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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
#490 | Eric Tung | Navigating Promotion and Growth in Public Service Careers - JOINT EP with Blue Grit Radio
Step into the world of leadership in public service and law enforcement as we unravel the journey up the ranks in this joint episode with Blue Grit Radio
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
What's up, jason Piccolo? Dr Jason Piccolo in the house.
Speaker 2:I almost didn't know who was going to start because, as you know, we're doing a joint collaboration between Blue Grit Wellness and the Protectors Podcast.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if I should turn on the voice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do the voice, do the voice, do you? But yeah, part of why I'm not going to do my typical intro of ladies and gents, but yeah, we're just having a conversation. I'm not going to do my typical intro of ladies and gents, but, yeah, we're just having a conversation and we start having a conversation as most great podcasts do, where there's a lot of good stuff before the recording, but you never know, a lot of it might come back up. But yeah, we just wanted to connect and share a story and this will be going out on both of our shows. So, if you're not familiar, at the end of this, subscribe to the other show that you don't subscribe to and and go through the archives there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So this is a collaboration between a protectors podcast and blue grit wellness podcast, and I really just wanted to talk to you because we're both different sectors of our careers. I like to say my career has has sunsetted and now I'm on a different phase of my life and you're 17 years in now, so I mean it's really cool that you're at this phase to be able to start talking about it, and that's one of the things I really wanted to chat about right away was you know you're not only have you been in your career a while, but you just went into the dreaded admin.
Speaker 2:Admin. Yeah, now you're in that leadership role. Dude, it's a thing. Admin, now you're in that leadership role. So you've had your foot in the ground, on the ground. You were the, you were the ground truth. But now you're at this senior level, or seniorish level. What was the biggest realization you had? I mean, besides the paperwork and all the other minutiae you have to do, but what was that biggest realization that you had?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Um, before we keep going, I need to clarify Blue Grit Radio, but yes, it's confusing because Blue Grit Wellness is my social handle.
Speaker 1:No, but yeah for sure, mid-management it's a thing, and I suppose the surprising thing that some people would probably roll their eyes at is how overnight the difference felt, like how overnight my feeling from you know, fellow sergeants at the time, or officers like it, felt different, like instantly people are talking to you differently and sure, there's the, there's the rank and it's respectful, and I'm I'm one that almost always uses the rank, you know, since the time I was an officer, to all my superiors. But then it's very much like there's the people that used to be like hey, man, and then they're like commander, like hey, hey man, how's it going John? You know her officer. So in some ways it was that feeling where immediately some walls went up and some reservations went up. And while I don't judge that, I can see how, you know, it's hard to connect. You know, you just want to be same team and that's something that I've been preaching for a while, depending on where my station was. But yeah, that's a thing.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that's gotta be a thing, especially when it comes to the uniform. You know me coming from the feds. It's like, eh, you know you're when you get to headquarters. At first, when you get to headquarters, you're like, oh my gosh, that guy said that guy or girls at GS 14, gs 15, ses or whatever. And then after a while you're there, you're like, eh, what's up? What do you got going on? Yeah, what do you?
Speaker 2:Respectful demeanor, like you know, coming from the background that I have with like the military and everything, but it's still, it's you kind of wonder. It's like you really can't be yourself when you get into that leadership and yourself, like the open, outgoing it's you don't want to be perceived as like, okay, if you're overly friendly with this officer or this agent or this person, are you giving them favoritism? Or if you're like talking down to them, demeaning them or or in any, or joking around is what I should say, not to you but like you're joking around, will that run into like an EEO complaint or some other type of complaint?
Speaker 1:So you just never know.
Speaker 2:You're always walking on like tippy toes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do have to think about it. You have to know your audience and all of a sudden your audience got bigger. Right, the little conversation you're having in the hallway. Maybe someone's taking more interest now, maybe they're more attuned. And maybe it's not even intentional, it's just because, oh, the boss is down the way I'm going to mind what I'm saying. Oh, what's he talking about? Right? And then so that chiness, like that relationship that is so integral to you know first responder work and everything I know about the military community, why we build the bonds we do.
Speaker 1:But it can be tenuous when you know. For me it's not like you know, we're not in some old school huge agency. We're a midsize agency. You know fewer than 200 people, but at the same time there for sure are those dynamics. Yeah, it gets tricky.
Speaker 1:I literally just had one installment of my mandatory leadership training. You know, with every promotion you have to go through a certain number of hours and while some people might roll their eyes, you know a lot of it centered on EQ. You know emotional intelligence, but at the same time people roll their eyes. You know they need to ask themselves hey, did you have bosses? That didn't seem to give a crap, right? Do you have bosses that didn't seem to want to try to communicate with you in any kind of way that would work with you? Then let's talk about EQ, like it's just simple dynamics, like talking to people, caring about people and showing you care, right. But in those conversations you're talking about building trust and communication. But it takes two, right, and you can certainly demonstrate that. I think, as the leader, you have to put yourself out there first and meet your people where they are. But it can be tricky, especially depending on all the different types of people and history and all those things.
