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S4E9: How Colorado is Building Its Next Generation of Wildfire Responders · Empathy Affect

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_04: This is the sound of a fire line being dug by hand.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's slow.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: Physically tactics.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: You're cutting a strip of bare earth into a hillside, leaving nothing for wildfire to burn.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_04: In Colorado, some of the people doing that work right now are wearing two uniforms at once.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_04: They're members of both the Colorado National Guard and AmeriCorps.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: Same person, joint status.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_04: A structure that had never existed anywhere in this country until Colorado decided to build it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: New wildfires have rapidly spread across tens of thousands of acres in western and southern Colorado, south of Colorado Springs.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: December 30th, 2021.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: Boulder, Colorado.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: The suburbs between Denver and the mountains.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: There's snow in the forecast, and nobody in those neighborhoods is thinking about wildfire.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: But a fire starts in the dry grass outside of town.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Winds push it into a subdivision.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: It moves house to house, faster than people can leave.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_04: By the time it stops, over 1,000 homes and buildings are gone.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: $2 billion in losses.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's the most destructive fire in Colorado's history.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_04: And it happened in winter, in a suburb, in a state, most of the country, pictures under snow.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: That's why Colorado's officials no longer talk about fire season.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_04: They talk about a year-round condition.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: But the number of people who answer this threat is dwindling.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Outside of metro areas, most of Colorado's firefighters are volunteers.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_04: And the state is short more than 2,000 of them.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: The need is growing, the workforce is shrinking.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_04: That's the gap.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_04: So, two organizations built entirely around service sat down and asked what they could do together that neither could do alone.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: The result?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: A crew in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_04: Guard members serving simultaneously as AmeriCorps members, the first of its kind in the nation.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_04: By the end of that first season, half of them had job offers in wildland firefighting before their service was even over.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_04: This is Empathy Affect, the Force Marsh Media podcast that explores the human side of government.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Melissa Szyzinski, and today our guests are the two people who built this unique program.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: John Kelly is Executive Director of Serve Colorado, and Colonel Thomas Banker is the Colorado National Guard's Director of Homeland Defense and Resilience.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: With 26 years in uniform, Colonel Banker said he never heard of AmeriCorps.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: What intrigued him was a phrase, an alternative path to service.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: First, it started as a wildfire crew.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: Now it's becoming something much larger.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_04: Today, we learn how.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_04: John, Colonel Banker, it's an honor to have you on today.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_04: I'm excited to talk about the innovative ways your organizations are collaborating to help people serve their state in Colorado and protect their communities from the dangers of wildfire.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for joining me today.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Melissa, this is John Kelly.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to be with you today and be with my close friend and partner, Colonel Banker.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, John, thank you so much.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Melissa, Colonel Tom Banker, uh quite a pleasure of ours to be able to share some of our stories of what we've been doing here in Colorado.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh neat to see that it's kind of maybe gaining the national eye uh about how a state at an individual state level can address resiliency, uh, homeland defense, uh, and and all sorts of aspects like that.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: So pleasure is ours.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, let's get into it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'd love to first set the stage a bit.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: So Colorado has headed into 2026 with near record low snowpack, and your state's drought task force has already been activated for the first time since 2020.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_04: And now officials are describing wildfire as a year-round threat rather than a seasonal one.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_04: So, what does this new reality actually demand of the people and crews who have to respond?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really, really good question.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the facts are are real.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: They're right on.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it's been a huge shift that that we can't only think about wildfires during, quote, fire season anymore.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's a year-round effort.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that means investing in proactive mitigation work way before uh fire season begins.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: It also really forces us to think in more ways that we can collaborate.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: Wildfires can't be solved or mitigated just by any one organization alone or any institution alone.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: We really need to form new partnerships and innovate in order to uh address this growing vulnerability.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I mean again, phenomenal question and and poignant, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: That uh not many folks would think fire threat and risk is uh is a year-round uh issue for Colorado.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: If you're from a warmer, you know, southern state, you maybe think Colorado and the ski slopes available, but that's not the case all the time.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so one of the efforts I actually sit on underneath the governor's uh Homeland Security Advisory Council is a whole estate critical infrastructure working group.