Transcript for Who Is the First Female Secret Service Director?

Now to a new crack in the glass ceiling for the first time ever. A woman will be in charge of protecting the president. Julia pierson has been nominated to run the agency by president obama and jim avila has more details from the white house. Reporter: They call it secret for a reason. Julia pierson, the first female director of the secret service has been on the job for 30 years but we can only find two pictures, one official and one not of the former disney world employee who worked her way up from the parking lot to cartoon character in the parade telling the smithsonian magazine in a 2007 article, the experience of dealing with large crowds at the park had a good influence on my ability to do that sort of work with the secret service. From there she worked as a police officer for the city of orlando, liked it but wanted to travel so the secret service made sense as her next step. The white house announcement mentions nothing of her personal life saying only that she consistently exemplified the spirit and dedication the men and women of the service demonstrate every day. Important since pierson takes over a service badly damaged by a sex scandal just a year ago. What happened here in colombia is being investigated by the director of the secret service. Reporter: A group of secret service agents advancing the president's trip to colombia were caught hiring prostitutes and fired. It led to the resignation of director mark sullivan last month. I am deeply disappointed and I apologize for the misconduct of these employees. Reporter: Pierson's appointment should signal a culture shift at the heavily male service where of the 2,000 agents only 20% are women. I think given the fact that the first female agent was accepted by the secret service in 1975, that's about time the secret service finally did get a female director. Reporter: Now, women now head the dea, the u.S. Marshals office, the secret service and also the clandestine wing of the cia. Women on the front line. Barriers broken all over the place, thanks. To the new details we mentioned now emerging in that

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