Speaker 2:And we all know we come from very different backgrounds, very different backgrounds. I have a friend who's at Federal Law Enforcement Training Center right now and listening to them talk about the different characters in their class and I had to give a little speech I'm like, look, here's the deal. There's only going to be a certain amount of people in your class that are going to go on and become really good at their job. Going to go on and become really good at their job. They're going to be able to go out and they're going to be talked to the public. They're going to be able to build cases, they're going to have build rapport with their managers. They're going to be able to get things done.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are just going to put in cruise control and you know that's the deal is like when you're in a management position, as you were saying, like people are going to talk to you differently, but then you're also going to recognize things differently and you're going to recognize even some of those leaders have come from the point where they're pretty much on cruise control. They saw an opportunity and they jumped on it. Now, what's going to set you apart from being like a hard-charging supervisor to being a supervisor on cruise control who just wants to climb that ladder. So, as you, someone that's slowly moving up that ladder, I mean, what's your advice for anybody out there? I would like your advice and I'll do the same thing. Your advice on someone three years in on a job and they're finally getting their footing. They know what's going on, they know the job. They're still learning the job but now they're looking at management. They're like what kind of leader do they want to be? So what was your advice to be to them?
Speaker 1:those hard chargers that are going to be in positions of specialization or going to this select unit or promoting a lot quicker than what is traditional. And so those are conversations that are happening in my department or in my circles and certainly all over right. And my advice is generally like focus on like your why right, like we all have a strong why and a purpose that brought us into this service-related field. And as you adapt and you find out what your skills are, what your interests are and just what you're good at your passions, where does your why integrate with that. And if there's other cool stuff that you want to do at your level, then don't promote right now. It has to serve you and your family and your team.
Speaker 1:But if everyone you know that you respect your peers, those above you, and it resonates with what you want to do as far as impact and influence and you can still do the work that you want in the way you want, then go for it right. Like what do you have to be afraid of? And I do want to inject this too, because this is a lot of my inner dialogue and a lot of people saying hey, man, like do you want to promote that fast, cause you're going to run out of things to do. And my own challenge is like I tend to be an overthinker from the time I was a kid, right, so a lot of this was just recognizing that this was something that I could do that would be of importance to my team and myself and my own development. I'm trying not to worry about what's you know, one to two steps ahead, like I'm just trying to put my energy out in a meaningful way for me and then have things you know kind of manifest the way they need to.
Speaker 2:Well, 17 years isn't an accelerated timeline. I don't think I've known people who have jumped. So when I joined, so I went from the Border Patrol in 2000. In 2002 and a half I became a special agent, so this is post 9-11. So there was a huge hiring. So then I had the opportunity in 2007 to promote to group supervisor. And you know, typically a group supervisor job would take years, you know, maybe seven, eight years, 10 years. But at back then it was like it was accelerated and they needed supervisors because they had so many new people. Now I subsequently went on to different agencies and didn't take that supervisor job then.
Speaker 2:But the thing is that as agencies grow, or as they lose people and gain more people, they have to promote. You have to have certain, you have to have certain management apparatuses in place. So it's like accelerated, yeah, but then my, my hesitation is promoting too quick and that's what I like. What you said there was that like, look, you're three or four years in, you might think about promotion, but maybe you want to check some other blocks before you promote. Do the things that you really enjoy. So if you want to be like, let's say, you're working a PD and you want to go work a certain task force or you want to do certain things, do that before you promote, because once you start that promotion cycle, you're either going to be stuck at the bottom of the promotion cycle or you're going to continue to rise. But the I should say that the fun times will be few and far between when it comes to actual like proactive on the street, hands-on.
Speaker 2:Yeah investigation stuff yeah, because you're going to be in charge of the people that are going to be doing the investigations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can, depending on the organization and the scope and the assignment. Yeah, you can get your hands in things. But recognize at a certain level you getting your hands in things is detracting from the things that you need to do right to best serve your people. I think that what you put out is right, spot on. One thing that I would caution people is I really don't like these just cause kind of narratives. A lot of people that know cops or you know their, their legacies, right, like their, their family were all in law enforcement and say like well, I need at least five years before I'm a field trainer, I need at least 10 years before I'm a sergeant. I'm like, let's, those are arbitrary, right, like those are man, everyone's context is, so is different their experience, their agency, how hard charging, right Like how capable they are. So I, I would challenge those numbers. But, yeah, like, make it more about what you're going to do and what you want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would throw timelines out. You know, I think a lot of that comes down, a lot of pressure from other people, more than you it's because in your mind you're like well, this, this person when they were 40, they're already in charge of this.
