2008 12 People You Need to Know: Josh Nixon

Nixon, who grew up south of Kansas City, asked the agent what skills he needed to get his foot in the door and then charted his course.

After high school, Nixon earned an accounting degree from Missouri State University and then joined the U.S. Army as a logistics officer who made sure that food, fuel and ammunition reached forward base troops. After stints in Germany and Virginia, he ended up in Fort Carson, Colo., where the FBI recruited him.

Today, Special Agent Nixon, 46, keeps busy investigating mortgage fraud and securities scams in the Ozarks, but he is routinely pulled away from those probes to assist other agencies with high-profile abductions and violent crimes.

“Even though I’ve worked every kind of federal crime you can imagine, I have spent the majority of my time on financial crimes,” he says. “My accounting degree has just been invaluable, because these financial crimes range from anything as simple as a bank teller embezzling money to an international advance fee scheme to a corporate officer cooking the books for the company.”

Nixon was first assigned to the FBI office in Tulsa, Okla., where he spent much of the early 1990s investigating white-collar crimes stemming from the savings and loan scandal. He also was summoned to the site of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing for about a month in 1995.

After more than nine years in Tulsa, Nixon worked for the bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Virginia, where he assisted field agents on time-sensitive cases by creating psychological profiles on criminal suspects.

He also conducted face-to-face interviews with serial killers as

part of the unit’s ongoing research, but Nixon longed for a homecoming after more than two years of gory crimes.

FBI agents receive one “office of preference” transfer request during their careers, and Nixon asked to be reassigned to the Springfield office when a position became available five years ago.

“I always wanted to end my career in southwest Missouri,” he says.

Nixon says the most rewarding part of his FBI career has been pursuing justice for victims of crime, and he says he’s honored to have worked alongside so many committed law enforcement agents.

He’s less enthusiastic about government red tape but still loves his job after 17 years.

“It’s interesting every day. It’s challenging,” he says.

“It’s what many people are looking for in a job.”

Josh Nixon

Position: Special agent, FBI

Age: 46

Education: Bachelor’s degree in accounting, Missouri State University

Career: U.S. Army logistics officer

Q&A Date: Dec. 16