Frank McGaha: From Federal Operations to Executive Excellence

Frank McGaha is a federal law enforcement professional, U.S. Navy veteran, and founder of Armogan Consulting & Training. He graduated in the top 1% worldwide from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) and has held high-responsibility roles, including Lead Protection Officer for presidential appointees across two administrations and Officer in Charge of a federal special weapons unit.

Frank’s unique expertise lies in translating high-stakes operational experience into actionable leadership insights. He teaches lessons on decision-making under pressure, accountability, ethical leadership, and building high-performance teams. His guidance resonates far beyond law enforcement, providing entrepreneurs, executives, and business leaders with strategies to navigate complex, high-pressure environments with confidence and clarity.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I always get asked what tools my guests use to build their businesses. What CRM is that? What camera are they using? How do they track their sales? So I did the work for you. I compiled a list of the top 20 tools and resources mentioned by my guests into a free PDF guide. It's the exact tech stack building seven figure businesses use right now. You can grab it for free. Download the guest black book at go.tron podcast dot com. Stop guessing and start building. Link in the show notes. Ladies and gentlemen and listeners of the Tron Podcast, The Randomness of Nothing. Every time I get on the show, I'm very honored and humbled that people took time out of their schedules to be on this platform. And this gentleman epitomizes it. He is an American patriot, he's a Navy veteran, experienced police officer, and now utilizes his skills and knowledge and mentorship he's acquired over his life to train future police officers to be ready to be in academies and be experienced professionals. Frank McGaha, thank you very much, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I appreciate you having me on. Thanks again. It's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Man, this is this is this is this is stoke, man. Because like I said, you're you're when I see a a biography like yours, it kind of stops me in my tracks. And this is one of the reasons I made this show was to talk to people like yourself. So please tell your story.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, I mean, it's it's as as great as it sounds on paper, you know, for me it was pretty standard. Uh 19, well, 18, I enlist in the U.S. Navy. Uh 19, I roll out to boot camp. I went in for uh U.S. Navy SEAL uh and I failed. I failed through it. I I couldn't broke uh both legs, compression fractures, I had stress fractures first, healed up, rotated out the coronado early on in my training, and then broke both legs again. Uh and it was um it was humbling. I was thought I was getting sent home with my uh tail between my legs. And then you'll hear me say this, I say this all the time. I had a really good mentor. I had a really good mentor, managed to uh managed to keep me in, managed to get me into the aviation side of the Navy, where I was a helicopter crew chief for the rest of my career, doing multi-mission platforms, you know, anti-mine warfare, uh logistics, NSW, what whatever mission that they had for us, search and rescue. But it was it was one of the the big key factors where I've learned, you know, most people never go to failure. Most people quit before they get a chance to fail.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And failure, you can really learn a lot about yourself. I mean, I after that I was able to turn myself around. I was able to, I started training nonstop every day after after training and after PT. I would go PT some more. I'd go do some physical training, I'd do soft sand beach runs to strengthen my my shins and my legs, so I wouldn't ever get stress fractures again. That's amazing. And it just kept kept growing from there. So ultimately, finished out my my time in the Navy. I did uh three deployments over to the Middle East, two full-length deployments, one short-term tactics deployment. And then I knew I wanted to get out of the military, and I wanted to combine two of my passions. One, which was I'm I'm an avid outdoorsman, and then two, I've always wanted to pursue law enforcement. So I said, hey, what's the best way to do that? Go become a National Park Service Law Enforcement Ranger. It's amazing. Uh I got out, did that, uh, went through the academy. Once I made the sergeant of the academy, and once again, just good leadership, mentorship got me there. And while I was going through the academy, I was recruited right in the middle of my uh driver training from my dream agency for my dream position as the backcountry law enforcement ranger in the Smoky Mountain National