Conversations with Investigators is a blog hosted on Substack summarizing conversations with investigators of all types – workplace, campus, law enforcement, journalists, mental health professionals, engineers, Navy JAG officers, scientific researchers, philosophers, art critics, and more.
The Conversations, presented in an interview format, cover investigators’ insights, fears, victories, challenges, motivators, genesis to entering the field, and much more.
Scroll down for the blog headlines with links to the full conversations.
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Frontline Investigations – Foreign Correspondent Robin Forestier-Walker
Robin Forestier-Walker grew up in Hong Kong and the U.K. and now lives in Tbilisi, Georgia – a country wedged between Turkey, Russia, and Armenia. He is a freelance foreign correspondent and has covered major stories all over Central Asia and Eastern Europe for Al Jazeera, the BBC and other media outlets. His wife, Rayhan Demytrie, is from Uzbekistan and has been a foreign correspondent for the BBC for 23 years. Robin and Keith Rohman are cousins, and often debate which of them has the more interesting job.
Solving Sticky Issues for J.M. Smucker – Nick Slabaug
Nick Slabaugh is an interesting man with a very interesting job as Manager of Investigations in Ethics & Compliance at The J.M. Smucker Co., the company renowned for its jams and jelly. Keith Rohman met Nick through the Association of Workplace Investigators and immediately knew he had some interesting stories and perspectives from nearly 20 years of experience as a workplace investigator.
From Alaska to Mars: Investigations “in Space” – Ian Ruiz
Ian Ruiz and Keith Rohman are more than just poker buddies. As an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ian is involved in extensive investigations during the process of developing key parts for extremely sophisticated, high-dollar spacecraft. Ian shared some great insights on scientific investigation during a Conversation with Keith, and they noted many similarities in their work.
Investigators Writing Fiction: Cathleen Watkins and Dan Schorr
There are investigators and there are novelists, but there are also investigator-novelists! This Conversation is a two-for-one with the talented investigator-novelists Cathleen Watkins and Dan Schorr. Cathleen’s mystery, Deadly Quiet, and Dan’s political thriller, Open Bar are great reads for all – men included (read the full conversation to learn more about that)!
Evolution of a Naval Investigator – Lt. Cmdr. John Preis
Keith Rohman has known John Preis since John was a boy running with Keith’s son through their backyard sprinklers, long before anyone imagined John would become a Naval officer, nuclear engineer, and JAG attorney working on one of the most complex investigations in the history of the modern Navy. During his career, John’s responsibilities and experiences have spanned the technical exactitude of Naval Reactors to the courtroom intensity of military justice, and the sprawling human reality of shipboard life in the Pacific. John sat down with Keith Rohman for a conversation.
From the Farm to the Boardroom – Sue Ann Van Dermyden
Sue Ann Van Dermyden
of Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation (VMLC) is nationally recognized for her contributions to the successful evolution of neutral workplace and campus investigations over the last 20 years. VMLC and Public Interest Investigations have collaborated for years and together established established T9 Mastered to offer custom training programs for Title IX investigators. Sue Ann served on the founding board and later as president of the Association of Workplace Investigators (AWI) and has worked on many high-profile investigations, including for the Sacramento Kings on an investigation relating to then-Coach Luke Walton. She sat down for a conversation with Keith Rohman.
Do Psychiatrists & Investigators Share Common Ground?
Yes, psychiatrists and investigators share common ground – practitioners in both fields ask people about very personal and difficult issues. Keith Rohman and John Gottlieb, M.D., a psychiatrist with over 40 years of experience, chatted about the similarities of their work, as summarized here. John graduated from the University of Illinois Medical School and completed his residency in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. He has been the Medical Director of Chicago Psychiatry Associates since 2004.
The Yin & Yang of a Partnership
Barbara Dalton,
VP, Managing Partner and Legal Director of Public Interest Investigations, thinks very deeply about investigation. She has been Keith Rohman’s business partner, colleague, friend, and most trusted professional advisor for decades. They are yin and yang, collaborating to build PII and conduct challenging and high-profile investigations. They have weathered the hardest challenges in life – the loss of loved ones, and critical illnesses they and those they care about have faced. They sat down for a no holds barred conversation.