Speaker 2:Or this person when they were 30, you know, man, once you stop chasing rank and you stop chasing things and you take a step and you said, okay, you know what. The job's's cool and all. But there's a lot of things out there that are cool and you and I were talking about, like, how we got into podcasting and you know, and podcasting in general, and how it's good to start things. It doesn't necessarily. I'm not going to tell other people to start a podcast, but do something outside of this job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're learning something, and this is a very like I preach to live outside the blue world, right, as it were, like have other hobbies and, of course, like a lot of my hobbies that I spend in my personal time, like the podcast, like writing articles, all the things that you do as well. Right, Like it's very ancillary, it's like of the same brain space oftentimes, but but it isn't, it isn't, it isn't right, like learning a new skill. Essentially, you know, podcasting is you're learning systems, you're learning a different thing. You're you're developing a way to speak in a format that's it's not the same as public speaking, it's not the same as just having a phone call conversation, right? Um, yeah, before we move on to that, part of me wants to ask you what helped you make that decision to promote in your role.
Speaker 2:You know just about circumstances more with me. When I first got to headquarters I was with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and I went there on a leadership temporary promotion from 13014. Now I was a GS-13 supervisor because I wass Enforcement and I went there on a leadership temporary promotion from 13014. Now I was a GS-13 supervisor because I was with Enforcement Removal Operations at the time. But the thing was when I got to headquarters I started looking around and I started looking at my experience compared to those that were promoting ahead of me and I noticed at headquarters that a lot of people that were promoting were promoting because they were at the right place at the right time and they have the right network. They weren't necessarily good leaders and they weren't necessarily managers, they were just people who were looking to rise the ranks.
Speaker 1:Opportunists, opportunists, opportunists, yes, opportunists.
Speaker 2:You had people with like zero and to me I've always been very I was having. Let me pause that and I'll give you a little backstory on me. Before I got all these degrees and all this education and all this other stuff, I was a very mediocre high school student, came from a very interesting background in high school, almost didn't pass high school, failed out of community college, joined the Army. Eventually I was able to get some education after the Army and a bunch of degrees and stuff. But I found that when I got to headquarters there was a lot of people who had zero anything and could barely read and write arithmetic. But because they were reading, writing arithmetic and everything else, but because they were part of all the things yeah, because they were part of certain networks they're promoting.
Speaker 2:So it was the good old boy system. And then the federal government has the biggest good old boy system you can imagine. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize.
Speaker 1:I don't think bureaucracy would make it really hard to do something like that.
Speaker 2:Well, it comes down to this let's say you're a senior executive and you have a lot of pressure Congress, other leaders, this and that and you know that if you have the right people that follow your every whim and word below you, then you have nothing to worry about, and you always have someone that's going to fall on a sword for you. They could be like hey look, you did this, I did this for you, now you have to do this for me, so you do have those networks. I came to a realization, though, after I tried promoting and tried promoting and didn't. I left my agency when I was able to promote up. But the thing was I found that early mid-40s, early 40s you know, I'm 51 now I said I'm done. I'm done trying to. It's not worth it to me.
Speaker 2:I'm burning myself out trying to get into a leadership spot, because what I saw leadership to me wasn't that these people weren't capable. They could have been capable. You don't have to have degrees, you don't have to have education, you don't have to have anything if you truly are a leader and you truly can become a leader. But when you have people that promote, who have zero leadership and don't want to progress their leadership skills, their human skills, their ability to talk to the people below them as humans. That's where the problem came in and me.
Speaker 2:I looked at my background and said you know what I would like to be in a leadership role to where I could actually affect change, that I could actually have the opportunity for people who are working for me and working with me to help them excel. Because you'll find a lot of people get in leadership positions, but then they're like well, they'll have a subordinate. Go. Well, I want to go to training, I want to do this, I want to do that, and you're like well, we don't have the budget. Well, if you're a good leader, you'd be like you'll find the budget You'll find the free training.
Speaker 1:You'll do this, you'll do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll make it happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, that's, that's such a good point. First off, I was wondering if you you retired early, right, you don a well-oiled machine, you're all on board like we're going this way, we're all going that way, right, uh? But it doesn't take much to slip into, like that's how dictatorships work, right, and that's how you will never learn your blind spots if you surround yourself with people that just you know they nod their heads like bobbleheads. Right, because they only want to say what you want to hear, and we know what quote-unquote leadership looks like in those veins and it's doomed to fail. Right, because those blind spots are going to grow and grow. And so, yeah, poo-poo, good old boy system, yeah, you. So, uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Poo, poo, good old boy system.
Speaker 2:You know, the thing is you could work on it and that's a good thing about like the writing, and you and I both do a lot of similar things that are they're job centric. Now that I'm retired, I'm. I think my voice was a little more outspoken when I was still working, which was good Cause I actually had my chain of command was like, look, you can talk to anybody, just don't talk about our agency because they didn't want me to throw them under the bus. But I've always been very outspoken and there's a lot of people in our social networks that are on the job still that are very outspoken, and it's more about being outspoken about things that matter, like to me, writing about leadership and about opportunities outside the job or outside the job while you're still doing it, about post-retirement. That's the stuff I want to write about, because it's something I know now and I believe it's the same way you're writing, the same thing we do with podcasting. I like to podcast because I like to have really good conversations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. What did bring you into the world of academia and getting all these degrees? You're a doctor man, well the thing is with.