Park. As I did that for a little bit, yeah, I mean, it was really was. It was great. Uh kind of spoiled me because it was the dream position. Uh, not ideal for a family, but but definitely uh definitely my dream position. After that, I rotated up to DC to get round out my law enforcement experience to get more uniform urban law enforcement. Yeah, and my career took off. But once again, good leadership, good mentorship. I got my instructorships. And then as my career was winding down, I my injuries from the military started catching up with me. Yeah. And I knew I was gonna doing the disservice being out there on the street. You know, I I knew that my my physical limitations ultimately would uh would hinder my ability to effectively perform on on the street. And so I transitioned over into uh consulting. And after working some out, good mentorship again. I uh I we settled on law enforcement prep and then kind of training, and now we're kind of even building it out even farther. I can't go into too much detail what we have coming down the pipeline, but um, but yeah, I mean it it just exploded and we've been blessed since.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Did you see like a gap when you saw that transition from military to to you know um you know the par the range, the parks services to you know, reg to traditional, I'll say police officer that people see on a day-by-day basis? And then throughout that entire, despite all the having that great mentorship, we're like, man, there's kind of a gap that I think that while it may not be applicable to me, you may have heard it from other people, like, man, I really could have utilized this that I would it wouldn't have tripped me up along the way, which is why you got into consultant.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, so I when I went through, I knew no one in law enforcement. I mean, I had no background in it, I didn't know anyone who was a law enforcement officer. I was just as a kid up, you know, you always want I always wanted to be up. Yeah. Uh and then it just kind of the big transition was from military to civilian life. That was the biggest thing to wrap my head around. Um, law enforcement kind of made that a little bit easier because it kind of resembles a paramilitary structure, but it was still a gut punch. I mean, just the way that people would would talk or approach, you know, someone that I would consider a fair like really high-rank individual that you know I've been trained that you never go to that person directly unless something's burning. Yeah, it's true. Um but that was the big thing. And then there was always those learning curves of of you know, you you think everyone thinks they know what they're getting into, but no one knows until you actually experience it.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I can certainly can't relate, which is why I'm listening.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Well, I mean, but you can. I mean, it's the same thing. Uh you know, learning learn going from law enforcement to to business. I mean, I was like, oh yeah, this is what it's gonna be. This is we didn't start with law enforcement uh prep and recruiting and things like that. You know, I did general consulting, safety and everything consulting, and then we finally niched down to where we are now. And yeah, I mean, it's it could be anything. I I went to EMT school, hardest academic school I've ever went through. I have no idea how people become docs. That is ridiculously hard academically. Uh but yeah, there was just so so much in every time. So whether whether you're learning how to like we're we're trying to learn how to do a podcast and everything, you never know what you're getting in. Social media.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yes, that's a full-time job. Oh my goodness. You know, it's like, you know, and and for people who don't love doing it, right? You know what I mean? Like it's like the hashtags, the algorithms, you're like, dude, I let the 18-year-old like kid that loves to like TikTok in your five minutes do it, right? Like, but the only way you can get your consulting business out or to reach that next generation of police and laws law enforcement, all everybody had to pivot their business model to say this, I have to do this, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Like if you don't, you're almost just washing down the number one lead. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Exactly, exactly. Like, you know, you have no choice, right? So now it becomes and and people now absorb information in very small bytes. So what could have been a five-minute message, now you have 27 seconds, 15 seconds to get your point across to get somebody's attention, right? Because that's just the way the world that we live in.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

