After 35 years in the New Zealand Police, Inspector Freda Grace was looking for her next big challenge. That's why she took the job as the Waikato District's first female Armed Offenders Squad commander.
Grace is the only woman in the country currently in command of an AOS squad.
As she took command in March she half expected that, with only three women in the AOS nationwide, there might be some challenges from the squad. But Grace said she has been nothing but supported.
"I'm incredibly proud of being the AOS commander, it's been amazing. It's not been a question of woman or man, it's all about the skills I bring to the role," she said.
"All of frontline policing relies heavily on being able to implicitly trust your partner. It's not about gender, it's about the team."
Grace feels that, while there is still some progress to be made, both Police and society have come to a point where promotions are made on merit, and gender is no longer much of an issue.
A lot has changed since the start of her career in 1984, when she was one of only six women in her training class.
"I make no bones about it - at Police College I was a clear stand out, not because of my skills but because I was a woman."
Today, more and more women are taking on senior roles in the police.
Two other high ranking Waikato officers, Inspector Karen Henrikson and Western Waikato Area Commander Naila Hassan, are examples Grace gave that show the widening fissures in the glass ceiling.
"From an organisational perspective it's great. There are a lot of really clever and intelligent people in NZ Police - men and women - and we're very clearly demonstrating equal opportunities in our district," she said.
The AOS is one of the few policing roles where women are still rare, and Grace doesn't expect that to change quickly.
She said that was because there are still few women applying for the AOS, as opposed to women who want in being excluded.
"It's been a long time since we had our first female operator in the AOS [in 1992]," she said.
"And in my entire time in the police, whenever I didn't get a role, I've been 99 per cent sure it was because someone else was better."
And now she is in charge of one of the busiest AOS squads in the country.
Part of Grace's duties as commander is making sure her squad is on their game, and ready when they're called out.
The squad practices regularly, drilling shooting skills and rehearsing scenarios, and late last month Grace ran her first training scenario involving civilian volunteers since she took command.
The exercise, held in Sacred Heart College's old boarding house, simulated a shooting with people trapped in the building with gunmen.
Grace was grateful to have the volunteers play victims and hostages. She said it added realism and gave the squad an indication of how people who weren't familiar with Police training might react in that scenario.
"If you don't go about training like it's the real thing it makes it really difficult to actually anticipate what you will do when it is the real thing."