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: And we were actually born on the heels of a really bad day for Colorado.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that was New Year's Eve uh of 2021 called the Marshall Fire.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and that ripped through Boulder County, uh, you know, on New Year's Eve and uh 1,083 structures uh destroyed, two billion dollars in economic realized loss, uh super bad day.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: But it was a wildfire urban uh um wildland interface uh event right in the middle of winter.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: So but but just like John said, I mean, this this is a massive threat for Colorado.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: We have uh six or eight burning right now with almost zero containment uh across all of them.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if we look out our windows, the skies are are filled with smoke right now.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: But uh just like John said, uh this needs to be a whole of state approach, you know, with the federal, state, local, uh tribal entities that can tackle these sorts of things and finding new and unique ways to be able to address these problem sets through new partnerships.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and and you'll hear more about that from the National Guard perspective and what our amazing friends from Surve Colorado AmeriCorps are doing to help look at resilience uh like we've never seen before at an individual state level.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for setting some of the context.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's definitely a huge challenge uh now and I'm sure ahead.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_04: So looking at the landscape outside of metro areas in Colorado, a majority of the state's firefighters are volunteers, especially in rural areas.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: And the state's 2024 needs assessment found it short more than 2,200 firefighters combined.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: And at the same time, younger people are leaving rural communities and depend on, again, those volunteer departments.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_04: And at the same time, there are also federal cuts cutting through um roughly a quarter of Colorado's public lands workforce.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_04: So lots of challenges mounting on top of what you just said.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: The need is growing while the workforce is shrinking.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_04: So, how did we get to this gap and what does it look like on the ground across the most impacted communities?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: So the part of the gap is this is really hard work.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh being a wildland firefighter is no joke.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it is incredibly demanding work.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's also incredibly satisfying work, too.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh wildland firefighters are extremely proud of what they do and they should be.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: But the the need is growing and the workforce is shrinking.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: You're right on with that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we need to grow our efforts right now.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Our current footprint averages about 750 individuals serving in our youth and conservation corps, many of them doing wildfire mitigation work, getting the training and certifications that they need to begin a life and a career as a wild iron firefighter.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so we need to grow those efforts.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And because of this increasing demand, that was one of the reasons why we were interested in uh talking to our Colorado National Guard partners about how we can collaborate.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And because of the uh, like I said, it's it's demanding work and it just felt like a really good fit with our partners at um at the National Guard.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that was one of the reasons why we we started these conversations and and began this collaboration.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and just phenomenal insight, you know, and and you know, those older guys, and you know, maybe the folks that are gonna be listening, you know, won't be able to see it, but John and I are definitely in the older guy bucket here.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we we are witnessing that that stray from service, if you will.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh, and and I'm the one that's on the call here wearing that uniform, you know, 26, 27 years in this uniform.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so you you see that gap and and divide starting to happen a little bit with the younger generations.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: But one of the things that absolutely fascinated me the most and teaching old dog new tricks day in and day out.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I'd I'd never heard of AmeriCorps and I'd never heard of of Serve Colorado and and everything that they were capable of doing.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: And right off the bat, I I was hit with a a tagline for for how they view themselves, and I carry it with me everywhere when I sing their praises.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: But it's an it's an alternate pathway to service.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: It it's it's it's not my pathway.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I I raised raise my right hand and and uh sort of defend the Constitution, and that's been my life.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: And but maybe that's not the next generation's way of viewing service.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: So what these individuals are offering are alternate pathways to service uh for their individual state, for the region, for the for the United States of America.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so when we are faced with super tough challenges, um whether it's wildfire mitigation, you know, wildland fighting, uh firefighting uh or other uh that that maybe has a defense nexus, these had become tremendous partners in AmeriCorps and serve Colorado.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: And we we reach out to them every time we have a budding challenge uh emerging that we might need workforce.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: We might need unique creative ways to be able to help address some of these problems.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so I, you know, John knows this by now.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: I don't I don't go into any engagement or event uh without reaching out to AmeriCorps Serve Colorado uh first, because they're always gonna say yes, they'll be at the table, and they'll help us solve some of those solutions.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_04: Colonel Banker saw the value in Serve Colorado and AmeriCorps, but you may have caught that he didn't initially know what they were.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: Fair enough.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_04: For those of you out there, here's the 101.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: Every state has a service commission created by federal statute that administers AmeriCorps dollars.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: Colorado's version of this sits in the Lieutenant Governor's office.