I get dinged on that all the time because we'll make short form and long term, long form content. And some of our long form be 20 minutes. Yes. They're saying, hey, can you just get to the point? All this is the point because trust me, if you if you mess up this previous step to get to this one, you know, you just wasted six to eight months of your life.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Um it's it's and that's real, you know. And so, you know, I think that now because of the condensed information, you've done a great job, you know, pivoting when it comes to learning that, you know, you're still old enough to have some school knowledge, but you're young enough to like be able to pivot in real time. Now, I love the name of your company when it's Armagun uh consulting, and I looked at it, I was like, man, what's the definition of this? And I was scrolling to your website, yeah. It means perfect day to start a new journey, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

And I was like, Yeah, roughly translated. And it's a it's a 19, you know, maybe in the Navy, it's a it's an old 19th-century naval term. That uh that's what it roughly translated.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

It's a perfect day to start a new and and so can you give us a high overview without giving away details of your future plans, like when you transition from hey, I'm just going to and I'm not I'm I'm summarizing here, giving basic safety one-on-one understanding of certain situations versus saying I need to make a full-fledged business out of this.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, uh, I was so when I decided to leave law enforcement, obviously, you know, I still had a family to take care of. I had a daughter on the way. Uh I knew I had a lot of experience, especially for a younger officer at the point in time. I had a lot of instructorships and I was blessed in my previous departments to kind of climb the ranks quickly. But the the big factor was is I knew nothing of business, absolutely nothing. But I knew I had some expertise and I thought I could share it. So when I when I started it, once again, I did what every prior military, every law enforcement, hey, I'm gonna do safety consulting, I'm gonna do training. Yeah, and now I have instructorships in tactical medicine, firearms, both uh state and federal levels, and uh CPR first aid, and just a multitude of things. And I said, Oh, I'm just gonna teach everything, not knowing that that's probably one of the slowest ways to grow a business. And once again, can't take any credit for it where we're at at this point. I had a mentor that came to me and said, Hey, what's the question you get asked the most? And I said, You know, probably how to become a police officer, because everyone knows that I was in law enforcement and that I was an instructor and I've I've done the hiring processes and everything. And they said, Why don't you just make content on that? So I literally titled it How to Become a Police Officer, and I made, you know, a 20-minute video on that, and it blew up, you know. Wow. From social media getting 10 views to 10,000 views.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, yeah, that's you know, and so you know what's funny is that the you know the answer to stuff is sometimes staring you in the face and you can't see it, right? Like, and it took somebody like, hey, you know, dude, like do you realize like you have this in front of you, and it's a basic one-sentence question, right? And it's not something that the average person can you can you can Wikipedia it, you can you can Google it, right? But there's nothing better than a living, breathing human being who's gonna tell you exactly what you actually have to do to go through that. And then on the good side of it, you're gonna attract people who have come in your field of work that are like, yeah, man, this is exactly what you have to do. This is exactly what stage I was at in life, and then it becomes a community, and then it becomes an event, and now the ball kind of quote unquote gets rolling, and then you see there's a gap in the market for this.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Absolutely. I mean, we've carved out our own little niche, and we have other people popping up, kind of doing some similar stuff now and and other focuses, and I'm all for it. You know, the the big thing that we say over here is we're trying to, and I actually dislike this term, trying to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community. Uh, I don't want the rich, and I say this all the time. Right. I want to standing on the same piece of land side by side.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Right. And I'm not gonna sit here and blow smoke and say there's no such thing as a bad police officer. No, my first arrest was a cop. Oh, the first person I ever arrested was a cop. And it was a DUI arrest. He had his sober wife and his two little girls in the back, right? And so, and trust me, the academy didn't prepare me for that. And once again, good leadership. I had a supervisor come up to me and I said, What the because I was still on FTO, I was still in training. And I said, What do you do with this? The academy didn't have anything like this. And he said, What would you do if it was any other person? That's awesome. I was like, All right.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

That's awesome.

unknown 11:49

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

And and then since then, better, better FTOs, better um training. And I said, Man, if those help shape me, and I feel like I was a good officer, maybe I can help shape a few others, and maybe I can make a small little impact on on making the world a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