Speaker 2:That is, I was in the Army in the 90s so I had the GI Bill. And then I got recalled and sent to war in 05-06, so I had the post-9-11 GI Bill. So then I finished up my master's. I got recalled and sent to war in 05-06. So I had the post-9-11 GI Bill. So then I finished up my master's. I got my bachelor's very fast, like two and a half years.
Speaker 1:Not bad for a community college dropout.
Speaker 2:Well, I was motivated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2:So then I got the master's after that and then later on I got the doctorate because I still had some money left over. So I was like, hey, why not get it? Because I wanted to eventually teach. So then I found a community college to teach at in Des Moines. So the community college was teaching the Homeland Security Certificate Program for TSA employees. So I jumped into that and I started teaching community college and then I eventually said, hey, you know what I want to do a little bit more? I want to teach at, like the university level site.
Speaker 2:I went and gave a speech at St Joe's university in Philly about human trafficking, but then while I was there, the Dean brought me aside and says, do you know anything about cybersecurity? I'm like, yeah, you know, cause I have my background so diverse. So they had me develop a graduate course in cybersecurity. So it's just really, when it comes to academia, it's just really you have to find your niche and you really have to network with that, because there's so many former this former that that want to say I want to go teach I would say try to teach while you're still on the job. You know, what I forgot is I actually started started. I didn't have any teaching credentials, so I became a teaching assistant online for a semester and that gave me teaching credentials not credentials, but it gave me a back, a backup yeah, and you.
Speaker 1:You need hours for programs like that, I assume yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:It was more like I needed to have something that shows that I could teach, and I'm I'm familiar with these databases, because a lot of like online learning is like blackboard, canvas and other different types of things, so you have to show that you know how to use them. I see, and a way to do that is to become a ta, and here I am like 40 years old, or 40 something years old as a ta. So I'm like, yeah, why not?
Speaker 1:you gotta start somewhere. And I like what you said about networking. And another twist to that is like you're not just putting yourself in the right place, but you're putting yourself towards the right energy, right, like you're doing something you're passionate about and then someone takes notice, right, they're like, hey man, do you teach this? I'm looking for a guy. And you're like, well, just so happens, I do right.
Speaker 1:And so in some circles, you know, there's this like I mean, we're both on social media, like we're, we're contributors and content builders, and so you see a lot of social media and you know there's a lot of inspo kind of posts and you know, manifesting your destiny and like, just, you know, be about this, and but you have to put in the work right. Things don't just show up. And then I that's what I love about that part of your story you had these nags and this passion, and it's only grown because you continue to do the things that are going to put you into the positions where you're going to be effective and also it's going to serve your purpose.
Speaker 2:Man, I cannot preach networking. And you know how I got this last job was LinkedIn. For once, linkedin actually worked because one of the leadership people at the so I went to work for. After I left ICE, I went to work for an environmental protection agency criminal investigations division. I was an associate special agent in charge. I'll say that all on one line. But I had a. I knew a lot about policy, I knew a lot about directives and stuff and I I used to put some stuff on LinkedIn and one of the assistant directors over there was like hey, can you help me with a policy? I'm like sure. So I just kept helping a guy back and forth, back and forth, and eventually he's like hey, are you looking to move?
Speaker 1:We're looking to hire over here in our operation section. I'm like, yeah, sure, let's do it. So yeah, man. So what kind of cases were the most prevalent? Or?
Speaker 2:maybe stuck out to you when you're working for the EPA right, yeah, epa was a lot of it was like the asbestos cases.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize there were so many asbestos cases out there and when I was at EPA I was at headquarters so I wasn't doing casework but I would do all the press releases and everything for them. I'd do all sorts of different things. And all these asbestos cases, man and people are like well, it's asbestos. And people don't realize, like so asbestos has all this little particulates in it and they get in your lungs and they cause cancer. They'll kill you. And there's so many of these cases out there, man, and a lot of people don't realize it.
Speaker 1:How many are cops doing force on force in old, abandoned buildings?
Speaker 2:Exactly, you know, and that's the thing, it's like crazy and it's not. Those aren't really like enforcement cases as much as their civil cases. Because the problem is like it might just they might not know, but when you're hiring a crew to go out and get rid of asbestos and you're giving them like an n95 mask and you're not really fully kitting them up, that's illegal and people are dying. Here's some gloves, yeah, yeah. And like there's so many environmental crimes and I was always like I'm, I'm really not a big brother type thing. If a state because, believe me, the reality is state and locals are the real law enforcement, they do the real cases, the feds. When it comes to environmental crimes and other crimes, it really comes down to not every state and not every agency has the resources to do these cases and not every agency has the resources to do these cases.
