A Server's Journey

The Lincoln Park (Oakhurst) Project

July 24, 2019 Rocky DeStefano & Zach Davis
A Server's Journey
The Lincoln Park (Oakhurst) Project
Show Notes Transcript

"Very seldom do you use the word humility when talking about the police force, but here in Lake County we can do that." Chief Broadway and Officer Colon of the Lake County police force talk how they serve the community and why they do it. Listen as we dive into their identifying of a need for the Oakhurst Project, a project that greatly changed the culture of the Clermont neighborhood, Oakhurst, by giving the area the care and connection it needed. 

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Speaker 1:

This year,

Speaker 2:

the surgery do

Speaker 1:

to this addition of a server's journey with rocky Destefano, the foundation, the show is that everyone is leading something or someone. And that's the name of the show is a server's journey. And I'm Zach Davis and we're here and we just hope that we can, you know, learn together, teach together and implement some great leadership practice. And thanks Larry and Zach, I hope that everybody listening is ready to take a little bit of time, kind of clear your schedule, clear your mind if you can sit down or you know, just really kind of be intent on hearing what we're gonna share today. This is going to be one good show, I'll tell Ya. Well, and I, you know, we just, we really believed this, that everybody leads something in someone and every week we're going to come on Wednesdays and we're gonna share this journey with you. And, um, it's always our shows called us servers journey. You know, I was afraid after today shore when we were preparing this that was going to get go out of here in handcuffs. What you did. I, I noticed Larry did ask if he could get a get out. Yeah. So normally you don't ask that unless you've committed a crime. Oh Duh. I saw the handcuffs start to slip out. He said, really? Maybe we should say what he's going to be on the show. Okay. Yeah, that's probably a good point. So today we're going to be joined by chief Broadway. Um, who's got a really interesting story of how he got to Claremont from New York City. Um, he is, uh, done a tremendous job of leading our police force here in Claremont and officer Cologne, who has probably one of the biggest hearts of anybody that I'm, that I've ever been around. Um, we're going to talk a lot about how they serve their, um, their officers and their community and even why they do it. And Real Servant leadership. Absolutely. Yeah. That's amazing. When you think of policeman with all the stories you hear. That's right. And, and as I've said to Larry and Zach, very seldom do you attach the word humility with the police force. And our police force is nothing but a group of men and women who care and who are humble and trying to do the right thing. Well, they really put the men and police man and the people on the badge is why we've got him. Because this is the zero veracity of youth. Look at that. I mean just, what was that zero divert one? No, virile. Virile. You're okay. Good. I got that. I had no clue what that word means. I always tell Zach that he's a virile volcano of manhood. So that's good. That means you're, you're strong like a bull. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Well, we appreciate everybody who is making comments and listening every week and you, we would appreciate if you'd just tell one friend to listen, you know, hey, you know, I was out with having lunch the other day and someone said, you do podcasts? And I said, yeah. And they said, well, how do you get that? I said, give me your phone. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the podcast thing. So share it with somebody. Yeah. And we are, you know, we are humbled, um, at every maybe crossroads of our show. We've had something enter and really give us a push. Um, and the surprising, you know, we never intended to do a podcast or have a show and we never intended people to listen. Um, and you guys are, and we're starting to hit some, um, pretty, pretty impressive numbers and Zach's been a great addition and he's bringing a fresh idea and he challenges us every show. Well the team just keeps growing. It started with the website. That's right. That's acs created perfect segue thing. Oh well, you know, uh, they helped us create the website. Yeah. And Eddie and his group up there and outside of DC they can do everything. They can do everything from brochures, logos, direct mail, AD campaigns, websites. I'm there in house total in house. So where ever you are, they can be there because it's on the internet and check them out. They don't play games with your money. Yeah. Check them out at acs. Creative