And the thing is about it too, is like your profession, because of you know, the amount of of stress, the time away from the family, it's good to have an opportunity to have somebody to have you because you guys consult with retirees and active law enforcement, you know, having a young man or woman, you know, transition literally from high school to say, hey, before you go into this path, let's get you some people who can guide you along the way to prepare you for certain scenarios. Because, you know, there like you said, there's nothing that was in the training book for that, you know, or you know, I've seen stories where the mother is stealing, but she's has starving kids at home, and there's the you know, yes, there's the law, and I say this respectfully, but there's also a woman with starving kids at home, and what's the quote unquote right thing to do? You know, and I what do you say? I have a I have a perfect situation for that.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Um it was uh I was in the park service still working for them, and I get a call. I was just coming off five days in the backcountry and I just got a call uh from our dispatch saying, Hey, there seems to be a disturbance at the at this uh campground, which is where I was coming out of the woods at. Campground hosts says they're having an issue with someone over at this gazebo. And I go over there and the campground hosts, now they're volunteers, but they they take pride in their work and they almost try to like act like they own the campground sometimes and everything, but it's just because they take pride in it. Right. And he was he was upset that this lady was setting up um like she laid out a full spread of picnic spread for her and her two kids at the at this kind of gazebo pavilion thing, and she's and he said, Hey, this isn't rented, you know, she she's she's got to rent it, she's gotta reserve it. And I said, Okay, does anyone have it reserved for this time frame? And he said, No. And I was like, Okay. Is it can there no one use it? What's the deal? I mean, this is right, this is public property. Right. And so he's walking over there and he's just rambling to me. And once again, he's he's not meaning anything mean by it, but I'm like, hey, just go back to the host station. I'll I'll have it. Yeah, right. So I get there, and you can obviously tell her whole life is packed up in this car. It's just her with two little kids. You can tell she's probably struggling in some aspect, and and she saw me coming, obviously, badge gun on my uh on my side and everything. She's like, Oh, we'll pack because see the host had already said something to her. We'll pack up, we'll pack up. And I said, Absolutely not. You got mind if I sit down and and have lunch with you all? And I just sat down with our kids and had lunch, and that's exactly it. You know, if law enforcement, some people have know this term, some people don't, but law enforcement are are always taught early on in their training. You have the letter of the law, which is the way the laws are written there, then you have the spirit of the law. And you know, the spirit of the law is why are you gonna jam up somebody and write someone a ticket that's struggling and just trying to have a nice picnic with their kids in one of the most beautiful national parks in the country?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah, and you know, the thing is about it is that, you know, with respect to the other individual, you don't know if they've had a five days by themselves, you know, and and you know, they had an issue that where they let it slide and then there was reserve because maybe so there's different interpretations, but you made a judgment call with the woman to make herself make a better day. And I always like to hear stories like that too, because you know, those are the ones that are in the back page of social media rather than the front page of social media, so to speak, right? And you know, yeah, you didn't you know you're not out tweeting about that you did that, it was just a human interaction. Yeah, law enforcement is horrible with media. They are they are the worst with media. Yeah, just so that's I'm glad that you shared that story. So how many what's the onboarding process like for somebody who's going to your consulting services when they say they reach out? Is it virtual, is it in person? Like let's get let's let's dive a little into that without giving away too much of your secrets.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, so a lot of it's automated, thankfully, with technology, you know, as you learn and you grow. So a lot of it's automated. We have a couple things where people can sign up for a couple free trainings. We have a free workshop, right? It's a it's a prior recording that also has some additional bonuses in it, like a practice written exam and everything. So they can go through, watch that, and then I break down every step of the hiring process that are typically out there, right? And I go kind of in the order that it typically goes, but every department is always a little bit different. So that we have that, and then we also offer coaching calls, initial coaching calls for individuals. Now, when someone comes in, depending on how they come in, if they come in for the the training webinar, the recorded training webinar, they'll come in, they'll go through, and then they'll get obviously we'll we'll uh we'll email to them, hey, you know, here's a couple additional things to think about. And then now we've since in the last month or two, we've since took away our online course as a standalone product, and then we actually combined it into our community and online course access. So now they get access to a to a community and Monday calls with with me. So 30-minute Monday calls with me, where they can come in, ask any question they want. And that's that's kind of a new program, and that's the only thing that they can self-register for. Okay. Right? Okay. Anything other than that, if they want, uh, we have another thing that's a called a group coaching community uh or group coaching product. That one in itself, we call group coaching, but you're still assigned a primary instructor. You have your own primary instructor that you're able to message whenever you want. There's no limitations, and you can even still sign up for private calls with them, pending their availability, right? Whatever availability they have and everything like that. Then we have our one-on-one coaching where you sign up with the instructor for one-on-one coaching, and we're coaching you until one of two things happen. You get hired or you tell us you no longer want to pursue law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