Speaker 2:I do, and you know, speaking of Fed, and you know you, coming from your background, like an actual police is like I. I really it's good to have Feds on task forces because they bring resources, but I'm not a big fan of Feds coming in sweeping up cases and then bookshelfing them. I'm not a big fan of, you know, just because someone's a detective or someone's a police officer, basically two years out of the job, but they have a good brain and they see things differently that they're not as good as a special agent. Yeah, difference of reason I went fed is because I had a best friend that went fed. But if I could go back, there's a lot of opportunities in a state that you could transfer around with or a department you could move around in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great conversation.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of people that are looking into law enforcement or they're new in law enforcement and they're feeling these things out. And, to put it on the record, I never got the sense from any of the feds that I worked alongside and, granted, I wasn't in investigations, so it was very kind of cursory service level takedowns and such but I never had this elitist vibe from any of the federal agencies. It was always really collaborative. And, yes, it's absolutely that like different resources and also different angles, right, sometimes you can't get these types of charges but hey, the feds have this toolbox that might be really helpful for this guy in this situation, right, or to get into this house, for whatever reason, because they're working a different prerogative, a different angle. Um, at the same time, I've only heard positive things from all my investigative cohorts right, that had you had, you know, worked the majority of their time. Task forces, different insights right, the joke from local law enforcement, especially patrol bases, when you bring feds in for tactical things, it becomes an absolute hoopla, like goat run.
Speaker 1:And because you don't train together, and I think that could be said for anything and any type of, you know, outside agency team up. So I'm curious what some of the jokes are from the Fed side about locals, because you know it can certainly vary. Like even when you say local, like what does that even mean that's from that's big cities are local, and then you know you're really rural, like tiny agencies where it's like the chief and two guys like that's local too, and so that can vary.
Speaker 2:You know I've been very fortunate that the feds I've worked with and the feds I've worked alongside with really rely on state and locals. And I shouldn't even say state and locals, because 99% of times locals Because state. If you're lucky you'll have like a state, some sort of state contact who's in the task force or something, but 99 times out of 10, like you said, a big agency is still considered local. My viewpoint and the viewpoint of the people I work with, is that that's your best resources Absolute best resources is to have solid local partners. Absolute best resources is to have solid local partners. Now, other agencies I've seen I'm not going to say the three-letter acronym, but other agencies I've seen may look down just based on their hiring criteria, like a lot of their people come from different backgrounds, so they might not understand what it's like to be a real. You know, real America and I'm just I'm being yeah, you have to read between the lines with what agency I'm talking about. But the thing is the feds that matter, the agents that matter, understand that their biggest resource is having a local. You know there's so much that you could do when you're working a big federal case, especially if you're working a big federal case with a lot of different targets is, if you're trying to flip a target and you don't want to mess with the bigger case as it is, you could use that local to wall them off. You could wall that big case off. You're using informant and you want to really work towards this big case, but you don't want to mess the big fed case off. You're using an informant and you want to really work towards this big case, but you don't want to mess the big Fed case up. Use something to wall them off. Use your local to put up a wall between that informant and the case. And it's not just that. They know the streets. Unless you're a Southwest border agent, you could really stay and move within four or five years. You know you can move around. You're not going to or you can even move different groups. So you're not.
Speaker 2:Let's say, one day you're working trafficking and you say, hey, you know what. They need someone to go over here and work this type of case and you go, work that. You're not working those things. The locals are working those same areas for years. They know the people, they know the, they know the landmarks, they know who to talk to, they know the resources they get With a Fed, two, three years in a job, especially if you're not working in a Southwest border and a lot of times I bring up Southwest borders because there are so many cases on a Southwest border that an interior office may not have as many cases border that an interior office may not have as many cases so you're not doing the day-to-day dynamics.
Speaker 2:You know you might be doing three or four operations here and there, but you know with locals you're on the street all the time, you're dealing with people, you're talking to people, you're understanding people. So when you get to the Fed world it's like, well, and you'll see a lot of these smaller agencies. I mean, even with EPA there was a senior manager like super senior manager who never, or maybe once in their career put handcuffs on someone. That's the hurricane. Anytime there's any major event they send EPA special agents out there to be backup, to do patrols, to do this, to do that, to guard areas. People would have no idea.
Speaker 2:The other thing is when you're doing these cases, sometimes when I was saying like asbestos and all these other things, you're not dealing with the best parts of the public. The same propensity to get shot is anywhere. When it comes to law enforcement, people don't know what badge you have. They don't care if it's epa, they don't care if it's department of education or one of these other smaller agencies. Yeah, but the problem with that is, I see, is, like you know, this is the other thing we transition to do is training is because the feds do the same training. Everybody else is. It's like okay, guys, girls, we're gonna qual. Uh, we have to do training. But if you guys don't want to do it, we're just going to shoot a couple rounds and go home. But it's like my biggest thing lately has been like qualification is not training yeah, but do they have to?
Speaker 1:qual, though?
Speaker 2:right they have to yeah, you have to call okay, that's good like they gotta get it. You have to. You have to qual though?
Speaker 1:right, yeah, you have to qual you mentioned. Okay, that's good they got to get it.
Speaker 1:You have to qual, yeah, Sure, yeah. But you're right, it's not training, right, we talk about it and you don't even have to be from a training background to recognize how static it is right, how not realistic it is. And so I know that there's a lot of agencies at least from my perspective, the local side, that maybe qual time isn't the thing I mean, there's certainly more dynamic quals than others but that they can integrate their own training. Is that trickier with larger agencies? Again, this bureaucracy that I perceive to inject these different training notions or add additional training, things like that.
