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Joe Grube | A Career Built on Public Safety · The Wilmac Wire

• speaker-0: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, welcome, or welcome back to the Will MacWire. Thank you for tuning in. Our guest today is someone who was part of the Will Mac Pack for six years before moving on to bigger stages in the industry. He's one of the most respected voices that we've come across in the nine one one space, and we're especially grateful that during his busy summer months, while he spent some time in New York, he came to Rock Fox Studios to record with us in Today we're sitting down with Joe Groob, Regional Services Manager at Motorola Solutions, a guy who's literally lived this industry from every possible angle. Dispatcher, Captain, 911 Coordinator, Volunteer Fire Chief, Will Mac, Motorola. There aren't many people who can say that they've sat on every side of the table, and that's created a very unique perspective. So today, Steve and I sat him down across the table from us and had an awesome. Conversation. Here's what you can expect. We dug into Joe's career journey, of course, and what 24 years on the public sector side taught him about leadership. We also dove into what crossing from the public sector to the private sector felt like for him and what it's changed about how he sees the industry. We discussed that industry partner versus vendor relationship, and we dug into where 911 is heading over the foreseeable future with all the rapid changes that have been going on. We were so glad to have Joe join us in person. So I'm just gonna turn it over to today's episode of the Will Macwire. Welcome to the Will MacWire. I'm Emily Miller, joined by my co-host, Steve McDonnell. On this show, we talk with the drivers, the leaders, innovators, and decision makers pushing customer interaction technology and AI forward. And because we're proud to call Western New York home, we also spotlight the drivers in our own community, the people and organizations shaping growth and innovation right here. Let's get into it. Okay. We'll get started with introducing our guest today. He's originally from Western New York, but now based in the Jacksonville, Florida area. He's a twenty four year law enforcement veteran who started as a dispatcher and worked his way up to captain and nine one one coordinator at the Cataragas County Sheriff's Office. He spent over thirty years as a volunteer firefighter and fire chief alongside his law enforcement career, including responding to New York City after nine eleven. He's moved to the private sector where he spent six years at Wilmac before joining Motorola Solutions. He's also a graduate of the FBI National Academy and a certified emergency number professional. Welcome to the Wilmacwire. Joe Groove. Joe, speaker-1: Thank you for having me. speaker-0: thanks for joining us. speaker-2: Quite the list, some of that I didn't even know about. speaker-0: Yeah. I was gonna say Steve and I were chatting about it this morning, he's like, He did that too yeah, it's pretty impressive. speaker-2: Lived a whole life before you came to Wilmack. Literally. speaker-1: That's like a reset, right? speaker-0: Yeah. All right, wonderful. Well thank you for joining us in Studio Joe. We know you've had a very busy summer. So we are glad to to make this work. but we're gonna get things started with a brief icebreaker that we like to call this or that. So I have three questions for you, two options for each question. You just choose your preference and explain a little bit why. Nothing nothing too difficult. We'll see how you feel at that in a bit though. okay, first one New York summers or Florida winters. speaker-1: Florida Winters. speaker-0: Yeah. We were speaker-2: Yeah, I speaker-0: just covering Yeah. I was gonna say that was that was gonna be my guess. speaker-1: Yeah, Florida winters. Because you know, especially our part of Florida, Florida winter is like fall here. Yeah. We're speaker-2: Which is the best season here. speaker-1: just right. Open windows, you know. Below freezing a handful of times. lots of open window time. Great time to be outside. Great time to like that's when you go exploring. Yeah. speaker-0: It's just super cool. speaker-2: Emily speaker-1: Once every thirty years. speaker-2: does this question for people who live in Rochester full time, but she'll give, you know, summer or fall. So you wanna give winter, obviously. speaker-1: great. speaker-2: And everyone picks fall. Everyone loves fall. So that makes sense. How much cooler does it get in Jacksonville than say like down in Miami or Fort Lauderdale in the winter? Because those places are still pretty warm. speaker-1: It does stay warm. We have friends that live in in like Cape Coral, Punta Goda area and they're they have air conditioning on all winter long. And for us, the air conditioning's off by you know, once in a while. It has to go on in November. But typically, you know, it's no air conditioning and then heat for a little while in January and February and and then back to you know, March is great too. October, November, March, April, just speaker-2: Have you gotten any frost? speaker-1: Yeah. It li it's especially last year. Last year was really ridiculously cold for for there, you know, in the in the mid twenties a few times. Yeah, and below and then frost a f handful of times. You know outside of that. So normally it's six or seven times a year it freezes. So you know, you've you kill off some plants. Yeah. You know, that you leave out. And the but the funny thing is, and and my wife this blew my wife's mind. She She planted some plants and it's like, hey, when winter comes, we're not gonna worry about it. Some people cover their stuff. Yep. When they're dead, they're dead. So they die, we rip out, throw in the trash. Yeah. And then it starts to warm up. Don't they come back? And they're annuals. Really? They're like speaker-0: You're not supposed to. speaker-1: petunias that don't grow very well down there because she must buy speaker-0: Yeah, right. speaker-1: back. So it's the gift that keeps on giving. You have to buy over and over. speaker-0: Yeah, that's for sure. okay, next one. Bills or Jaguars? I was gonna say speaker-1: god, Bills. Okay. Even remotely. Like I went to the Bills Jags playoff game last year and took our neighbors who are like crossover fans because of us. Yeah. And but they're Jags fans. So they were like they were like, We don't might we want the Jags to win, but whatever, it's all good because they really love the Bills. And there were a lot of Bills fans there. The whole sale. It was so cool. And they were getting pretty cocky toward the end of that game and then They're just shaking their heads like I don't know how they do. speaker-2: What are the j are there a big amount of Jag wire fans down there or is it transplant at any speaker-1: No, no, it's it's there's a really good core. there's a lot of transplants. It's funny you see a lot of Ravens fans. Interesting. some people that are really old time that were f foot hard die hard football fans before before the Jags got there, because it was only ninety five, I think, is when they spun