Ep 106: Voluntary Forced Training
Episode 106
Published Feb 17, 2025
Last updated Apr 23, 2026
Duration: 31:09
Episode Summary
You want to implement the active shooter incident management process. How do you get that done? How do get everybody to buy in without sounding like Big Brother? That’s today’s podcast.
Episode Notes
In Episode 106 of the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast, host Bill Godfrey and instructors Scott Formankiewicz, Kami Maertz, and Terrance Weems explore the concept of "voluntary forced training" for implementing active shooter incident management processes. The episode offers valuable insights for public safety professionals looking to improve inter-agency cooperation and implement new incident management strategies.
The discussion covers several key areas, including building relationships across agencies to foster cooperation, starting small to demonstrate success and gain buy-in, and overcoming resistance to change in law enforcement culture. The instructors emphasize the power of joint training to break down barriers between agencies and highlight the importance of focusing on terminology and role-specific tasks as a starting point.
Throughout the episode, the panel addresses challenges in getting leadership buy-in and offers strategies to overcome them. They stress the significance of investing in and trusting frontline personnel, providing tips for training leadership separately to avoid potential embarrassment. The conversation also touches on the importance of playing the long game when implementing organizational change, acknowledging that full implementation can take years in larger organizations.
This episode provides practical advice for public safety professionals at all levels, from frontline responders to agency leaders, on how to effectively introduce and integrate active shooter incident management processes across multiple agencies and disciplines.
View this episode on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/WQnSRwHo07M
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:Today on the "Active Shooter Incident Management" podcast, voluntary forced training. What? Stick Around.
Welcome to the "Active Shooter Incident Management" podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host, and I am joined by three of our other instructors here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. Scott Formankiewicz on my left. Scott, welcome back in.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Pleasure to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
From the Fire EMS side like myself, and then across from us. Oh, you know what? I just realized we're on the right side.
Kami Maertz:
Wow.
Bill Godfrey:
We're on the fire side.
Scott Formankiewicz:
We are.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
So we've got Kami Maertz and Terrance Weems in the house on the law enforcement side. Welcome back.
Terrance Weems:
Hello, how you doing?
Kami Maertz:
Thank you, thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
Good to have you back. So today's topic, voluntary forced training, which is an interesting play on words to say the least. But the idea here is, okay, so you want to implement the active shooter incident management process. How do you get that done? How do you get it done in your own agency? How do you get other agencies to buy into it? How do you open up the training and share. You want to get it, you wanna get everybody to do it, but you also don't wanna sound like Big Brother? So what are some of the tricks and tips, Kami?
Kami Maertz:
I think the biggest thing is obviously we're introducing a new idea, is to start implementing it when we were small things. You're starting to show how it works and how it's gonna be functional, show that it will work, show that it can be successful, show the wins. And that's really where you get the buy-in.
Bill Godfrey:
[Bill] Terrance.
Terrance Weems:
I think it starts with relationships. So one of the things we do in our area, District 1, DHS District 1, they're in Northwest Indiana, we meet regularly. So we have people from the different agencies, the different disciplines, and we all come together on a regular basis. We meet. We have people sitting in various positions. We all have input. So whether you're from Indi, whether you're from the fire service, whether you are a police officer, doesn't matter, EMA, everybody is involved. And I think that's gonna be the first way that you do that.
Bill Godfrey:
So, Scott, I don't wanna say it's easy, but it's certainly easier for law enforcement to be pushing the idea of ASIM. When it's fire EMS trying to convince law enforcement it's a great idea, kind of like pushing water uphill.
Scott Formankiewicz:
At least. You're pushing a rope. It's definitely a challenge no matter what way you slice it. But I gotta say, I get to mirror what Terrance said. I think the relationship piece is the biggest thing. Just open up the dialogue. I think it all starts with a conversation. And I know from us in the fire side, typically, it's a little bit easier when we begin a conversation and everybody feels like they have a stake or a piece in the solution of the problem, rather than us just saying, "This is the way we're doing it because we decided it." So I think the more likely you are to open the dialogue, I think people are more likely to interject or maybe give their insights a little bit, feeling like they're a piece of it.
