Public Defender, Allen Beard

Allen attended law school at the Seattle University School of Law in Seattle, Washington. While attending law school, he was a police officer by day, law student by night. By the end the three and half year-long evening law program, he had completed nearly 18 years of service as a law enforcement officer in Washington State. He also completed his bachelor's degree in anthropology at Pacific Lutheran University while working full time as a police officer.

The lure of cave diving prompted his move shortly after law school graduation in December 2009 to the North Central Florida town of High Springs. Allen has been scuba diving since a teenager and for the past several years has been traveling to North Central Florida and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to cave dive. He is excited for the opportunity to serve as an attorney with the Second Judicial Circuit Public Defender. It is an exciting and challenging career, and Tallahassee offers as much, if not more, cave diving opportunities as the area around High Springs, making it the perfect location to live and work.

In addition to serving as a police officer, Allen also served three years in the US Army and once lived in Costa Rica, Central America, for 15 months where he taught English to third through sixth grade at Liceo Franco Costarricense, a French elementary school.

His interests, other than cave diving, include motorcycling, hiking, kayaking, biking, traveling and photography. Some of his travel highlights include: Israel, Jordan, Russia, the Central American countries, Colombia, and Cuba.

Allen has a 21 year-old son, Jared, who is an avionics electrician in US Navy and stationed at the Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California.