Speaker 3:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

epic moments in leadership. So, so what's it going to be today? Rocky. Okay. So this is less an epic moment in leadership and more a surprisingly good quote from somebody you would not expect it from. Oh, and this person was a leader no matter what. I'm like I said, you can lead people astray just as easy as you can lead them toward good. You know, this quote is, it really is one of my favorites and it's better to live a day as a lion and then 100 years as a sheep and a who do you guys think said that? Uh, I would say Jesus. Okay, good. You're going to be surprised. And Larry, Zack, you gotta guess so. I already know who it is. So I think, okay, so tell us who it is. Act. Is it miscellany right? Yeah. Benito Mussolini, who was not known for his, uh, uh, humility for share, but he was the Italian fastest, um, dictator, um, who kind of led Italy into world war two to, yeah. Yeah. And here's a quick story. My grandfather, I have a picture of my grandfather shooting down planes from a building next to Mussolini. Yeah, I do. Yup. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So that's an epic moments in leadership. Larry, thank you very much for bringing that up today. Well let's get into today's interview and our Brainard guests. So we are really pleased to have in what we have one in studio and one over the phone today. Uh, we have Claremont's own chief Broadway and officer Cologne. So thank you guys very much for coming to the show. Wow. Yeah,

Speaker 4:

we're honored to having her share your slide.

Speaker 5:

Oh, we're on it. We're honored to be here today.

Speaker 4:

So I'll look at that. Larry's got sound effects too. This is new. Safer. What,

Speaker 1:

what we're going to kind of go right into the interview cause I think we've got a lot to cover and um, it's some pretty exciting stuff but you know, as you know we talk a lot about serving and we believe everybody is leading somebody or something and it's just how you lead. That makes a difference. So to start by telling us how many men are and women that you guys serve as in, you know, in your roles.

Speaker 5:

Sure. So we have approximately 81 police officers and then about 10 to 12 non torn officers or support staff.

Speaker 1:

Wow. So how does that differ from when you came here and how, how long have you been in Claremont now?

Speaker 5:

Okay, so I came to Claremont as a police captain in 2010 we had about 50 police officer. Yeah. Um, and again we're up to by 81 now and by October this year will be approximately 86 police officers. Wow.

Speaker 1:

Well and you've seen, you've added that many people because of the growth of the city.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, correct. City is one of the fastest growing cities in Lake County. So our current population is about 40,000 and then we have a large visitor population cause you already have a lot of triathlons and various different events throughout the weekend. We have a lot of visitors come and do Claremont as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I think when we, when we moved out here back in 1998 we were out in the boonies. Maybe 8,000 people in one, one traffic light on highway 50 right. Change quite a bit.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And how about you officer Cologne? I've been with the force, uh, since 2003. Oh Wow. Yeah. So long time. Yeah, no, sorry. 2008. Okay. So that's still 11 and a half years right now. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's crazy. Um, so, you know, we watched live PD all the time. I watch. Um, and it's our, it's our, it's our favorite show. It's kind of like your guilty pleasure that is 100% on we put live PD on, but I don't think that really describes a typical day. I think it may be in the inaction moments. What's it like working, you know, as an officer and chief and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 5:

Sure. Um, I'll, I'll touch on the[inaudible] but you take it a police officer, um, throughout his or her career. Heck, teen, everything from being involved into helping someone with direction to helping someone, um, given a young kid some advice to all the way up to see in someone in their worst possible situation and no calls the service and the office can, that 10 can respond to, could change seconds. Yeah. You know, again, they're, they're here helping with someone with direct and then a call comes in and someone seriously occurred, injured, or, or dead, and they have to change gears and respond to that type of call. So if you took an officer's career, 10, 15, 20 years, they've had such a variety of calls with service and everything in between.