Bill Godfrey:
I think it's interesting that you focused on relationships. There's one of the success stories we had years and years ago. Of course, when we do the Active Shooter Incident Management Advanced Class, it's for 60 attendees. But even in a small jurisdiction, that's not everybody. You know, you've got some people that are attended and some people that didn't. There was an incident, it was a shooting at a hospital. And the response was not exactly headed the best of directions. They had a tremendous amount of overconvergence. Everybody went directly into the scene, people running around everywhere, not good separation of tasks and assignments, things like that. And the lieutenant from the local jurisdiction who'd had the class shows up and recognizes what's gone on and says, "Okay, I need to get this under control."
And about that same time, a sergeant from the state police shows up. And he pulls in. And they're across the parking lot from each other. But as the lieutenant told me, they looked across and they recognized each other from the class, from their relationship that they had in the class. And so the highway patrol sergeant comes up to him and says, "What do you need?" And he says, "I need to get control of the inside. I need a perimeter laid out of this and I need a staging area set up." And he goes, "I got it." And that was it. It was a 5, 10-second conversation. The lieutenant got the inside under control. The state police, the trooper got a staging area set up, but got a perimeter on it. And they actually caught the suspect attempting to flee at the outer perimeter.
So it was one of those great success stories based on relationships where literally you had a hundred responders and only two of them had been through the training and still had a positive impact. So I think relationships are huge here.
How tough is it? I mean, it's tough enough to sell it in your own organization, but as you were alluding, when you're trying to go to other organizations outside, what are some of the things that you've seen that help bring them on board?
Terrance Weems:
Well, I know for us in my agency and in the culture of law enforcement, there are two things that police don't like, right? One is change and the other is the way that it is. And if we are able to overcome that, that right there, that's gonna be our biggest hurdle. But once we take the time to recognize that one, we cannot do it alone and by ourselves and then two, we have to lean and depend on other people, even if that means that we have to lean and depend on fire and EMS, and that is going to keep us out of the newspaper, keep us out of a lawsuit and that sort of thing. I think once we realize who we are and we're self-aware, then we'll be more willing to move in that direction.
Bill Godfrey:
Kami, how about you?
Kami Maertz:
And I think the answer is also that you show them how it benefits everybody to be part of it, right? So if it happens in my jurisdiction, it can happen in your jurisdiction. And if we already have built relationships and everything, we're learning as you're coming and helping and how is this going to benefit? 'Cause everybody does kind of stay in their own silos, but how does it benefit that agency to be part of your agency when those big incidents occurs? When we're stepping over those boundaries and those jurisdictional lines, how is it gonna benefit everybody? And it's to all be on the same page, all have the same training.
Scott Formankiewicz:
And I think that any resistance to it that I've even noticed or heard about is that sometimes it's just merely putting a word or a term of what we're already doing. So telling fire agencies, this is no different than what we're doing. All we're doing is organizing it. And same thing on the law enforcement side. You guys are still doing what you guys do. We're just organizing it into this structure that just makes a little sense that aids in the communication. So if you can really say, it's not a drastic change from what we're doing, we're just organizing this for you, I think, is definitely a benefit.
Bill Godfrey:
It certainly helps just in the basics to get everybody on the same page with terminology and with an agreed upon set of priorities. The active threat, rescue and then clear, I think, really helps. When it comes down to getting agency buy-in, that can be a slippery slope. Of course, if you're trying to push this from the ground up, which there are a tremendous number of ideas in both our businesses and on the fire and EMS side and on the law enforcement side, that the ideas originate from the troops. And we were laughing about this at our lunch break. Sometimes you have leadership that you have to convince them it's their idea. Other times, you have people that are enlightened that don't let that get in the way. What if you're not really getting any leadership buy-in, but you've got buy-in at the ground level and some general agreement at the ground level across agencies? Is there still an opportunity there to try to push that and move it down the road?
Kami Maertz:
I think so. And I think that when you're talking about that, when you're talking about ground levels, so you're talking about deputies, sergeants, even watch commanders, things like that, when you're talking about shifts, that shift is going to stand out. And there are gonna be people who wanna take credit for that. And when you go back to and you kind of get down to the nitty-gritty of why that happened, it's because of the incident management skills. So if they're starting at that base level where the deputies are doing this, the sergeants are doing it, and you're kind of building that up, those wins are gonna be noticeable compared to other people.
When those incidents are able to be managed, able to be reached to that mission successfully quicker, that's gonna stand out. And when they go down and say like, how did you do this different? What are you doing different? And you can show, well, we're managing it in this way. We're using this method to win this. I think that's when you kind of get that even from upper management who might be a little bit hesitant to change your entire training way, but they start seeing it win at that lower level buy-in, I think that's where you win.