Speaker 2:You have to add additional training, things like that. You have to add additional training. You know, these qualifications and stuff just aren't working. But you know, one thing you brought up before about the locals is like you were talking about, like it could be like a chief and two officers and they're lucky if they qualify a year, once a year. What are you guys doing for training? I mean, what's your qual? Is it like once a year, once a year? What are you guys doing for training? I mean, what's your qual? Is it like once a year or twice a year?
Speaker 1:It used to be quarterly, now it's twice a year. There's in-service training, there's a rifle day, I believe, every other year and that trades off with EVOC, right. But then one thing that I want to say is that's the mandatory stuff. No-transcript pd in seattle area, seattle area, seattle adjacent right, it's not seattle um, very different role and different work.
Speaker 1:But all to say, like, yeah, we have every opportunity for people that want to train and people that want to get tips, the the people that want to get on the tag team, on SWAT, I mean, they have no shortage of opportunity to hit up people to get additional training, to get in the range, get trigger time and so a lot of that.
Speaker 1:Like they don't have to go, you know, they don't have to get a membership to the local range and buy all this ammo, which is the truth for a lot of people around the country. So, yeah, we do. Well, I say we, I recognize how privileged a lot of cops are and how privileged a lot of cops are not, and I say that to hopefully nudge those that come from agencies where they do have that support and utilize that support right. And I could go on and on about working out on duty. A lot of people are allowed to do it and a lot of people are not, and we got to take advantage of that right. We got to make those things the norms, like where it's weird if you're not.
Speaker 2:You brought up some great points. You know I started a nonprofit last year called the Protectors Foundation. It's because I went out and I was doing podcasts. I got on the road, I'm going around to these different agencies and departments and stuff and I'm finding out some people are making like 13, 14 bucks an hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the nonprofit to me is like hey, you know what, whatever money I get and I don't solicit money from people. That's why you don't see a lot of my social media. I try to get money from corporations and businesses. That's cool. I bought $500 worth of tourniquets and then I'm getting training as much training as I can. One of the reasons I became an LEO firearms instructor was so I can get free coaching. But the thing is out. There is like and I'm not tooting my own horn, I'm saying like this is stuff that people don't realize that, yeah, I am tooting my own horn because I'm trying to get money for the foundation.
Speaker 1:You should yeah.
Speaker 2:You got to self-promote for the right reasons yeah, businesses or companies that want to promote the Protectors Foundation. But hey, because the deal is, I bought the tourniquets for this reason. A tourniquet for me is $22. Can I get them cheaper? I don't know, but I'm getting real ones from North America. You want to get the good ones? Yeah. So you have someone making $13, $14 an hour. They may be issued a tourniquet, but when they go out in a field and they encounter someone and they have to use their only tourniquet, nobody's replacing that tourniquet. 13, 14 bucks an hour, 15 bucks an hour that's an hour and a half of their time to buy a tourniquet. Now, when you were talking about going to the range, they're lucky if they call once a year and their duty ammo is their duty ammo. They don't get practice ammo and you know you know just as much as I do some of the duty ammo that they have to carry could be 60 bucks a box.
Speaker 1:It's not cheap.
Speaker 2:Top of that is I'm not. I mean, I could go down a rabbit hole like, okay, so they get issued two magazines, they get a sure four magazines, a regular you know. But then when I have to go out and buy a box of ammo and that ammo is 13, 14 bucks, then I gotta go rent a range. We're talking about a day's salary. What if they have kids and they got? I mean, when you really think about it, what you're expecting people to be is they're expecting them to have a doctorate in people. You're supposed to have a doctorate in cultural geography. You're supposed to be a master tactician, like Napoleon, and you're also supposed to be like a street operator, like Rambo or someone. You want all of these things into one and you're going to give them 15 bucks an hour and you're not going to give them the resources to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we're asking more and more, and that's where I talk about a lot in my posts and I'm like I'm not trying to make it all about money, but there isn't an economic degree to it, right, there are simple economics you get what you pay for. And if you want to ask cops to do more and you ask more of them and there's not a lot of people that want to do all the things you're asking, then you need to incentivize that and you got to support it. Right, and support can be financial and in places like that, where it's like the poverty line or below, then absolutely a lot of money needs to go in that direction. But in the areas where I am, where financial is not the issue, it's legislative, it's judicial, judicial right, like it's all the uh, the social dynamics, it's the media, like these other community related support mechanisms that make someone feel, uh, empowered and not have to deal with the moral injury of doing the job the right way. I mean they.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we could. I think we could both go on you know a couple rabbit holes here, for sure to, and I think it's pretty like the Protectors podcast and this foundation. You started like kudos to you, I didn't even know about it. But also, just like a lot of the messaging we do is try to be supportive, try to be positive and try to help people that are not of the industry recognize, like, hey, I'm not telling you to go, like, you know, fly a blue flag outside your yard. I'm just saying, like, have some empathy to this thing, that most of us are just here to have this unified like better, safer community. That's. Isn't that what most of us want?