Speaker 1:

Hmm. Yeah, I can believe that. And I would imagine that no day looks the same. It's hard to tell people this is a typical day because there may not be a typical day, right? Correct. Well, chief is the executive officer of the police department, but what about the person that's on the street? That'd be officer Cologne. Yeah. Well, absolutely. Following with, with what chief said, I mean, you, you go through phases, you're so you're excited at first. You, you have this strong desire to serve you, you think about your life, and you know that it's going to be second in, in the second in importance and in the most important moment. And you go through phases. As the years go by, you get kind of accustomed to the very negative, difficult, uh, dark side of emotions of humankind and you have to learn as time goes by how to deal with it. So it is quite a project. If you fortunately don't, don't actually give your life physically in service you, you are going to get quite a chunk away if we don't learn how to, how to deal with it. I can imagine that it's a, you know, every leader, I think we kind of deal with that sympathy, empathy, you know, feeling sorry for somebody and understanding what they're going through and the more you care, the more you open yourself up to absolutely hurt. I mean, you know, you guys, you could believe in somebody and with you guys, I would imagine that it's never a happy day when you respond to a call and you see somebody at their very worst.

Speaker 5:

Sure, yeah sure. And like I said, photo, go ahead. No. And like you said, an officer could may not see that for a week or two weeks and everything is just pretty much routine. And then all of a sudden he or she has to respond to that type of call. You know, maybe seen someone responded to call the suicide where they had to go in and see that and then talk to and deal with the family members who are in, you know, totally shut mode and, and shock and dealing with the aftermath of that. It can be, it can be very intense on the officers, what they see and people to hasn't realized to these officers. That's what they're saying. And their, you know, behind that badge and the uniform, they go home, they have to cut the grass, pay the bills, you know, they're husbands and their mom, their dad. Yep. You know, so that they have to have that healthy balance of, of, of serving as a police officer but also taking care of their responsibilities, accountabilities at home as well.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Which I, you know, it, it is, it's, and that's maybe your greatest responsibility, but I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I have. You am and my wife will tell me you used all your patients today and there doesn't seem to be any left for me, you know, and it's a good reminder of hey, this is maybe the most important thing I'm going to lead is my family. Right. So true chief, you came to Claremont in 2010. Larry, thank you so much. Cause I was going to ask them both how they got here and where they came from. Yeah. So that's chief first.

Speaker 5:

So I was, I was, I was born and raised in Long Island, New York, a suburb of New York City. And at the early age I wanted to be a police officer and something that my father could not do, um, due to high blood pressure, some health issues, but something he wanted to do, just, just couldn't get hired. And um, I became a police officer in 2002. Um, I'm sorry, I can't please hold it. In 1996 and, uh, Neoscape police department joined the ranks into the New York City Police Department and made my way through a detective there. Um, first one ever. My family to become a police officer. Wow. And, um, I remember working, um, to be receiving a phone call on the morning of September 11, 2001 I said chuck had to come back to work cause a plane just crashed as the world trace in it. So I responded that day and weeks and months after to the, the search and recovery efforts as well and responding to a landfill and helping out with those efforts as well.

Speaker 6:

Hmm. So I mean, I would imagine that there is nothing in any book that can prepare you for something like that.

Speaker 5:

No, nothing at all. It was just a shock to everyone that was there. Couldn't believe what we store. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Well like in those moments, I mean, you see it on TV, but you don't expect yourself to be there. You're right there looking at all of this in your own. Wow. Well yeah, absolutely. And I've always said there's something, you know, people play around or think that they would be heroic. But the reality is with firefighters, with police officers, they, they're the ones running into that, you know, arena of danger. And it's, it's got it. I mean, they're human beings. It's, you know, maybe you got a lot of adrenaline, but it still is a scary situation.

Speaker 5:

Sure. And if I do believe that police work is, is a calling first responder, I believe it's a call and something to innate something indigenous in a person that, that wants to commit to a profession to serving and protect. And I really believe that you gotta have that calling something inside of you that really wants to do this and get involved in this career.

Speaker 6:

So how did you get a city with 10 million stories to Clermont, Florida?

Speaker 5:

We uh, took early time on it, NYP d in 2002. We want to move to Florida to be closer to my parents who are dealing with some health issues at the time and they moved to Ocala. So we moved to Gainesville first and then, uh, from Gainesville we moved to, we want to be outside the Orlando area and we drove through highway 27 as for Claremont and really fell in love with it.

Speaker 6:

The rest is history at that point. Sent out officer clone. Tell us kind of your story a little bit. Did you grow up wanting to be a police officer also?