Terrance Weems:
And one of the things that I've been able to experience truly, and this is not for the podcast, this is just real, at this point in my career, a number of the people that I deal with, whether it be from the fire departments or from other police agencies, we came up together. So I started as a baby trooper with that dude when he was a rookie. I started with her when she was fresh out the academy. We had an opportunity to work the road together. So now we're in positions of authority.
And you said enlightened, right? I become enlightened and I have an idea of what direction we need to go in. So now we have this relationship from way back. We've worked the road together. We had an opportunity to know and to see the failures that our agencies have had in other incidents and situations. So now we can come together and talk. I can talk to you as a chief or a commander or somebody now you're in training, to talk with them about this thing and we can build that up. So now we're having regional training events, like you said, whether I'm starting small.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Terrance Weems:
Can't give it to them all at the same time, but whether I'm starting small or not, we're moving in the right direction that way.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yeah, I definitely... I think that's the piece and it's always hard to push this up. And if those that are above us are hesitant to make the change or whatever, I think that leading by example mentality of, okay, we only can only control what we can control. So if we have a way that's gonna do it, that's not gonna completely derail from the chiefs, maybe from that area. But if I can show you that this is going to work and then when you hear afterwards, what did you guys do? Oh, well, here's what we did and here's we laid it out. Well, who came up with that? Well, here it is. I mean, there's training on this. We can do this. So merely just that leading by example of... Then if you won't listen, then maybe, hey, we'll show you how this will work. And then when they can see it, it's like, wow, this makes sense, I think we need to do this. And then spawns from there.
Kami Maertz:
That's their idea.
Scott Formankiewicz:
That's exactly.
Kami Maertz:
Exactly never wins.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yeah.
Kami Maertz:
Never win, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I've said it before on the podcast that one of the most fascinating things that I observed in my career was the power of training to bring people together. So when we had resistance above us, when we had resistance across jurisdictions and agencies, 'cause there's no competition between fire departments and there's no competition between the sheriff's office, and the police department, and the state police, none of that kind of stuff. The thing that always seemed to break that bottleneck was training together. And when I say that, it's as simple as calling up the person you know, who you have a relationship with at that other agency and say, "Hey, we're gonna be doing this training next Wednesday. Can you come over? Can you send a crew? Can you just come over and watch, just be there?" And sometimes just getting them in their vehicle to show up. One person who's there, who watches and participates is enough to open the door to that kind of thing. Have you guys seen that as well?
Terrance Weems:
Oh, for sure. So may not seem like it. I'm gonna tie it in. So when I was younger, playing Pop Warner football. So playing Pop Warner football. Gary, Indiana separated different neighborhoods and that sort of thing. I met so many people playing Pop Warner football that when we got older in high school, I was able to not... There were incidents or situations I was able to get out of because we played football together. Going back to your point, that training as a 12, 13-year-old helped me when I was 18 to get out of a fight or something like that because of that relationship. So now we bring it to our professions, that same training that you do will do the same thing. Just like you said, about the one situation where you had the trooper and the firefighter who were in class together, if they had not been to that class, neither one of them would have been able, they wouldn't have had it in them to step outside of their silo to make their way over there to get things and make things happen. I believe it works.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah. In our county, we have cities that with are within our county. And so that's very big, right? 'Cause we're all going to the same events. We're all together. Obviously, our units are going to be going to their calls 'cause they're smaller cities, but getting them to come to those training, trying to get them to buy-in for their... They have a smaller city, obviously, but getting their buy-in on those and those are important. And it's inviting them to the training, especially their higher ups or even if we can build those relationships at a lower level of getting that buy-in.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. So let's get a little bit more tactical on some of this. So let's say you've got a core group, whether they're same agency, different agencies, doesn't really matter. You got a core group that says, "Hey, this active shooter incident management process, we really want to work on implementing this." Where do you think is the place to start? What pieces would you start with?
Kami Maertz:
Honestly, for me, it's the terms and the monikers of getting people used to that. That goes a long way of getting people to understand what the role is, and where it would fit in, and where they would use it appropriately. So when you're talking about staging, we go back to training and doing on maybe non-criminal incidents where you're learning about what staging is and how staging is functional and how it works for low level when you're talking deputy level. And then you're talking about on the non-criminal incidents, or maybe it is a criminal incident, but it's not a true active shooter incident, but where you can start plugging in a tactical, and they recognize a tactical.
