Mary Lou Hanson-O’Brien was recently given national recognition for her work with the Sheriff Department’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).
The Tacoma resident received a General Award at the AFIS User Group’s annual conference in Baltimore.
Hanson-O’Brien, a lead forensic technician, was among just two considered for the user group’s Annual Award and among five to receive the General Award. Twenty-four were nominated.
The Annual Award went to the New York City Police Department for its fingerprint work following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Much of her work is with Live Scan, an electronic fingerprint capture system use in the jail.
She serves a liaison role between the jail, the sheriff’s forensic section and Sagem-Morpho Inc., the AFIS vendor.
“Due to Mary Lou’s pursuit of excellence, she has greatly improved the quality of our AFIS database, Live Scan image transmissions and training of jail staff,” said David G. Cotton, Sheriff’s forensic investigation manager.