Speaker 7:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I'm just, I just want to say first, I'm so excited to be here, rocky and Larry and especially to witness the, the interview of our chief of police. Very, very proud of him.

Speaker 6:

This is one of our, I can, I can tell you this is one of my favorite, like obviously excited about having both of you guys, cause I think you guys are kind of the poster child for serving not only the team that you're directly over, but you're serving the whole entire, I mean in one way or another, you're reaching 40,000 people, some of which, some of which don't re don't appreciate you at all. And you know, it's, it's gotta be a difficult job sometimes. I was going to say, do I get to get out of jail free card or anything? Well, why would you go to jail there just in case, just in case. So tell us a little bit about where you're from.

Speaker 7:

So, um, I've been honored and privileged to, to really, uh, start a very diverse life. Um, I was born also in Manhattan, New York and uh, yeah. And, uh, quickly at the age of six, settled down with my parents in Miami where I learned more diversity and, uh, my teen years lived in the island of Puerto Rico where I was forced to really learn Spanish and, uh, got involved in sales, uh, live the life of a salesman for many years, traveled the world, uh, and also got, uh, involved in funeral and cemetery services where I started learning about the, the, the sadness and the reality of certain things in life. So that kind of prepared me to finally at the age of 33, when Hannah was born in Tokyo, Japan, I said, this is it. I gotta do this. I gotta become a police officer. So how did you end up in Tokyo?[inaudible] Puerto Rico too. I was fortunate to have good savings and I started traveling the world. And one of the things that I really wanted to do all my life and accomplish was visit and a certain area of Japan to learn about their curl culture and martial arts and all that. So that's how I arrived there. So then at the ripe old age

Speaker 6:

of 33, which is still very young. Yeah. You decided to become a police officer that special morning in November 28, 2003, 10:23 AM cold, 40 degree rainy weather in Tokyo. I remember saying, I'm gonna finally do what I have, what I've wanted to do all my life. Wow. That's a pretty pinpoint memory. Well and it speaks to what chief said about it's a calling. Like, I mean you, you know, and it's funny cause I've seen a lot of my friends who've gone through the academy have even been hired, but it quickly realized this is not for me. I think you're right in that you've got you gotta uh, call. Cause you got to remember you're walking right. You know. Yup. Yes, that's right.

Speaker 4:

So we're doing a whole series on, you know, leadership and how do you care for yourself as the leader because you're caring for all of these people. I can't imagine what it's like to be a police officer from an intense shift and then going home and having to, you know, fold laundry or cut the grass. What does, how do you center yourself? How do you, what is the, what does the center, because it's got to be a crazy parallel to go from that life, you know, and to, you know, an easy or not easy, but in everyday, you know, more simple life.

Speaker 6:

Sure.

Speaker 5:

Well, one thing that I do, I encourage all my officers to, well, well first as, as a team, I really strive to create an environment at work that people enjoy to come to work. Um, that and that's part of my servant leadership style is create that atmosphere, create an environment that people enjoy to come to work named joy, this profession. Um, keep them motivated so that way then when they do go home and have all the things that hey, you know, it's not leaving from a stressful situation, going to possibly another stressful situation.

Speaker 6:

Yup. Yeah. People, you know, we always say that people leave managers, they don't leave corporations. It's almost never the job. It's normally the person who uses their direct report, which can make or break.

Speaker 5:

That's right. And I, I believe that truly does make a significant difference, especially people call to service where they're, again seeing people, some people at time in that worst possible situations. We have a lot of the events here. Uh, we, we stay active in our community, keep our officers plugged in. Uh, we have a state of the art gym here to relieve stress. Um, uh, we brought on a chaplain. Um, just different things that we do to ensure that hey, our office, our, our offices, our employees are taken care of so that they can truly, effectively and efficiently take care of our community. But I believe we gotta take care of our officers. So again, if they can effectively, efficiently serve.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's crazy. Cause we do something very similar at chick-fil-a. Yeah. You know, uh, we, we