Honestly, it's little things like getting people to say tactical on the radio and call themselves tactical on the radio or call themselves command and take those leadership positions and own those positions. Those are little things, but it's huge. Even in training, we can see where you tell somebody, "Hey, you're tactical, call yourself tactical." And they're like, "I gotta say it on the radio?" and like, "Yes, you do. You have to call yourself tactical." Those are little bitty hurdles to get over. But if it's done, you can get people used to it, but it's getting them used to that. And then you can really fine-tune the actual training.
Scott Formankiewicz:
I think that's a really good foundation to have is like almost a glossary day of here's we're all gonna sit down and we're all gonna agree on these terms because then you don't wanna say it's never really wasted training, but then you spend so much of your training time trying to correct and know you were trying to call staging, but instead you called this person. So I think by just having that one day of, here's what it is, do we all from different agencies agree on these terms? Yes, we do. Okay, then now we can move forward. But I think starting with that is huge, and it'll save you a lot of time in the long run trying to correct when mistakes are made and you'll get a lot more out of your training by agreeing on terms.
Terrance Weems:
Yeah, complete agreement.
Bill Godfrey:
It's interesting that both of you see the terminology is such a key issue. And my personal experience has been that I rarely see pushback on the terminology from the law enforcement side, but it seems to be a fairly commonplace that I get pushback on the terminology from the fire side. And usually the most common thing they said is, well, you know, that's not how we do it around here. We call that this and so we're just gonna call that this, which can be problematic when you're trying to get a large region and a whole bunch of agencies on the same page.
And then the other thing that often gets thrown up is that, well, that's not NIMS compliant, that's not ICS compliant, which is one of those where I just kind of... It's like, "Okay, take a breath, and we'll start this conversation again." Because unlike policies and procedures at every fire department in North America, our stuff actually had to go through review from the NIMS Integration Center and get certified. So it's interesting the way that terminology conversation can provoke-
Kami Maertz:
[Kami] Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I don't know, the picayune stuff. where people were missing the forest for the trees.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's getting them used to it, but making them understand though that that moniker is a moniker that's up for a task, a task and a purpose, and a job. And so it's getting over that hurdle of call it whatever you want to, this is what we call it because it makes sense for us. And we've done trainings to where it doesn't complicate other things, but there's a reason for that. But it's associated with an actual job. That's the most important thing is learning that that's role, this is what that role's job is, and this is what you're looking for as a contact team. You're looking for that tactical 'cause that's who you're calling for resources. So it's important to have that moniker, whatever you call it, but that you understand what that is and command of what their job is and all those kind of things, but getting them used to just hearing those terms.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, Kami the way you just said that made it click for me in a little bit of a different way. So, yeah, we're talking about the terminology, but more so, not more so, but the terminology and the fact that there's a specific job role that goes with that terminology, and that sets up the line of communication of who's responsible for what, who talks to whom, who's getting things done. Have you seen that be a challenge when you guys have worked with your own agencies to try to implement some of this stuff? Where have you gotten the challenges and where have you seen the aha moments?
Kami Maertz:
I think the biggest one, at least for us, is, which is odd, but is a law enforcement branch supervisor. That position, that job is kind of gets hidden among other jobs and people don't understand that role. So it's very clear they can take contact, they can understand what tactical is, but there's that first law enforcement branch supervisor. And then there's an an incident commander, that job somehow gets hidden and people forget that that's a role, forget that that's a job. And so kind of going back to them and telling them, "No, no, no, that is a job." That's who's tactical speaking to is really law enforcement branch supervisor. They're going by command, but that's their job. That's a task or a job specific. I don't know if you all have that with medical branch supervisor, but for some reason, people like to gloss over that that exists. That's a big thing for us.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yeah. And what I've seen more often than not is that we're trying to look at this through a different lens. They might be the NIMS where it's a hundred percent NIMS and this is the what I wanna fall back on because that's what they know. And this is a little bit of a different way of thinking, I don't wanna say a different mindset, but to a degree it is. The functionality is still there and it still works, but it's the struggle of this doesn't fit into what I know and I feel comfortable with what I know. So rather than look at it through maybe a different lens or see how this makes sense, they would rather try and plug it into what makes sense for them more so than anything.
Kami Maertz:
What they're used to, right? Because they're used to hearing command and that's the only one. So any other control position going, "I don't understand this."
Scott Formankiewicz:
Correct. Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
I think I've seen... I would agree with both of you. With the fire service specifically, I've seen hang up on the medical branch. No, no, I've gotta be command.
