Chief Rabadeau is the first female to hold this title for a major urban center in New Jersey, rising from patrol officer to Director. While Director, Chief Rabadeau founded Community Oriented Policing in the City of Elizabeth by developing partnerships between various city departments, the police department and the community. Chief Rabadeau teaches both in-service and recruit training at the John H. Stamler Police Academy. She presented at the 101st Annual IACP Conference on the topic of Community Oriented Policing and has been a guest presenter as a noted authority of this topic at international convocations.

Owing to her hard work, the City of Elizabeth ranked as the safest New Jersey Urban Center in 1994, according to FBI statistics for violent crime. In 1995, Chief Rabadeau was appointed as head of all police operations for NJ Transit where she supervised the activities of 149 police officers and twenty-one civilians and administrators. In June of 2002, Chief Rabadeau was assigned to the newly formed New Jersey Office of Counter Terrorism as the Transit Representative. In February 2003, Chief Rabadeau established the Edcon Press Police Fire and EMS operations, one of the largest operations of its kind specializing in professional development and promotion exam material for public safety personnel nationwide.