weekend for some screen-related work (more about that in another post, too). But one of the interesting aspects of my retirement and new career as a full-time writer is that I can finally talk about the work I did as a federal agent for nearly thirty years…
Yep that’s a young me—a photocopy of my very first set of credentials. I can still remember the day I was handed them, along with my badge and gun…
To say I had a varied career is an understatement; here is/was my official DEA bio—
J. Todd Scott is the Special Agent In Charge of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s Louisville Field Division. In this role, Mr. Scott directs all DEA enforcement and regulatory activities throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, representing fifteen offices, seven judicial districts, and more than three hundred federal agents, intelligence analysts, Diversion investigators, and deputized Task Force Officers.
A twenty-nine-year veteran of the agency, Mr. Scott started his DEA career as a Special Agent in the Los Angeles Field Division. He later transferred to the Port Au Prince Country Office/Caribbean Field Division, before returning to domestic law enforcement in the Detroit Field Division’s Louisville District Office, his hometown. While in Louisville, he was promoted to a Group Supervisor position and transferred to the Phoenix Field Division’s Tucson District Office.
During his domestic assignments, Mr. Scott led a myriad of drug investigations, including Title III and undercover cases, historical conspiracy investigations, maritime smuggling cases, and state and local impact cases. While overseas, Mr. Scott developed far-reaching and complex initiatives targeting emerging Haitian maritime trafficking organizations and Colombian drug cartels. As a Group Supervisor in DEA’s Phoenix Field Division, he oversaw the creation of Tucson’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Strike Force and led a group of law enforcement professionals focused on conspiracy investigations involving Mexican cartels and smuggling groups operating on the Southwest border and the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation.
In 2011, Mr. Scott transferred to DEA Headquarters, where he was assigned to the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs. There, he provided support and oversight to DEA-related news, media, and entertainment projects, and was featured on National Geographic Channel, War Stories with Oliver North, and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.
In 2013, Mr. Scott was promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso Division, where he oversaw the Alpine and Midland Resident Offices, the Tactical Diversion Squad, the OCDETF Strike Force Program, Cross-Border Violence Group, and other Division enforcement and administrative elements.
In 2016, Mr. Scott returned to the Phoenix Field Division, where he oversaw all Phoenix enforcement groups and elements, including the OCDETF Strike Force Program. He was also instrumental in creating and spearheading the Division’s first Heroin Enforcement Action Team, an opioid task force targeting overdose deaths in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
In January 2019, Mr. Scott was promoted to the Senior Executive Service and transferred to the Houston Division, where he served as the Deputy Special Agent In Charge. In this role, he supervised three Assistant Special Agents In Charge, the Field Intelligence Manager, all local Houston enforcement groups, the OCDETF Strike Force and HIDTA programs, as well as the Beaumont and Galveston Resident Offices.
In 2020, Mr. Scott assumed sole responsibility for the Louisville Field Division, one of DEA’s newest domestic field divisions, and the epicenter of DEA’s fight against the ongoing opioid crisis. In his four years there, the Louisville Field Division has seized more than forty million fatal doses of fentanyl from rural communities in Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
During the last ten years of this career, I also wrote (as a paid, professional writer), six novels, an orginal audio series, a feature film script, a TV pilot, and worked on the Lawmen: Bass Reeves series as a consulting producer and writer.
All that being said, as I look back now on my DEA career (which I am incredibly proud of) the thing that strikes me the most is how much I truly don’t miss it. Not yet, anyway. Although I can finally talk about work, I really haven’t had much of a desire to do so. Post-retirement I was afraid I would be lost at sea, adrift, missing the very thing that defined me for so long, only to realize that my writing and creative work has defined me just as forcefully, and for nearly as long.
Writing was my lifeboat, even before I knew I needed it.
Sure, I miss the camraderie and all the amazing, dedicated agents and cops I worked with. I miss the ebb and flow of routine, of being part of something larger than myself. But as I really embrace the idea of “only” being writer, I don’t mourn those things.
This is who I am now.
And I’m good with that.