Kami Maertz:
Command, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
This has to be a unified command and kind of missing the point that the job of law enforcement branch and the job of medical branch is in the command post with the incident commander. They are the two that are coordinating the radio traffic, the information, making sure that whatever you're writing on in the command post, a whiteboard, or the wall, whatever, is getting updated with the latest information. You're maintaining situational awareness so that the incident commander or unified commanders who are having conversation amongst themselves and with other principles and may have missed that last 60 seconds on the radio or whatever, they have you to maintain that situational awareness and to make that connection. And I feel like that often gets lost because it's not, like you said, Scott, it's not the way I do it everyday.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yep. Another thing that I noticed too to chime is thinking about the almighty rank. So I think a lot of times, when we think about these positions and things like that, the commonplace is that these groups, division supervisors, they have to be like a chief's level individual. And what we're trying to say is that your frontline supervisors can fulfill some of these roles. And I think sometimes that's a challenge to wrap your head around is to go, "Wait a minute, somebody in our field doesn't wear a white helmet is gonna be making these critical decisions. I don't know, I'd rather have a chief." So I think sometimes that's a hang up too, is that the ranks that go along with these and how this structure works is a little bit different.
Terrance Weems:
Right. And the reality is at three o'clock in the morning on Saturday night, which one of those people are actually gonna be out and available during that time? If you have not invested in your people enough to trust them during an incident, then you are not doing your job. And that's just the way I feel about that.
Kami Maertz:
A hundred percent.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Couldn't agree more.
Kami Maertz:
A hundred percent. And for ours, with that, but in other positions too, it's tactical. People want that to be a supervisor position. They're like, "No, no, no, that needs to be a sergeant. That needs to possibly be a lieutenant." And they're not realizing that by the time a sergeant or lieutenant shows up, your incident management is completely out of control. That's the reason you're investing. That's such a good point, though. Invest in your people, right? Trust in your people. Trust in your training. Know that you're putting on good training, trust in that, but do the training to be able to trust in your people, but invest in them.
Bill Godfrey:
So the title of this episode, voluntary forced training, brings up an interesting thing that I think fits into what we're talking about. So you get enough buy-in to get the training put together and all of the line people are forced to go to the training. But all of the leadership, it's voluntary, and they voluntarily don't go to training. And so what do you do when you've got your lower levels of the organization, your bottom third or even the middle down trained, but the leadership level, who is gonna show up, who is gonna expect to be in charge, who is gonna expect to take this thing over and save the day, Never went to training, doesn't know the terminology, doesn't know the process. How do you overcome that?
Kami Maertz:
I think the bad thing is... And you're hoping that it's not on a true active shooter event, right? That it's at a lower level where that goes sideways, and they realize that their command is not effective and that they realize the inefficiencies in themselves because there's command. If they're not willing to step up and say, "I need this training there," either has to be somebody that's higher in command to say, "Yes, you do and we're gonna make this imperative." And when you're talking about like sheriffs, undersheriff, stuff like that, for them realizing and them having the buy-in, really the truth is, if you teach your lower level and your lower level has buy-in, the incident's gonna go okay. Command can make it go sideways when they get there if they're not buy-in 'cause they could turn what the great work you have going on and it's reinforcing to them. Their name's gonna be the ones in the paper. They're the ones that are gonna be accountable. So they want that buy-in. They want to know what their people are doing, what their people have been trained to do to keep it on the right task. And because if they let it go sideways, it's gonna be their names in the paper for it.
Terrance Weems:
My concern about that is that that's an organizational issue. That truly is and that is a probably a symptom of what's going on within your agency. Because if you are allowing those people at those higher echelon positions not to participate in training, then they are missing out on a whole bunch of stuff. The good thing is, they have people trained up that's gonna replace them when that thing goes bad.
Bill Godfrey:
Hey, I was gonna say, so I mean I always wanna make sure that we're giving some practical tips and practical advice 'cause I've been in this position several times to have to deal with this kind of thing. And there's a couple things that you can do as the training staff or the training team. One, try to understand what the real reason is that they're not coming to training, not the reason they give.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Terrance Weems:
Hmm.