We don't really accept option number two.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and and and that's good because listen, if somebody's going to willing to get some coaching to get into your field of work, that means they're already, you know, I would like to say 90% serious, and they just have that self, I don't want to say even self-self-doubt, be like, I'm scared of what I don't know, and I don't want to get to an academy or and then really like because I read some of the testimonials where, you know, it's a it's a nerve-wracking experience, you know, having to go through psychological exams and and and I had the pleasure one time of talking to a former Secret Service agent who also was in the military as well, too. You know, and people are like, they don't they, you know, the TV shows don't do justice to what people actually have to go through, you know, to do certain things. And I'm like, listen, man, you know, he was a he's a he's a big, big, big guy, you know, and you know, a guy like that, you know, grilling you can can make you, you know, shaking your boots a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, I mean, anything from an intimidation factor to, you know, I mean, most people have never done a border panel interview with three to six people sitting across from them that are have every bit of training for interrogation and intimidation out there, right? And then on top of it, then you have a polygraph. You have to be willing to share and every deep and dark secret you have in your background, right? So, and then on top of it, you know that once it's out there, it's out there forever. So if you ever have to go to court for a big case, any defense attorney can can subpoena that information and then can throw it out in your face in the middle of court in front of everybody.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I do have a question though. How does social media like hinder fridge future recruits and law enforcement? Because there's a certain like like a 15-year-old kid that like you know got a chance to get their first you know cell phone and is going on their cussing spree.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

It it it didn't affect them. Oh my god. 100% will affect them. If they post underage drinking photos, right? Or if they post anything with illegal substance, you post something with improper handling of a firearm, post a disparaging comment against ethnicities, anything like that, of course. Uh anything political, that's one of the social media flags. Anything profanity, that's a social media flag.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

All of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Yes, everything. So here you are, you know, 13, 14, and you gotta realize that 10 years from now, it's it, you know, for people who are listening, it's real. You know, it's real, you know, and think twice before what you put out there.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

I if I if I was a university that had a criminal justice program and I was getting an 18-year-old, and even then it's a it's a little late, potentially now with how little young kids are getting uh cell phones, the first class I would make them take is social media etiquette.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Without question. Without question. Yeah, it's crazy because you know, like again, like that's not something the previous generation ever had to actually deal with, right? You know, it it's a brand new how far back do you go? How much do you blame on a youthful discretion? And then the other thing about it is too, and you know, I can only say this from the outside looking in, how much recruits does that take out of the pool? You know, a lot. Right. So now you're looking at a situation where you have a large number of people who are retiring or at near retirement age, or you sit back and say, I have a hundred vacancies to fill, but 80 of them have something on social media from when they were a ninth grader, and now I have to take that out of the pool of the equations. So, like that's a that's a difficult situation to assess.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah, and we say it all the time, you know, time and distance makes every hurdle smaller. So if you're if you're a 35-year-old applicant and you underage drank till you were 21, you have you know, roughly 14 years of separation from that. It's understandable as long as it you know have you have a good history, you know, recently in the last 14 years, they're willing to move past that. Right. If you just turn 21 and you underage drank till you were 21, you're disqualified. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, wait, where's the double standard? Well, because we have nothing else to compare you to other than your recent illegal activity. Now, the 35-year-old, he or she has their own hurdles. Right, they have to remember every place they've ever lived since they were either 15 or their entire life. Yes. Every place they've worked, they need co-workers for that, every your supervisor, everything like that. So, and so if you're a younger cat, you're saying, Oh, that's not fair. You know, if you're older, you have more time and separation. Well, yeah, but if you're younger, you also have less history that you have to put down.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

No question.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

And if you forget to put down something on history or you make a mistake on it, that's another disqualifying factor. So if I leave off a place of employment that I worked when I was 16, because I'm 42 now and I'm applying for law enforcement, I'm finally chasing my dream, and I leave off my 16. 16 year old employment, I can be DQ'd for that for omission.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

That's a m that's that I mean, you know, at the end of the day, like it's you know, it's your job to do all your research on yourself. And it's crazy because you may have forgot about the the ice cream stand you worked at when you were, you know, that hey, you know, all I can say is that people really need to be thorough about themselves, you know, because yeah, if it's as stringent as you say that it is, you know, it's for a particular reason, right? And it they obviously need a full picture of who you are as a person. I I do have a question about your consulting service because while you were talking about all those things, do you guys have anybody that's like a bilingual course? Like, hey, you know, because you know, you just don't know, right? Maybe somebody speaks Spanish, maybe somebody, you know, maybe that's something.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

