UW Wyoming 4-H
UW Extension

Exploring Your Future and Growing A Career:

Virtual Career Fair

Home
2025 registration
Check out our past speakers!

Wild & Crazy Track

Justin Bechaver

Justin Bechaver

Forensic Scientist Manager of the Firearms Section
Utah Department of Public Safety-Bureau of Forensic Services (Crime Lab)
 
Phone: (801) 816-3801
Email: jbechaver@utah.gov

Did you miss this 2022 session?
  Watch the Recorded Video

Q. What is the highlight of your career?
A. I don’t really have one highlight, but one of the best parts of my job is when I get to try and figure out the answers to questions that no one else can seem to figure out as it relates to casework.

Q. What are challenges you encounter in your career?
A. There can be quite a few ranging from struggling to figure out how a shooting occurred by looking at bullet holes to processing scenes with dead people in them.

Q. How did you get to this career?
A. I always wanted to be a scientist of some sort. I started out as a biochemistry major. During college I took a crime scene class, which led to an internship at the crime lab, and now I get to be a scientist and work with firearms!

Q. Are there scholarship or internship opportunities available with your career? If so, where can more information about those be found?
A. Yes, there are more and more every year. There are several colleges that offer Forensic Science degrees. Some are more helpful than others so it pays to do your research to figure out what degree works best with the type of work you want to do, for example crime scene processing versus working in a laboratory.

Person shooting at a car
Car with bullet holes