Speaker 1:And I think, if you're a parent, it is right, Like we want a better world for our kids than we had. Right, we want a better life for our kids than we had. Want a better life for our kids than we had. It's simple, right. You can keep it pretty simple and then think about the things that you need to do and the energies you need to put out to support that.
Speaker 2:You know, I was talking to a friend and they were talking about, like me, being on autopilot and for a long time I was on autopilot. This is a good transition because you brought something up there that it's outside of the job, outside of all this stuff in the training and this and that, and it's tough to get resources, but you have to think mentally outside of the job and you got to think about your next step. And because all this non-training and everything else, what if your job ended tomorrow, ended tonight, what if you went on duty tonight? And I'm not even going to say you're going to get shot, but you get into your car, you get out of your car, you trip, you fall, you break your right wrist and you're right-handed, dominant and you can never hold a gun again. I mean something like that. We're not even talking like the most devastating thing in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But your job's over with. What are you going to do next?
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And that's why I love the last half of our conversation to be about different things that you and I have both seen. You're 17 years in. You have a couple different options. You can ride this pony out. This could be your, your lifelong destiny of being a cop and I say like that because you do a lot. It's you know, I left at 50 because that's when I could retire. Mandatory for me was 57 and I see a lot of people hiding in on until 57 because they think, oh, I'll find something when'm 57. But the thing is, what are you doing? So what is your game plan? I mean, I'm not saying I don't want to know what your game plan is, but as far as whether or not you're going to stay in, but what's your advice for someone who's 17 years in and looking at their next step, yeah, that's huge and it's something I think about often.
Speaker 1:Right, when I started the social media and I started the podcast and I started writing more, and people are like, oh, are you going to move into this kind of thing? Are you going to go PR, are you going to be a PIO or go to chief? And I literally say I don't know. But I'm not saying no to any of those things. I don't even know how much time I have in this job and I throw that prompt out a lot because, just like you did, I want that to be not like sobering, like scary, like if it's scary, cool, we need to talk about it more, because we have to recognize this over identity in law enforcement. And it's not healthy, right, and I say that with so much love for the industry but if I can't do this job tomorrow, like I got to carry on for me and for my family, the industry but if I can't do this job tomorrow like I got to carry on for me and for my family, and I think, and I believe truly, that there's a lot of positive things I can do, that might be adjacent, right, it might be supporting, but it might be totally different. So when I started doing all this, like, I recognize it could be a vehicle and I just don't even know where the vehicle is going to go, right, like do I want to put some knobby tires on it? Do I need to put, like, a roof rack and put a bunch of stuff on top of the thing? I don't know. Like cool, like let's have an adventure. So I say that all to say, like I think for advice is the same advice I try to think about, which is think about purpose and passion, and then the skills and what you enjoy will go with that and what's around you, right, the circles you have.
Speaker 1:You said networking. I say energies that you put out, it'll be of use somewhere. And part of why I asked about academia, I have this nagging to go back to school to get a master's degree and that would be much to the pleasure of my mom to hear that if she listens to this episode, as opposed to others. Right, because that's a cultural tenant, but similar to you, like at school, I conceptualize it so differently because I care about something and I'm motivated in a different way, right, like I didn't love writing papers, you know, but I got pretty good at writing papers in college and it's definitely helped me write police reports. It's definitely helped me write departmental emails and articles, for you know, police publications, whatnot right, and a lot of that writing is like it's extra, it's for free, right, and so I think if you do something that you truly care about, then that's the stuff right, just finding where that intersection is, where people also get value from it and there's going to be value in it.
Speaker 2:You know, you said it right there the value, Having value in it. You know, believe it or not, I really respect you getting a master's. A lot of times I tell people like education is eh, and here it's coming from me who got as much as I could. But getting it is more than just having it. It's like it's a step and it's part of your legacy, I mean for your family. It's like weird, like a lot of things I do are like I have two kids and a lot of things and this goes along the lines of, you know, outside of the job is a lot of times I think about like podcasting and stuff like that I wrote. Grandkids or their grandkids can be like oh, that's my grandfather, that's my dad. They have a legacy. Think outside the box too. You know, I just started doing something about two months ago.
Speaker 2:I went and took a couple of classes and when I got back from the war, I always wanted a camera. I always wanted a DSLR. I wanted to go out and take pictures. I always wanted a camera, I always wanted a DSLR, I wanted to go out and take pictures. Well, my daughter at the time was like you know, a few years after I got back from the war I bought a camera and my daughter was like three or something like that and she sprayed it with a hose and killed it. I'm like, okay. So then last year I was like okay, I have a camera, I used it for podcasting. I'm like, let me take it off the stand and go and take a photography class. So a couple months ago I took a photography class and I took a portrait class, and now I just started taking portraits for people free, because I want to learn.
Speaker 2:But it's something I mean. I never thought I would be a photographer. I never thought I'd be like an amateur photographer and eventually I'd want to be a professional photographer. But it's a different type of hustle. It's a different type of something outside of the job. Yeah, so, and that's the same thing with, like, writing these articles and stuff. It's something outside the job. Can you monetize it? Yeah, can you monetize podcasts? Yeah, but you're not going to be able to have like a, you're not going to be able to make a living. So you have to look at little things that supplement this retirement income.