Speaker 6:

focus on our employees because we know when we focus on our employees, our customers will be taken care of. Yeah. Yeah. We, we always say that my customer is not the end customer. The person with a dollar bill in their hands. My customer is my team. And if my team feels loved and validated and known, then it's a natural outpouring that they're going to be that way to the guest. I want to know where the journey. Yeah. Well I can tell you I knew that there was going to be some kind of athletic conviction because both of them are in great shape. Yes. And uh, I would not want to get in the ring with either one of them.[inaudible] no, no, no, no challenge. I give uncle loosen. We have two, two great community leaders here and one of the projects that they worked on, this is the most fantastic story. Yeah. So let's get into that. Well and so Larry, I think your reference referencing the Lincoln Park Project, and I can tell you I, um, I got involved in this with no effort on my own. It's really been all my team at the store and just a Nichols. In fact, Justin Nichols here, he's our body guard today and I would encourage everybody to go to the website and take a look at him because he is worth staring at. He's been, but it's been gardener door, but a really, I get the joy of getting credit that is not deserved and I can tell you in this situation it's been all adjusted, but I can't wait to hear guys tell us about that program and, and what it is and why you guys started it.

Speaker 5:

Sure. I'll let officer cone talk, but I'll just open up with this. This is one of our strategies. Um, our crime fighting strategies, crime reduction strategy is community policing and that has many facets to it. It's building trust with the community, building relationships, being involved in community events, officers, um, getting out of their vehicles within their zones, respected their jurisdictions, meet in the community. Just being very, very involved. I truly believe that the community are the police, the police or the community. So this community policing philosophy has truly worked. An office, a Cologne has done a lot of research on, he's been to schools, been to a lot of different trainings. And our goal, our mission was to truly implement community policing here at Claremont and, and also clone went out. He store we need in a specific community, um, and apply it. A lot of these community policing philosophies and tactics and we saw crime significantly go down. We saw a call to service or, or trust built in this community, uh, where call to serve an increase as in giving tips and information because of that trust that was built.

Speaker 6:

Sure. What was, what was the Lincoln Park Project? I mean, what was it like when you started this?

Speaker 1:

Well, great. Go ahead, chief. Go ahead.

Speaker 5:

No, um, an area where we had a lot of Coulter service, um, uh, drug drug sale. Um, a lot of the, the elderly community that lived there, um, complained in reference to being afraid to come out at night. They had a walk around, drug sales, loud music, people hanging out to get to their homes, how they felt that they were being bullied in their own neighborhood. And then I'll let Cologne talk about what was deployed there.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, chief and this went on for, I, I studied, I, I witnessed it. I worked there. I mean, there were times when we were prohibited to go there alone. We had to make sure that we had some backup either with us or very close by

Speaker 1:

in my little hometown of Claremont. Yeah. And I studied it for seven years. This went on in the, in a little corner of Lincoln Park called[inaudible]

Speaker 7:

and I probably call it oh, curse now, because that's the real name of these, uh, 14 homes. It's a block of seven duplexes and they're called o cursed. And for approximately seven years, it was just rampant, like chief, uh,

Speaker 1:

described was, I think at one point I heard a stat that the, like the percent of calls from that area made up a large part of, of your calls every, every month, every day and so forth. Correct. So talk about, um, what you guys did. What did you lead with when you first went into the[inaudible] start? Imagine that they're like, hey, great, come on. Know,

Speaker 7:

after this study, uh, I spoke with chief and chief, this is the great thing about a great leader. He's the kind of leader that will listen and ask questions and completely support you completely. And that's what happened. And this project of course number one factor was the support of chief of police and his administration. So what we did was we went in there and we started doing or conducting what we call non enforcement activities. We would still do our job to enforce the law of course. But our main goal, the way we came in was simply to connect, build trust, talk. We had surprise breakfast is in the, in the several, uh, times of the year. Uh, the greatest thing and feeling was to see their faces when we would knock on their door and say, hey, good morning, we have breakfast outside.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And you're changing the paradigm because you know, these are people that probably normally when they see a police officer was okay, what happened? And now they're associating the police department with really good community activities.

