Minnesota State Trooper Angela Burdick is in her element, patrolling the skies.

“I’ve just always been drawn to it, since I was a little kid,” she says. “You know, just the freedom, not everyone gets to fly, so it’s fun, it’s different, it’s exciting.”  

At 27, Burdick is the State Patrol’s only female helicopter pilot – part of a two-person crew. She’s a tactical flight officer, operating the aircraft’s undercarriage camera- a eye in the sky.

“When you’re driving around as a trooper, all you can see is what’s in front of you, on the side of your windshield,” explains Burdick’s co-pilot, Michael Olson. “Now we can see everything for miles around.”

Olson has been a pilot with the Minnesota State Patrol since 2014.  

He’s the one who recruited Burdick, meeting her at an aviation event after she graduated from college.   

“I thought, she has potential to be a good fit for our agency,” Olson recalls.   

Burdick’s journey to the cockpit has been anything but usual.

She says she initially wanted to be an EMT helicopter pilot, and worked as a government contractor for several years, flying drones in far-away places like Africa and Iraq.

Then she learned about the LETO program.

“The state will pay for your training while you’re going to training, and you get 80% of trooper pay while you’re doing the LETO training,” she explains.

LETO- short for Law Enforcement Training Opportunity- is part of a State Patrol effort to recruit trooper candidates with college degrees in any field, no law enforcement experience required.

There is a vetting process, and candidates must undergo 23 weeks of LETO training at Century College and Hennepin County Tech, then 14 weeks of additional training at the Minnesota State Patrol Academy at Fort Ripley.   

“It kind of expands the type of person we can bring in outside of the traditional law enforcement student,” Olson notes.

The State Patrol is also taking part in the ’30 x 30’ initiative, with the goal of having women make up 30% of its ranks by 2030.

The agency is taking applications for the LETO program until 11:59 p.m. Sunday night.

Burdick, who’s been with the State Patrol for two-and-a-half years, hopes to be a fully trained pilot for the agency by sometime in the summer.

She already has a busy life with her husband Andrew, and their six-month old daughter Amelia.

Burdick says she hopes to be an example to future law enforcement officers.
 
“I love seeing little kids at gas stations, and they tug on their mom’s jacket, ‘look mom, she’s a cop, that’s cool. I didn’t know women could be cops,’” she says. “That’s awesome, I love seeing that.”