I have not run into that issue, and we've helped individuals in multiple different countries. Um, so we predominantly work out of North America. We have a few clients up in Canada, we have we're all over the US. Um, but we've helped individuals in Australia, we've helped individuals in South Africa, Germany, and then uh England too. So we we've had a we've had a bit, but here's the thing that because we're mostly operating out of North America, I haven't ran into that issue for this one fact. Usually the standard, every department says you must speak English.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Okay, okay. I see I don't know that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yeah, so even if they even if you did, you were by and we we help a lot of bilingual individuals and even people who are ESL, English is their second language. Some of the things that we work on is actually their pronunciation and their articulation of English. So we work on that a lot with some of our uh ESL members, but because that's the standard, I've never looked at it from another perspective. Okay. Because that's so, yeah, I haven't really ran into that as an issue yet.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

But I can see if we do work in other countries where uh Spanish or another language is a predominant language, I could see that being being something we'd need to look into.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

You know, it's like again, you know, like I said, I just can't speak, you know, you know, like I said, this is all foreign to me, but I'm like, hey, you never know if like maybe that opens up. And I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't have the predominantly English language of the academy, but it's like, hey, you know, we do have bilingual candidates because there are areas that may may be more receptive to somebody who can or people just don't speak English, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

You know, so no, we we are. Well, if you're bilingual, you you get you get additional points towards your hiring. Yeah, it's the more languages you speak fluently speak and write, the better a candidate you are. But at the end of the day, the the one of the hiring requirements is proper uh ability to speak and write in English. For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Now, when you're dealing with law enforcement and you have your academy, have you ever expanded? Again, this is just my personal own curiosity. Has it ever gone just beyond like, hey, prepare for academy? Do police officers have to deal with like, you know, some sort of biomedical or anything outside of traditional, like, hey, somebody could have like a chemical in their house and there's a special situation for that particular avenue, you know, not just a traditional anything of that nature.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

We haven't found ourselves expanding out too much into um advanced training, is it's kind of what it you're sounding like there. Um we do expand, yeah. We do expand. So we we mostly focus on on academy or excuse me, department hiring prep and recruitment.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

And then we expand into academy because you could go through the entire hiring process, fail the academy, and then you're you're done. You've lost your job. And most times another department will never touch you ever again unless you self-sponsor and pass the academy, if that's even allowed in your state, because it costs average nationwide, you're looking at roughly$200 and some thousand dollars to get a brand new applicant from application to off FTO, which is their field training. One certified to be out there patrol by one new officer between salary, training, compensation packages like insurance, everything like that, to get one officer actually out there ready to patrol and be able to handle a shift where another officer doesn't need to be with them, somewhere around$200,000.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

That's yeah, I mean, that is for a small town, that's a budget bus.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Huge investment. Yeah, huge investment, you know, right? And it varies depending on where you live and and everything like that. Absolutely, yeah. It's it's something that it's just not. That's why turnover is so bad for a department. If they have a turnover issue, they like that's one of the things they need to fix immediately. Uh, but no, so then we we after the academy, then you have FTO.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

And this is unknown to a lot of people. You can walk, even with all that money invested, you can wash out of FTO. Because if you can't get on board with the you learn the academy, you pass the academy, that's your basic, right? But then you got to apply those training skills in real life. And if you can't get past officer safety, or you or you are violating someone's constitutional rights, and and we can't fix that and train that, even that$210,000 or$200,000 is way cheaper than a lawsuit. Right. Or you getting hurt and losing your life or something like that because you're not good on officer safety.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

So, yeah, people wash out all the way through FTO too.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I mean, you know, I say this very respectfully, it's for a certain group of individuals, right? And that same thing applies, you know, I can imagine with the Navy SEAL, like, you know, there are going to be a lot of people that, you know, come from good, heart, you know, hardy places and with the right intentions, but eventually it weeds out the the, you know, like anything that that has a standard of excellence, it's going to weed out a large group of people, and then they hope to get the best of the best. Because that's what's required of those positions, you know, mentally, physically, emotionally, and that's not even including their own personal life that they have to juggle on the back end while doing all of those things. That's just the job itself.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Yeah, and you're gonna see the best of what the world and society and human, you know, the human psyche has to offer. You're also gonna see the worst of it. So that that's kind of that's kind of where it goes. But ultimately, in my humble opinion, I think it's one of the most rewarding positions in the world. Um, you know, financially, you can support your family. It's one of the last jobs out there that have has a real pension. Like you can actually retire and feel safe and secure with health care and and with uh benefits and and compensation. So yeah. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