Speaker 7:

And so we did so many activities, like a sharing dinner with them. Uh, but we didn't do this alone. This is so crucial. We called in the community. Yeah. Businesses like yours, uh, uh, O'Reilly's lows. Uh, habitat for humanity. There's so many churches. It seems like anybody you approached, um, really kind of came on board. They were excited for this, this program. And I think that speaks a lot to both chief and you that people trusted that such forward, that support as amazed what was going on in this little area, this conclave little area. I mean, why was it so, why were people so afraid to come out of their house? Well, most of the owners of these homes did not live in the area. So they're all rental. The, at nine out of the 14 homes we rented, uh, and who were lent, renting them, uh, people from everywhere and, but they were paying the bills. So they just kept living there. Now that was one of the most difficult tasks to get every single owner of this block to know about the situation and to support our new initiative. It took, it took time, but, but it worked. So you feel like they got behind you to buy? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So what was their initial response? I can't imagine that you're not going to door and say, I got breakfast. What are they thinking? They're like, is this a drug bust? Or in some cases it was, wasn't it? Right. Yeah. Sadly we had a homicide there even. Wow.

Speaker 7:

Oh, right in the middle of the project, which, which kind of a, I just fell to my knees and I was like, Whoa, what a blow. Yeah. But, uh, if, if, if you study how things work, uh, you know that when there is Newton's law, an action is always going to have some kind of equal opposite reaction. So there was some resistance, but, but the work is the great part of this work. The work was full of honest, loving, good intentions, and people felt that and it moved people. So could you, like, was, was there a point that you kind of looked up and said, okay, they're beginning to trust us, you know, there, because I think at first it's like, okay, we'll let you in, but we're a little bit nervous and then at some point it reaches that tipping point where there they see you as good.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Like, like she said,

Speaker 5:

I can tell you one point was after that homicide was that we received more calls and more kits than we've ever received for our crime in that area.

Speaker 7:

Yup. Wow.

Speaker 5:

And they helped us solve that crime.

Speaker 7:

Yeah. So this is like, the reason why we wanted to have you guys on is, um, and you guys are very humble people. So I'm going to ask you guys to put off your humility for a second. Talk about the

Speaker 6:

awards because this has been, you know, a program that has been recognized now statewide and even nationally. So talk about some of the things you guys have won.

Speaker 5:

So the, so the state of Florida recognize, um, this initiative that, that Cologne initiated. Um, so basically as Cologne said, it was not enforcement activities. We deployed several non-enforcement activities in this community. Everything from breakfast to potluck, um, to help the cleanup days and paint days and got the community behind us, built the trucks and together collectively police in the community, we're truly able to make an impact to the point where crime reduced like 80 something percent call service went down and it all because of these, um, the relationships in a report that was built in the community. So we were recognized by the state of Florida for the League of cities, uh, foreign an award offers. The clone has been asked to come and speak at various different training sessions for the state of Florida to talk about what the Claremont has done, uh, to employ these community policing, uh, techniques. Um, community policing philosophy within the agency. Uh, we had the largest decrease in crime within the lake county, the Lake County, the state of Florida, uh, experienced the 9% decrease, decrease in con the Lake County, uh, experience, a 4% decrease in crime. Claremont received the highest reduction in crime in lake county from 2017 to 2018 which is 21%. And a lot of that has to do with Cologne spearheading, um, these community policing efforts and initiatives.

Speaker 6:

Wow. Yeah. And, and, and didn't we just find out that again, for, for the previous year you've shown it continued improvement in reducing the number of crimes.