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: It funds and supports about 750 young people a year serving in Youth and Conservation Corps, many of them doing wildfire mitigation work.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: And it has two priorities: protect the state's public lands and get more people into public service careers.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so those were the two priorities that drove us to initiate the conversations, you know, with the Colorado National Guard.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: And what we found is like two organizations that were deeply committed to service and expanding service opportunities that didn't really know each other well.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we started our first um conversations back in 2023, and we signed a first of its kind memorandum of understanding simply to work together, to jointly recruit together, and to seek to provide more service opportunities that benefited communities all across the state and supported the mission of the National Guard.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was the basis for the first conversations uh that we had.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_04: So this crew that you've developed is the first of its kind in the nation, which is really notable to highlight.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_04: Congrats.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_04: But it's come with various partners spanning the military, national service, youth corps, federal lands.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_04: When you were building it, what were some of the challenges in aligning these different worlds that may not seem to naturally line up on paper?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: And what was effective in helping bridge them together?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Alyssa, that's a great question.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: There definitely was alignment work that was needed.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: When you bring together different organizations, some have worked together, some haven't.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: The National Guard and AmeriCorps, the State Service Commission, we had never really worked together before.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so the alignment that took place, though, was both figuring out the challenges of how to operationalize something.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was also alignment on the benefits of something that we could build together.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so the operational challenges had to do with training schedules and what members are allowed to do and when that timing takes place.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you begin to have conversations with National Guard members about this opportunity and what the value proposition would be?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: We also needed to figure out just very simple things about language.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: AmeriCorps has its own way of talking about service and its own kind of AmeriSpeak that we use.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we had to learn how the guard talks about service.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: We found so much mission alignment, but not always the way that we described it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're also talking about just regulated systems.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so we needed to make sure that, you know, the alignment on the rules and what people could do and what benefits they could receive, how that would all flow and work out.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: But then the other side was the mission and the benefits to the program.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And there's some really fun, concrete pieces around that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like the National Guard in Colorado receives free tuition at higher education institutions, but they often don't have resources or there aren't resources provided for some of the wraparound pieces, the books, the computer, those, those kind of pieces.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, AmeriCorps members earn an education award.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we found that our benefits lined up really well, where the guard benefits of free tuition and the AmeriCorps benefit earned could pay for the room and board and could pay for the computer.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a very practical kind of alignment piece that worked out.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: We also found that we're really recruiting a lot of the same population and talking about service to the same population.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's that 18, 19-year-old kid who's mission-driven, who, you know, has a heart for their uh state and their country and wants to make the world a better place.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they're looking to figure out what their career is going to be.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so by coming together, uh, we were really able to provide a unique experience and pathway for individuals that that we, you know, we had incredible success with the initial crew and we believe we can build on.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it was through a lot of communication, a lot of education and listening to one another that really made all that alignment work come together.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: Inherently, as a commander, uh, any good commander worth their weight wants to take care of their troops.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: And that doesn't necessarily just mean equipping them, training them, and preparing them for their for the mission that they might have to, you know, you know, execute someday.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: But ultimately, it's providing opportunity.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, how do you make your troops better?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: How do you offer them opportunities to get places in the world where they maybe want to be going?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so AmeriCorps served, that's exactly what they're offering guardsmen is an opportunity, uh, you know, if they are not on a full-time status to have attainable opportunities, alternate pathways to service with tremendous upskilling benefits uh on the back end.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I I view it as an opportunity to to thank what they do for our guardsmen because ultimately they're not only providing them opportunities uh for employment uh and access to employment like we've never seen before, but on the back end of that employment, uh they're continuing to take care of them, they're giving them the education benefit, they're they're helping them realize and obtain their dreams.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: So uh they're doing a wonderful thing for for the men and women that wear a uniform at the individual state level.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and going back to how we were um looking at the rural situation before, as people are leaving, they may not be thinking there's opportunity there.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_04: And it sounds like, you know, between financial support, career advancement opportunities, the whole gambit, the benefits that both of your organizations are bringing to the table can really incentivize people to stick around and you know pursue this in the longer term.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: I do want to focus on the fact that one person can serve as both a guard member and an AmeriCorps member at the same time is unique.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: So I want to pick your brains on that a little bit.