SHE'S NO. 1; LAPD COMMANDER LEADS WAY FOR WOMEN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER.

For Betty Kelepecz, the journey to becoming the Los Angeles Police Department's highest-ranking woman began 17 years ago, the day she cut her waist-length hair to the nape.

It might have been a superficial change, a small price to pay for her dream of adventure and community service as a police officer.

But to Kelepecz, it seems symbolic of the choices she has made in rising from being one of 10 women in a recruit class of 140 to becoming a commander, just two ranks below chief.

Before a packed auditorium of LAPD brass and fellow female co-workers in a Parker Center ceremony, Chief Willie Williams on Thursday presented Kelepecz, 41, with her commander's badge, making her the highest-ranking woman ever in the LAPD.

``There's an expectation of what a female (police officer) should look and act like,'' said Kelepecz, who now wears her hair long and her skirts above the knee. ``I am who I am, and I'm going to succeed as myself.''

As head of the department's Scientific Investigation Division, she oversees 250 police officers, civilian scientists and technicians who do high-tech policing, such as the DNA testing that has become so vital to solving crimes. It will be up to Williams' replacement to decide whether Kelepecz, now that she is one of 17 commanders in the LAPD, will keep her SID duties or be reassigned.

Paving the way

She brings an inclusive leadership style and a reputation for being a boss with high standards - a disciplinarian even - to her assignments.

She realizes that her breakthrough promotion makes her a role model to other women in the LAPD.

``Because I am helping to pave the way, I need to do the very best job possible so (other women) aren't judged by my mistakes,'' Kelepecz said.

``I need to avoid making it more difficult for them. . . . We are still being judged by our gender vs. our individuality.''

Kelepecz is in a position to make sure she is viewed as an individual. Refusing to buy into the stereotype that female police officers have to look or act masculine, Kelepecz wears makeup and high heels. She keeps her gun in a color-coordinated handbag.

``If I subvert my personality, if I allow an organization that is uncomfortable with women to make me change who I am, then I'm only making it more difficult for the women who come after me.''

Her career

In a converted warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, a wall of her windowless office tells the story of her career.

On a counter-top, she keeps an old 8-inch Sony television that she uses during media coverage of major crime incidents. It helps her gauge how many criminalists she needs to mobilize before she heads out to the scene to oversee the search for and recovery of bullet casings, fingerprints, and hair and clothing fibers.

A framed photo of the grinning 24-year-old Kelepecz - in full uniform on graduation day from the Los Angeles Police Academy in 1980 - hangs behind her desk. Pictures from her days as an adjutant to chiefs Darryl Gates and Williams hang next to a photo of her with Gov. Pete Wilson, whom she escorted around Los Angeles during the 1992 riots. And there's framed sheet music of Diane Warren's version of the ballad ``Because You Loved Me.''

``It talks about the support I get from people who love me,'' Kelepecz said.

Her husband, Steve, is one of her biggest supporters. When he calls her at work to say hi, her no-nonsense demeanor changes perceptibly. The pitch of her voice rises and she beams.

The couple met in a pharmaceutical lab, where she worked as a microbiologist and he as a chemist.

Soon he quit to become a fireman, and he works for the Long Beach Fire Department. She quit in a sudden decision to become a cop.

A graduate of the University of Southern California, she said she had never considered becoming a police officer before she was employed in the lab.

``I like the fact that I deal with people, and at the time I was dealing with bacteria and microscopes,'' Kelepecz said. ``I need a lot of goals to attain and challenges to meet, and this department gives me that.''

Focus on work

Kelepecz draws a blank for an instant when asked what she does outside of work and study.

``I don't do much. I work a lot.''

Several years ago, she took classes in the evenings at Southwestern University School of Law. She passed the state bar exam.

``I never planned to practice law, but I always wanted to get a Ph.D. in something,'' she said.

Sometimes she watches her husband surf. Sometimes she gardens or does needlepoint.

She doesn't cook, so she's known for bringing the cups to office potlucks.

She has worked in 17 different assignments in 17 years in the LAPD. On her first assignment, she went undercover to investigate claims from the community that the LAPD discriminated against multiracial couples. She found no evidence of it, Kelepecz said.

When she was assigned to patrol duty in the Wilshire Division, she stopped a berserk man who was running up and down the block breaking windows with his fists, cut and bleeding.

``I started talking very softly to him, telling him that he looked like he was in a lot of pain, that everything was going to be OK, that we were going to take care of him,'' Kelepecz recalled.

Back then, female patrol officers were still a novelty, Kelepecz said.

``I'd drive down the street, and people would do double takes,'' she said.

But on the night they encountered the berserk man, she was much more effective than her male partner in calming the man, later found to be high on PCP.

``It showed me the value of women in policing,'' she said.

About five years later, she became a detective - and she kept moving up in rank: sergeant, lieutenant, captain and finally commander, topping a list of 38 candidates for the promotion.

Her rise in a male-dominated organization hasn't been easy. Seventeen years ago, she tolerated sexual harassment.

``We didn't see it as sexual harassment - the inappropriate comments, the innuendoes, the inappropriate gestures,'' Kelepecz said. ``I just put up with it. I saw it as the price I had to pay to get along in a male-dominated organization. I saw it as survival.''

She believes the LAPD is changing for the better. It did away with the policy of requiring female recruits to cut their hair in 1985. Women are roughly 17 percent of the LAPD, a proportion that's on the rise.

Now that she's a commander, she wants to concentrate solely on excelling in her new rank. Her immediate plan is to share a glass of champagne with her husband to celebrate.

``We need to look to the future,'' she said.

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PHOTO (color) As a commander, Betty Kelepecz is the highest-ranking woman in the LAPD.

Gus Ruelas/Daily News