Excelling in a White Male Dominated Field
Cynthia Cavalie-Gonzalez, CPI
is an industry-leading private investigator who has done it all: fraud, undercover, surveillance, criminal, and workplace investigations. She grew up in a multiracial neighborhood in the Bronx and graduated from the renowned John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Cynthia moved west 20 years ago and founded C & G Investigations of Southern California in 2011 to serve law firms, insurance companies, corporations, and private clients. She was Vice President of Investigative Services for the California Association of Licensed Investigators (CALI) and on the Executive Board for the National Council of Investigation and Security Services (NCISS). She sat down with Keith Rohman for a conversation.
Race is Everywhere, Whether We Say It or Not
Chiedza Nziramasanga
is an attorney, workplace investigator (AWI-CH), and licensed private investigator who founded Transformative Workplace Investigations in January 2023. In a relatively short time, she has earned a strong reputation in the field of neutral investigation as an eloquent writer, speaker, and trainer. Chiedza is a first-generation American whose background instilled in her an awareness of power, justice and the impact of systemic inequities. Her grandfather emigrated from Zimbabwe to the U.S. in 1964 as a student, and her mother, who ran away from boarding school as a teenager to join Zimbabwe’s war for independence, moved to the U.S. in 1980. Growing up with these stories shaped Chiedza’s sense of justice and empathy, qualities that guide her work as an investigator.
Poker & the Myth of Objective Journalism
Marc Cooper
is an American journalist, author, journalism professor, blogger, and skilled at investigation. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. He has been a television producer for PBS, CBS News, and the Christian Science Monitor. From 1971 to 1973, Marc was the Spanish-English translator for the democratically elected Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende. Following the military coup in September 1973, where Allende was murdered, Marc fled the country fearing execution himself. Marc sat down with Keith Rohman for a lively conversation
Investigations Keep Us Curious and Young
Elizabeth Watson Gramigna (Beth), cofounder of Tribu Partners LLC, is a leading workplace investigator. She was a successful employment litigator, representing both management and plaintiffs for nearly fifteen years, before pivoting to investigation. Beth sat down with Keith Rohan to discuss her career switch, how being an investigator has affected her, about the challenges of working as an investigator, and much more.
From Fifth Grade Editor to the Pulitzer Prize
Bob Sipchen
is a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist, a former Senior Editor at the Los Angeles Times, and a Full Visiting Professor in the College Writing Program at Occidental College. As a reporter, he covered the 1992 Los Angeles Rodney King riots and shared in the paper’s Pulitzer Prize for that work. Bob and a colleague won another Pulitzer for editorial writing in 2002. In 1992, he published Baby Insane and the Buddha, a fascinating book documenting gang life in San Diego. Bob sat down with Keith Rohman to discuss similarities between investigative journalism and workplace / Title IX investigations.
Did Nancy Drew Influence Liz Rita’s Career Path?
Elizabeth (Liz) Rita was an investigator even before she knew it would be her life’s work. As a kid, she read every Nancy Drew book as soon as it came out, which was an early clue about her career path. For the last 30+ years, she’s been an impartial workplace attorney investigator in Denver, Colorado. She started her own firm in 2006 and founded Investigations Law Group in 2015. Notably, Liz was retained by the Colorado General Assembly in 2018 to investigate allegations of sexual harassment at the state legislature. She sat down with Keith to discuss life as an investigator and their long friendship, which started in 1994 when when Keith hired Liz to work on the Denny’s restaurant discrimination case.
From FBI Agent to Workplace Investigator
Kevin Sherburne
spent 20 years as a Special Agent for the FBI, serving all over the world and around the US while based in San Francisco. Kevin’s career since leaving the FBI has been interesting in different ways, first working as an investigator at the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), then investigating allegations against peace officers for the California Peace Officer and Training (POST) Commission. Kevin, who worked with PII while at the UCOP, sat down with Keith Rohman for a conversation.
Do you know any good candidates for Conversations with Investigators? Send your ideas to Keith Rohman at rohman@piila.com or call (213) 482-1780.