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: What makes this dual status different from just, you know, adding another crew and practically how do you make, you know, one person being two things at once actually work?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great question.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I also think it's the coolest thing about this partnership because we're not just adding another wildfire crew and we're not just we're adding new recruitment pipelines for the Guard or for AmeriCorps.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: What we're doing is we're we're bridging and we're bringing together two service-oriented systems that have a similar mission to serve the the communities in our state.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so it is really that power that we're tapping into.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: The Guard provides incredible training and career opportunities for individuals, as does AmeriCorps.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when you bring those together and you have especially these Guard members, is as Colonel Banker described as the traditional members, they are going to be part-time civilians, part-time members of the military.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so by bringing those together, taking the issue area and priority focuses of what the Guard needs to have a successful force and a powerful force, and providing the education and training opportunities through AmeriCorps service, you're actually supporting the whole individual while they're benefiting the state and the community in two very important and critical ways.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was that merging that that I think is just uh the real coolness and power of this partnership.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: It required a lot of intentional planning, as we've talked about, but it makes both the Guard and AmeriCorps and the individuals serving much stronger together.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for bringing clarity into that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like sometimes you can think this is how AmeriCorps works, this is how National Service works.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_04: So seeing them come together in this really unique way is awesome.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: I want to look at how this has been going so far.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so from what I understand, you launched in Steamboat Colorado in 2025.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_04: So, what's a moment from that first season, maybe a person, a project, or results on the ground that told you it was working?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: And is this turning into a genuine on-ramp into permanent firefighting and conservation careers or more of a meaningful first experience for people who are participating?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: I've got two quick ones for you.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I and and when I got to go out and visit that crew and meet them, it was so powerful.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, we saw in that first crew a direct connection between the service work in AmeriCorps that these guard members experienced and did for our state and their next steps.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Half of the crew immediately went into wildland firefighting.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: They had job offers before they finished their service.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other half, they are also looking at similar public good, common good careers as well in law enforcement, in uh EMT work.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're taking some of that training, some of those certifications that they earned in AmeriCorps and are still putting it to use, just not directly in wild dam firefighting.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we think there's a huge opportunity to grow this into more and more fields.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the forestry work, we have a real strong interest in that and real need for organizations and municipalities across our state and cybersecurity work so we can build on this momentum.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: So that clear pipeline into the careers that we need in this state was just so incredible to hear and to meet the members and hear their passion about it was fantastic.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing that I just absolutely loved is a couple of the members took it upon themselves to make videos and film all kinds of different pieces of their experience serving.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they had been deployed to work on a wildfire after receiving all their training and certification.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: And they had just incredible experience and they put it to music.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it was such an inspiring piece that they just did totally on their own.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we had to immediately ask for a copy and permission to use it for recruiting.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they gladly gave it to us.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: So now we have guard members and that some of the materials they created in that first crew that we're gonna be using to inspire uh future guard members to serve as well.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that was really fun that they just showed that initiative.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Passion about what they were doing and kind of created those materials.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot of fun.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_04: That's so amazing.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like when you hear that enthusiasm from the ground to the point where they're making things, like that is the greatest buy-in tool you could you could even have, like full stop.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: Colonel Benker, are there any stories or moments from uh last year's sort of kickoff that stick with you?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: It was John was talking about uh, you know, his two points, the the phenomenal to have a quick flashback to uh wonderful co-worker of John Kelly's uh Miss Ariana Patek.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: She uh, you know, also gleaming with joy uh the success of all their efforts from the lieutenant governor's office.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh at the heels of their uh season, she was able to share with uh a picture, and she was like a like a like a proud leader herself.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: But she showed me a picture of the crew, and you could tell they had probably just recently come off mission.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: They they were grubby and and and beaten up and and and dirty and in and the full uh wildland firefighter battle rattle, but they had massive smiles on their face, and she was pleased to be able to point out two of them to me from that picture and said these two individuals were offered jobs before they even concluded their seasonal mission.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so with with her pride, with the smiles on those uh guardsmen's face, to know that they had potentially found something they love, something they find service in and accomplishing, and to know that it was a partnership like this that paved a path for that, not just to provide safety-bearing measures for the citizens of Colorado uh and the wildland fire arena, but also to take care of a couple guardsmen and uh create a pathway, not just for service, but for future employment.