Speaker 5:

Correct. We have seen the correct, the last couple of years we have seen a decline in crime in Claremont. That is correct.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Which is, it's amazing regulations. Thank you. Thank you. I guess that congrats, but thank you. So tell us, um, what are you guys most proud of about this project? Like what, you know, what has really been the, you know, the moment when you high five each other if you high five out, you know? Yeah,

Speaker 5:

I'm just proud to see, um, officer Cologne in his element and building trust and out there with these community policing initiatives. The one thing that I was very proud of is that, um, when Colin was issued this award, um, for his initiative, we had probably about 20 on, I think you have there too rocky. We had people from, we had people from Lincoln Park, um, come almost with tears in her eye thanking officer Cologne and the Claremont Police Department for their efforts. They saying, Hey, I could come outside at night now. To me that was actually community members that were we impacted and where we influenced to see the difference and for them to come to that meeting and talk about the efforts and initiative and how it changed their livelihood and me that was, that was the icing on the cake.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Yeah. You get that, you know, uh, one of my favorite verses is without a vision that people perish and people have to have vision, they have to have hope. And I think what you guys introduced is, hey, you can be the element of change within your own community. Right. Absolutely. You know, I think it took off with it and yeah. How about you?

Speaker 5:

And on that note to Code Cologne also emphasize, Hey, and we're here to help you. You know what I mean? We're here to help you achieve that vision, that the, and, and hope and help you with that hope as well. So.

Speaker 7:

Right, right. Here's another thing about good leadership. Like, so this, I could not do this if I don't have this support. Yeah. Chief support, because I live in my, my coworkers are strong men and women. We are military oriented for traditionally we have three responsibilities. Save lives. Say, uh, protect your rights and protect your property or recover your property. That's it. Yeah. Legally we don't really have to do this. We don't have to have breakfasts. We don't. But again, Kudos to the chief for his great leadership. He not only let me do it, but he also encouraged this. The best part, to answer your question, what I'm most proud of is how each and every one of our officers is part of it. I mean, they have seen evidence of it and they support it. And that's, that's the most beautiful thing.

Speaker 6:

So, um, I got to tell you guys and, and I'm going to try not to tear up. I don't know about you guys, but I know you guys have daughters and kids. And ever since I've become a father, man, I've just become soft. I, you know, I gotta be honest with you, man. You know, it's not, uh, not always proud to admit, but, um, I was at my Hancock location and there's a young gentleman, and I won't use his name because I haven't asked permission, but he lives in that area and he came from a very, very tough upbringing. In fact, his older brother had gotten into serious issues with the law. I mean, really had been a violent person. Um, but this young man has been working with us for awhile. And so, uh, probably about six months ago, officer clone came in and we were both up front. I think we were just, you know, joking around with each other. And I said, look, it's officer Cologne. And he turned to me and he said, that dude is the real deal. And let me tell you what, like, you know, there's a bs factor and they see right through it. I mean, if you're not trans, you know, transparent. And if you don't really had that heart, they're going to sense it. And to me that was the highest praise because, um, he had no, he had nothing to gain by saying that to me, you know, and yet you could tell there was a real admiration and love for

Speaker 7:

officer Cologne. So, all right. I appreciate it. Appreciate that. You know, honor to whom honor deserves. Again, I'm going to shoot it over to chief cause

Speaker 6:

I love this[inaudible] support. So here's, here's the new leader of your fan. So we're going to kind of transition because we don't want to take up all your day, but we, we've got a apart, we, we call it this one or that one. And I'm going to give you guys, uh, two things and ask what, which one you prefer and maybe why you prefer that one. Do you guys mind playing along with us? Oh yeah. Right. So, so the first one to people, Elon Musk or Richard Branson from Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Speaker 7:

Oh, tough, right. I got Richard, I got Richard Branson. Okay. So tell me why you like Richard. Richard. I, I've read, I I know about both. I really like Richard's style of leadership. Uh, Ilan is, is good and I think you spoke about this too, so I may be kind of cheating and my self conscious. But Elan, Elan is very goal oriented, focused, but Branson attracts me more. Resonates. His leadership actually resonates a lot with its chief leadership because he is more community, more, more, uh, reachable. Seems like there's a lot. Yeah, it would be much more fun to work with. What? Your branch. Yeah. How about you chief?

Speaker 5:

I agree. Brenton? Uh, the servant leadership, uh, community oriented, community minded.

