Thomas J. Pickard

When first seeing Mr. Pickard one assumes he is your average man. He is middle-aged; in good shape, fairly pleasant, down to earth and speaks very calmly. When Thomas J. Pickard came to speak to the audience of St. John students, no one really expected much from his talk. That is until he revealed he spent his days catching terrorists.

Thomas J. Pickard comes from Queens, NY. He is the oldest of five children and the first in his family to go to college. He graduated from St. Francis college in Brooklyn with a degree in Accounting then went on to attend night classes at St. John’s University. After college Pickard first got a job with an accounting firm called Touche Ross and Company (which has since been renamed Deloitte and Touche) but realized fairly quickly that accounting wasn’t for him.

Pickard became interested in the FBI after reading a book called The FBI Career Guide. The book opened his eyes to all the different jobs that are done in the FBI and Pickard decided he would give a job in the FBI a shot. Getting into the FBI is no easy feat, he had to go on an interview, submit to a polygraph test and then complete a 16 week training session in Virginia that included both physical and classroom training.

After making it into the FBI Pickard had to work on a case after an incident at a bank in the Bronx. He had to follow paper trails and catch fugitives. After spending some time working on jobs like that, the FBI decided to put Pickard on cases that dealt in White Collar Crime that could use his degree in accounting. One case Pickard worked on required him to go undercover and set up a construction company that was used that as a front to combat politicians who had been making deals with Middle Eastern oil tycoons to give them amnesty into the United States. That operation was successful and allowed him to keep moving up and working on bigger cases.

Another case that Pickard worked on dealt with the man who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Ramzi Yousef. Yousef fled the country after his attack was unsuccessful (the attack killed 6 people and injured 1,042) and Pickard was on the case to find him. Pickard and his team put Yousef’s face on match books in the Middle East that were sold with cigarettes and offered a large reward. This worked and he was found. Pickard said that even though he was caught, he considered Youself to be one of the world’s greatest terrorists. (Not only did Youself have an MBA in chemical and electrical engineering, but he also spoke 7 languages flawlessly!) Pickard brought in some photos of from this case:

This is Yousef. 

This is Yousef when he was caught by the FBI.

Those are Yousef's hands as a result of his failed attack on the World Trade Center.

After working on cases like that for many years Pickard got promoted to Deputy Director, which was a job that dealt with desk work, budgets, hearings and briefings. He did that job for a short period and then left the FBI to work at Bristol-Myers Squibb, a bio-pharmaceutical company with a focus in Oncology. Pickard wanted to work there because his wife has had breast cancer multiple times. Pickard’s talk was highly enjoyable and very informative.