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it gets any sweeter than that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh small proof of concept, but like you said earlier in your initial question to John, a hopeful on-ramp to future success stories just like that one.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I sure hope so.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: And and I feel pretty good about it that that we'll see more of those kinds of pictures.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely love it.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_04: I know how we were talking about how wildfire is, you know, the proving ground, but this underlying idea pairing national service with military readiness to build a resilient civilian workforce could apply elsewhere, like how we were talking about cybersecurity, floods, infrastructure, public health.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_04: Where do you think the country or other regions should take this model next?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_04: And what might others learn from this that uh should or could be replicated?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I and I know we've we've already started to touch on this, but this initial model is just the tip of the iceberg.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I feel like this partnership can grow in so many different directions.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: We really spent that first pilot year figuring out those logistics of how to make these two systems work.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: But there's so many other areas that this can be applied to, and that there's operational and mission overlap that we can we can really apply it to.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that includes education, public health, land management, and a variety of other community-based service roles.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: I am super excited about the potential and the early conversations we're having around cybersecurity as well.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's there's so much need there as well.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as as other states um look at this, and we are we're being very evangelical about this.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: We are sharing the energy and excitement we have around our partnership with our state colleagues.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've been so happy that the leadership of the Guard has been talking to the leadership of the Guard in other states, that they should look into AmeriCorps and partnerships.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we're doing the same as we talk to our AmeriCorps partners in other states, saying you really need to talk to your Guard folks and make this work.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it begins with a simple partnership and crafting that first MOU about your goals and your purpose and how you want to work together.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can meet the needs of your state through those conversations and that collaboration.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that very simple first document that you want to be committed to service and work together is the beginning point.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it is such an easy step to take.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, this is awesome.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: So finally, a question I feel confident I can actually speak intelligently to.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I've I've been trying to keep up with John uh for the bulk of this interview.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: But so I I don't know if I uh mentioned at the beginning, I'm not sure if I told you my whole duty title, but so uh director of homeland defense and resilience uh at the individual state level.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm the first of its kind across guard nation, uh, in which uh they've applied some manpower uh to be able to look at homeland defense and resilience uh at an individual state level.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so you talk about other alternate ways to apply this proof of concept in a homeland defense and resilience arena, but I could spend the next 30 minutes, but we only have 10 more uh talking about that sort of stuff.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: So really my focus area right now is uh is understanding that homeland defense is a is a national topic of concern, like nothing I've seen in 26, 27 years of services.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's understanding that the Department of War and our and our United States military, if and when we hope we don't have to go fight that next large war, that next large fight, we know that that fight will not look like any other fight we've had to experience before.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: And the homeland will be held in harm's way.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: In in ultimately, the adversary's ability and and and and thought to be able to reach out and touch the homeland, maybe uh it's through the degradation of your critical infrastructure, your uh the resources you take for for granted, such as communications and access to clean water, maybe access to your financial institutions, you know, uh but understanding that the next time we have to do our global mission, it's not gonna look like we've ever had to do before.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a problem.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: And unfortunately, that's a problem that's gonna take a whole of society, a whole of state approach to prepare for.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so when we are looking at some of the threat vectors of concern, and I always come back to the very tangible notion of critical infrastructure, it's uh the things that reside in your communities to provide energy, water, wastewater removal, communications, your transportation nodes, uh your agriculture sectors, your healthcare sectors, uh, there's a lot of threat vulnerabilities of concern in those sectors.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Partnership and what we've been able to experience with SERV and AmeriCorps on the wildland fire fighting space can easily and is as we speak being considered for spin-off opportunities to be able to look at how we can leverage that partnership for homeland defense measures and means as we are working with some of our statewide critical infrastructure assets and owners uh that are very key to the Department of War's mission sets here in Colorado across uh primarily our army forces and our space forces.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: But if I go to John and I say, hey, John, listen, we're we're looking at taking a show on the road.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be able to bring together a group of individuals that can help me address resiliency in four primary buckets, whether it's physical resiliency, cyber defense, good old-fashioned funding and redundancy building, or consequence management planning, uh training and exercises.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: And we get some partners across the state and serve in AmeriCorps are one of the first uh I call and they show up to those meetings we just had three weeks ago.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: I know that the creativity will be there to further flex and leverage this alternate pathway to service, to maybe being able to find ways to talk about cyber defense through a future cyber corps, uh, to talk about how we can make more resilient, more secure, some of our state's most critical infrastructure assets.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: And again, it's the proof of concept was uh digging hand, you know, uh hand lines for wildfires.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: But when we need to start looking at other problem sets that are facing the nation right now, John Kelly, AmeriCorps, serve, they answer the email, they answer the call, they join the meeting, and then they go back and start trying to find ways to make better.