Speaker 6:

All right, so the second two are Steven jobs and Bill Gates. There's humor in here. Hey, this is, this is supposed to be tough. You know,

Speaker 7:

I say both. I'm going to go with apple because I love how apple works. I, they have their philosophical, yeah, they don't, they don't worry about their competition. Microsoft's a little bit where he's more about,

Speaker 6:

yeah. They may have tried to block some of their competition and there was like four customers in the Microsoft store last week when we went to the mall. It was kind of sad to an apple store and it's like 150 people. It's like, can't figure it out. Yeah. It's like me, I can't figure it out. How about you chief?

Speaker 5:

I had to go with apple. I'm an iPhone user.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. You know what I love about Steven jobs is that he said, we don't create whatever, fill in the blank. Uh, phones, computers. We create beautiful things that add value in life and that's a sign. A pretty good float. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

And they just constantly on the, just the cutting edge. Yeah. I take after that Leesha too. It's kind of like, okay, we did this. How can we do better? What else can we do to improve? What can we do to make an impact? What else can we do? Make a difference in the community and then they're just on that cutting edge. Just constant proven.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. I would agree with that. All right, so Steven Spielberg or Walt Disney. Hello? It goes with Disney. Yeah. Okay. We have, we have one for Disney. How about you chief?

Speaker 5:

A man? I've tough.

Speaker 6:

Yeah, I'm a big movie guy, so that's a tough one. Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Steven Steele where he's a, he's brilliant. You know, Disney is brilliant too. It's a wow. I, that's a tough,

Speaker 6:

okay, we've got a tie. Cool. So this is like one of those nerdier questions that we have to ask. Cause you know, definitely this would become very cold, but star wars or Harry Potter, Star Wars. Yeah. I think that may have to do, you kind of grew up a little bit more star. Yeah,

Speaker 5:

yeah, yeah. I grew up. One saw was, that's right.

Speaker 6:

And so the final one is, um, and, and my daughter's really, this is their question. So they're huge Broadway fan. So we ask, are you, do you prefer Broadway or rock and roll? And of course Broadway musical. Wait, now see, chiefs surprise me. You like that. Really? I like that.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. I grew up, I grew up in New York. I would take the wife out every once in a while, see a Broadway show. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

It's a good night. Right. It's a great, you know,

Speaker 5:

yeah. It is a good, it's a good evening. It really is.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And Justin's idea, it's your last name, so you kind of have to go with,

Speaker 5:

and that's right. That's right.

Speaker 6:

How about you officer? A rock and roll for me is, so tell me, who do you have a favorite group or ACDC? I want to see him, you know, thrown his head, driving down.

Speaker 5:

You see them rocking out.

Speaker 6:

I know. I'm gonna bring them to the concert next time they see these, he comes and we're going to go, boy, that's a great answer. That was a great answer. Well guys, I really appreciate you guys coming on and I do mean this from the bottom of our heart. Uh, I've been so impressed with both of you guys because you have one of the toughest jobs and you know, right now it seems like within the last five to six years, it is not easy being a police officer. There's a lot of people that have, uh, a mindset about the officers that serve them. That's just not true at all. And so, you know, I really appreciate how you guys lead and how much you guys put your lives on the line every day. Thank you very much. It's our pleasure.

Speaker 1:

Well, we want to thank everybody for linking up with us here today on a server's journey. Remember to subscribe to the podcast. You get the server's moment on Tuesday and of course this deep dive where you hear great people like the chief and officer Cologne. Uh, we want to be good leaders. You want to be good leaders serving. So until next time, rocky, I'm your ever faithful companion, Larry

Speaker 6:

and I'm Zack and we just hope that you're learning and able to teach and implement the stuff that we're talking about. We were so

Speaker 1:

honored that you guys are here talking with us. We're learning you. We learn every, every, every show we learn. It's kind of a great situation. Again, we want to thank acs, creative for helping us very much go to our website servers, journey.com and kind of give us feedback and direction where you want us to go. And they don't play games with your money, right? Which is great. So we're going to remind you, as we always do, everybody's leading and we just want to encourage you to be somebody worth following. I'm rocky destefano. Thanks for joining us

Speaker 2:

at a service journey.