Speaker 2:And then, when academia start now, I tell people, if you're going to get that master's, start looking at some community college that maybe you don't have to have a master's to teach but maybe you can go give lectures. Maybe you could start doing this and doing that. It's academia adjacent, so when you do have your degrees you can go and teach. You don't need a doctorate to teach a community college. Um, yeah, you might need a master's at some they really like it. But a lot of times you're finding community colleges want people who have the minimum bachelors but have a background. So you being 17 years in or you know by a background. So you being 17 years in or you know, by the time you you get to applying to be an instructor, you know maybe it's 18 years in, but it's the background that goes with it. It's not just the the educational requirements.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love those conversations, right when it's hey, like think outside the box and like think about what you want to do and where it can go, because I think that's really healthy, right Like we don't know how much time we have certainly in this job or on this earth, so like, make sure it counts.
Speaker 1:And these are themes that I felt very grateful to have in the last few years. Going back to recruiting, where you're talking to so many people that want to come in with their very idealistic, very well-intended conversations and some of it's really motivating. And other conversations maybe police work is for them, maybe it's not, but usually it's about values, right, like they want to help people in these ways and then helping them recognize like hey, like if it works out and you love this job for 20, 30 years, awesome. But if you do this job for two, three years and you realize that you want to do teaching or social work, like good on, you, like we need good people, like for our kids and for our communities to do those things, and so, um, no, I loved, I love those themes that you just talked about, man.
Speaker 2:You know, what I think that's a great way to wrap this conversation up is with this last topic is like it doesn't have to be a career, it can be. You know, I wrote an article a while ago and I got a lot of heat for it. It was like and my thinking of when I wrote the article was this is like, think of maybe the policing should have a military type of system where you could join it for three or four years or five years. And people are like, oh, you can't do that. Go get away from your high horse and stuff.
Speaker 2:And I thought about it this way I'm like you do four years and you get some sort of educational benefit, like the GI Bill or something like that, you do four years. Maybe you get some sort of supplement that goes towards a state retirement. If you move into something else, a different type, like you get a veteran's preference, almost so you get a civil service type preference for doing four or five years, different things like that. So when people look at policing they could be like, okay, well, I could go serve my community and serve my country here and still get something out of it. But on top of that I mean, yeah, that's a pipe dream. But on top of that you could be like, hey, you know what I want to go do policing, I'll do four or five years. If I like it, I'll stay.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you're in your 20s, 30s or whatever, you still have plenty of life left. If you want to try out becoming a policeman, policewoman, police officer what am I thinking? Or even a special agent or whatever, do it. I mean, the one thing that really holds people back is the length of the process. So I mean, other than that, I mean, hey, four or five years, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to look at it as a career anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that twist. And, you know, coming out of recruiting again, you know, looking at the national attrition in all these industries is like I, I try to socialize, like let's prep for people to turn over fast. Like let's, let's give them every reason to stay, let's build the right culture and the right practices to help people want to stay. But but I've said that many times, right, like publicly or privately, or on air, off air, but like we don't, we don't roll our eyes when someone does four years and or we shouldn't, you know, in the military, and says like hey, like I did my time and I got what I needed out of it and I learned a lot and I was proud to serve and I moved on to all these other things.
Speaker 1:Like we smart, we should smile about that. And why should policing be different? Why should firefighting be different? Like it doesn't have to be a lifetime career. Like so many people left law enforcement in the last few years and I always kept, I like thank you for your service, whether it was three years or 13,. Awesome, glad to have you. But for people to have the golden handcuffs and feel like they can't make as much doing something else and they don't want to leave but they don't want to stay, that's not good for anyone either.
Speaker 2:No, not at all, Don't just stick around for that. You know, like you said, the golden handcuffs, the tight lapel pins and the watches or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're counting their days to retirement because they're watching their pension go up. But they're so burned out and they're working so much overtime and they're so unhappy that man, look at the national stats like you're not going to use that, you're not going to pull that pension anyway.
Speaker 2:So like save yourself like get healthy, get right, okay, brother, I appreciate that man, I just uh, I want to talk for another two hours, but you and I were talking about before. It's like you know, once you hit about, like you know, 45, 50 minutes, it's like yeah, you know, you kind of like ah, but I really I do want to collaborate more on this, brother, and I think we should have more conversations like this and I really think people should really listen to the Blue Grit Radio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, yeah, it's awesome to collaborate.
Speaker 2:Blue Grit Wellness is on IG, so Blue Grit Radio, yeah, find me on IG.
Speaker 1:Yeah and then. Yeah, let's leave the listeners hungry for more. And certainly, you know, follow with Dr Jason Piccolo's doing IG. Where else can they find you?
Speaker 2:I'm on Court TV like twice a week now, man.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, You're like you're busy. I love the extracurriculars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, that's one thing about retiring. You know I can go out there and do things, get tattoos and go on TV. But yeah you catch me on Court TV and stuff like that, always talking about different things.
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