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that this is a subject that I've that's near and dear to my heart.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's my full-time job.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, this is what I focus on.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's it's fun to be able to take this partnership and spin it into a slightly different flavor uh and look at how we can build resiliency uh in other flavors, if you will, across the state of Colorado.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: Melissa, can I give a concrete example of how that has taken place and the incredible work Colonel Banker is doing to look at critical infrastructure around the state and what it's led to?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: So in Colonel Banker's example, as he's looking at critical infrastructure, one of the examples he gives is about this very important reservoir in our state that provides a significant amount of water for um civilian populations, but it also provides water for some of the military installations.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it is under the threat of wildland firefighter.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: There is pine beetle kill all around that reservoir.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if a fire goes through there, we're gonna have a significant issue.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so Colonel Banker was using this reservoir as an example.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: And because we had the relationship and he invited us into the room, we just followed up and said, Hey, who owns this?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Who's responsible for this management?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: Can we, you know, call a meeting and figure out what we can do together?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we ended up with Denver Water, Aurora Water, the U.S.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Forest Service, Colorado National Guard, Serve Colorado, one of our youth and conservation corps, the governor's climate resiliency office, all coming together and having this conversation and saying, hey, is there something that we could do together through this informal collaboration and our shared mission and efforts?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we have already generated a couple of different funding proposals to find how we can work.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: The scientists involved in this have already, they had already designed a 20-year mitigation plan.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: And with the threat of pine beetles coming in, the threat level is increasing.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we're like, how can we cut that mitigation plan in half?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: What can we do in the next five years together?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: What level of threat can we reduce in 10 years together?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so we are putting together a number of different proposals to draw resources at this, to mobilize National Guard members, serving in AmeriCorps, and other partners are bringing resources to the table as well to figure out how we can address this threat to our community.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it all started with this just shared mission of service and wanting to make our communities more resilient.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, such a beautiful, concrete example there.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_04: And what I'm taking away from this conversation, it really does take a village, all of state, all of country.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's just a really solid way to bring uh us home with this conversation.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: So, John, Colonel Banker, thank you both for your time today and for sharing how service and readiness can come together in really innovative ways.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think there's so much that other regions can learn from this conversation.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I wish y'all the best as you continue to take on wildfire challenges together in the future.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: So I appreciate the time.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for having us.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Melissa.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_04: What still gets me after this conversation is that John and Colonel Banker come from two different organizations, both in the same state, both built entirely around the idea of service.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_04: But until a few years ago, they had never really spoken to each other.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't out of competition, just out of habit, each in their own lane.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_04: Since you've stuck around to the end, I'll let you hear John name exactly why that happens.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so the natural instinct far too often is to hold on to this is my piece, and I need to prove my value and worth.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm gonna hold on to it tight and not invite others in.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: But the the moment that that you do and you seek that whole of state, whole of community, and allyship approach, and ask the question what you can accomplish together that you can't accomplish alone is when real real stuff happens.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's where the real work is, that's the magic.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_04: That's the whole episode, really.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: Because what came out of that first conversation between Serve Colorado and the National Guard wasn't a study or task force or memo that went nowhere.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_04: It was a crew of young people ready to serve and seek opportunity.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_04: And by the end of one season, half of them had jobs waiting.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's a small proof of concept.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_04: Colonel Banker said so himself.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_04: But it's already spreading into cyber, into critical infrastructure, into a conversation about a reservoir that supplies water to Colorado communities and military installations.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_04: If you work in government, an industry, or anywhere near the gap between a mission and the workforce to meet it, the takeaway from Colorado isn't the wildfire crew.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_04: It's the question that produced it.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_04: What could we do together that neither of us could do alone?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for tuning in to Empathy Affect.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_04: If we've sparked something, share it with someone who'd want to hear it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_04: I hope it'll inspire the collaboration we need to drive change and impact.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: In the meantime, I hope you'll join us next time.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, y'all.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Empathy Effect is a product of Forest Marsh.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach us at Forrest Marsh Media at Forzmarsh.com with any feedback, questions, or inquiries.
• 35:39
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