You know what? I'm just thinking of this, you know, maybe in future plans you hook up with people that want to do fire department stuff like that, right? You know, that would be, you know I you're the third person that said that to me this week. Just keeping it real. I'm like, you know what, man?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Well, I mean, I we we might have we might have to look into it at this point.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

I mean, I'm sure there's going to be, and I'm not saying my show is the biggest thing in the world, but there's somebody who at some point's gonna talk to you, or I would hope, they'll be like, Man, you know, I I think the same principles could apply to firefighters. You know, you you're on to something here, and I'll leave that up to you. You're smarter than me on this topic, but I just think that that would be a great preparation tool because again, you know, a lot of those people that were born between 1950 and 65 are retiring, right? And so you know they're just the straight up truth, and even like up to you know, 1960, you know, 1970, respectively, right? So there's a new generation where you know they they could utilize services like yours because maybe those people aren't available to talk to, and they could they can relate to someone like yourself who's close in age, who's you know, tech savvy, who can navigate those same principles and situations that they they're going through as that young 18-year-old kid. You know, I was born in 82. When somebody tells me they were born in 2002 or 2003, I'm like I know. Oh, I graduated from high school.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

My oldest daughter was born in uh 2021, my youngest daughter was born in 2024.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

And you're you're trying to wrap your head around like that type of situation, right? And so, you know, you're just like seriously, like and so you know, I could go on for days about like I'm like, I'll joke with somebody, I'm like, do you know who like Tupac is? And you know, like I just have to ask, you know, like not at all.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

You know, I'm like, I still remember I still remember listening to stuff on cassettes and then like buying the S C D's for my friends for their birthdays and everything like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Well, you know what, in all seriousness though, it's like a loss, like you lose the social interaction because when you did go to the the record store, when you did go to a blockbuster, like when you didn't have to order a pizza through an app and you actually had to go and like that's how you met, talked, learned, and and interacted, right? Now that's gone.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

I know, I know. I I was just sitting at the diner this morning before we jumped on this. Um I was at our new training center and I stopped by the diner next door, and then my neighbors came in and they're they're snowbirds and they travel uh you know back and forth across the state between their two houses, and I ran into them and I was thinking the same thing. I mean, this is such a lost, a lost art at this point in time.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

It really is, it really is. And so I'm I'm like I said, man, I you know, when I got your email and I I got a chance to look at your website, I kind of stopped in my tracks a bit. So I'm like, man, you know, he can drop some nuggets of knowledge that this is why I made this show, right? Because I think that the world owes information like this, and this is just the epitome of why this why I decided to take this path. And I would love, you know, to you know, do a shameless plug. Where can people find Frank McGaha, Armageddon Consulting, you know, all the things that you're doing? Because this is this is all about you.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah, well, I appreciate that. I'm gonna caveat real quick with while while I'm uh very humbled by the accomplishments I've been able to complete, once again, those were all thanks to good leaders and mentorship. And that's all I'm trying to do at this point is is kind of kind of pay that back. But for if you're if you want to reach out to us, you can find us on any of our social platforms. It's usually under Armageddraining. And then, or you could go over to our website, armaganct.com, and then you'll be able to see any free trainings we have coming up, any of our live webinars, or uh, or be able to get to any of our socials. And we're putting out new content every single day of the week.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

I can only imagine that this is gonna be a very global, uh, global force with what you have because there's you clearly identified something that and the ball is rolling for you. And this has been an absolute honor and pleasure to have you as a guest, and I'm looking forward to further communication with you as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

It was truly mine. I appreciate you having me on.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Frank McGah on the Randomness of Nothing Podcast, your host, Rashad Woods. If you like more, hit subscribe and make sure you guys reach out to Frank if you have an interest in law enforcement. Thank you, sir.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Thank you.