Bill Godfrey:
What's the real reason? Often, it has been my experience that they will prioritize other things above going to the training because they're afraid of being embarrassed. They don't want to be embarrassed. Nobody wants to go to a training session and demonstrate that they don't have a level of competence-
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
That the people below them do. So, as a training team or a training manager, one of the things you can do, once you understand what those core issues are, is arrange separate training just for the leadership. You can have a separate sit down. And maybe it doesn't involve the practical exercises, maybe it doesn't involve the functional exercises or even the drills. Maybe it's just sitting around a conference table, explaining the terminology, explaining the lines of communication, and getting them oriented.
Sometimes you may need to do that one-on-one. You may need to do it privately. You may need to do it after hours on a weekend. You may need to do it over a lunch or a dinner. You've gotta build... Again, going back to relationships, you have to have enough relationship with those leaders, individually or as a group, to be able to say, "Look, I'm trying to be helpful here. This is a way for you to learn this stuff and to have a sense of confidence that you do understand what's going on."
In some cases, time is a real issue, especially in larger organizations. Leadership is pulled 20,000 different directions. And the idea... Like our advanced class is three days, there aren't very many fire chiefs, police chiefs or sheriffs that are able to clear three days off of their calendar to sit through class. And you know what, most cases they don't need to. We can sit down with a couple of hours and tell them what they need to know, and answer their questions and explain it. So if you find yourself in those situations, don't give up. Don't give up. There is a way to press forward. Any other tips or thoughts along those lines?
Scott Formankiewicz:
No, that was actually gonna be exactly what I was gonna say before you said it. Think about that.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh sure, it was.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Yeah. It's funny how that works, Bill. No, that was exactly it. It's just nobody, one of them wanna look as leaders of the organization, none of them wanna look terrible in front of their troops because we're all looking at them as you're the leadership, you're this. And I think going along with that of sometimes when you get us that'll go up there and train, that there needs to be and should be that confidence on our end that when I go up there and I train my administrative staff, that I'm not gonna come back and tell my troops this guy had no idea what he was doing and basically undermine them. So there needs to be that good-
Bill Godfrey:
Don't be a gossip.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Exactly.
Terrance Weems:
Right.
Scott Formankiewicz:
Exactly. We're trying to complete one mission. This is what we're trying to do. And I think them having that confidence in you is huge.
Terrance Weems:
Yeah. And one of the things, and this is just because I enjoy being with troops, and when you're training, you kind of take your rank and you put it to the side.
Kami Maertz:
You have to, yeah.
Terrance Weems:
And by doing that, for you to have a, let's say, a six-year trooper telling a 30-year captain that they're holding their pistol wrong or whatever the case may be, you have to have that trust built up in a relationship. We keep going back to that. But what it does is it now gives the younger folk on the agency and your subordinates an opportunity to see you as human. But also in this training here, if I'm a six-year trooper and I see a 20-year lieutenant or a 20-year captain sitting in this class with me, I know that they are bought in. I know that they're there intentionally, and they're all about what's going on. So now I have now put my trust not just in your program, but I put my trust in my captain, in my major because I know that they're there and that they're bought in.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah. And I think both of you all have made great points. For one thing, when you're at the lower levels, still have the buy-in, right? Still believe that change can happen. Don't lose faith in case there is somebody up in command who doesn't wanna change. Still have that buy-in. Still keep that buy-in you can change. And also though is from a command level is that those people do need to realize their presence at that, it's not to make them looking after anything. It is important to those troops for them to have that buy-in. And sometimes it's finding the right people. If you have a couple at least that are there, it's getting that level to just understand how important it is for those deputies, or sergeants, or lieutenants to look next to them and realize they're sitting next to them in training, and they're going through the same thing and learning the same thing. And if you get a couple of them on there, maybe they can even have the conversations with everybody else and things like that to bring in more people.
Bill Godfrey:
We don't often want to acknowledge the reality, but in a large organization, it can take two to three years to get everybody trained. It can take a long time. And a lot can happen in two or three years, including retirements.
Kami Maertz:
[Kami] A hundred percent.
Bill Godfrey:
And sometimes you just have to wait for them to retire and for things to move up from the ground level. You gotta play the long game on this one.
Kami Maertz:
[Kami] Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
When you get bogged down, don't quit, don't give up. You just gotta play the long game. Well, thank you, guys, for coming in and talking about this topic. I hope that was helpful to you. If you've got some specific challenges in your organization that you want to talk over with us, feel free to give us a call here at the office or shoot us an email at info@c3pathways.com. Again, that's info@c3pathways.com. Thank you, Karla, our producer as always, for taking good care of us. And until next time, stay safe.