up. so you've got some some dolphins fans that are sprinkled in, poor people. You know, I feel sad for them. They're gonna struggle. speaker-0: Yeah, so to say Alex Laporte's a a dolphins fan, I asked him when he came down. Yeah. But all right. Okay. I was hoping you would say that. That was a setup question. speaker-1: I can't imagine of anything else to speaker-0: Love it. Okay. Last one, a little bit more public safety related, but first day as a dispatcher or first day as captain? speaker-2: If you can remember. speaker-1: I can remember. Yeah. I I'll say first first day taking over as captain in communications because it was kind of a in that role, I got to mix on a daily basis all of my fire and EMS and police experience in and to help everybody. So for me it was like a it was a bit of a a little bit of a crowning achievement to come through that and kind of mix the things that I love to do. Because, you know, and we'll get into it more, but a lot of the stuff that I was doing before I went to the sheriff's office was ho you know, I loved it because it was almost a hobby. Yeah. And so it was it was really that mixture that was cool. And and you know, starting out as a dispatcher was almost like a I need something to do in the summer. Yeah. It wasn't intended to turn into what it turned into. That's it. speaker-2: It's that's a common theme we've heard. speaker-1: All the time. speaker-0: Okay, so that transitions us nicely now into our first theme on your career journey, Joe. So you started as a dispatcher at Cataragas in nineteen eighty seven. So what brought you into that round? speaker-1: So it it's a it's an interesting story that I like to tell people, you know, I grew up multi-generational in the fire department. My volunteer small I grew up in a small town. When you know, I haven't looked lately, but last I looked the population's eight hundred thirty two. Right. So you know, my grandfather and my father were volunteers speaker-2: In the same speaker-1: in the same town, right? We all whole family lived in the same town with cousins and the whole like it was just it's just where we all lived. And so you know, I my brother and I would be at the fire station, you know, at five, six years old, helping him wash, climbing on everything, getting yelled at. And so it was just me there constantly with my dad. And then it's the second I turned eighteen and was able to join, I joined the fire department. Okay. And so it was like my it was really my hobby. It really always has been my hobby. And so you know, I get done with high school and I have big plans. You know, I I go to UB for electrical engineering. I'm gonna do something really cool. And you know, back then they didn't they didn't give money away. No, right? You had to you had to pay and I got through the first year and the bill came for a year two and I'm like I don't think I can do this. But in the summer between freshman and sophomore year at at U B I I s needed a job. And a friend of mine's like, Hey, we're hiring at the sheriff's office for dispatchers and we love we need part time people. We love recruiting volunteers. Do you wanna do it? And so I did and interviewed it and got the job and started working in that summer and I realized when I got the big bill from UB and I had a job that I could work all I wanted for all intents and purposes, that maybe it was time to pause. Yeah. And that derailed that right for then. So it turned into you know, part of the training was to do ride along with the deputies and I'm like, hey, this is kind of cool. So, you know, they they say, Hey, well, if you take the civil service test and you do well on it, you know, we'll send you to the academy. So I do, I score number one and you know, it's just a snowball after that, right? What really really soon with a ride along, it was part of the training. So I was doing it during the summer that year and ends the fall. Yeah. And then I went to the academy in late nineteen eighty eight and started as a deputy in in nineteen eighty nine and in January when I finished the academy. speaker-0: Do you know if that's typical for ride alongs? 'Cause I know we talk a lot about the training with an speaker-1: Centers. I think it sparks I think it sparks interest in public safety at a broader level. Right. in fact, if when you talk to nine one one centers about recruiting, in my experience, a lot of them have trouble keeping people, you know, in two sleeves of of the business, right? You got part of it is people don't really want to do shift work, they don't want to really want to do overtime, or they just don't like the job because it's too intense. And then you have the other people who do it because they want to be in public safety and it's their it's their stepping stone while they wait to get into the police academy or they wait to get into the fire academy because they want to be a firefighter or a police officer. So and they lose those people. So y you know, it's really important for them to kind of find the sweet spot to keep the people that really wanna do the work and stay there and make a career out of it. Yeah. And when you find those people they're kind of gold. speaker-2: We ha we have heard too that working in the communication center and being dispatch helps police officers so they understand what is actually going on in there. Where sometimes they can look at it and be like, Come on, I'm out in the field. Right. What are you doing? And they actually get to feel and see what it is and they have a little bit more patience and they end up being better at their job. speaker-1: for I agree. we were fortunate that that was the vision. You know, at the sheriff's office you did a ride along with law and f with with the deputies as a part of the training for for being a dispatcher. and then not then but not too long after that, they started making the the police officers do at I think two sh two full shifts in communications to kind of understand. And of course you always put the brand new deputy with the crustiest, toughest dis speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: so that they can get you know, they can get that lesson fast. Right. And then they learn right th quick. Those good crusty like like old school like do it my way or else I'll send you to the worst calls there are kind of people. Those are the those are the dispatchers that the police learn to love because they always have your back. Right. So it's it's funny. That's a good combination of people to stick together to learn. What's going on? speaker-2: Where was the academy? speaker-1: Jamestown. So in the southern tier, Allegheny, Cataragas, and Chautauqu Counties kinda share it's a region and Chautauch County Sheriff's Office in combination with Jamestown Community College run the academy and and that's where it is and it's still run there today. So when you when you go you got to you got college credits and you know that's kind of funny because here I've got a year's worth of college here and a year, you know, a six months worth of college here and You know, over time you turn into an adult learner and you know speaker-2: You got it. speaker-1: you know, eighteen years after you intended to have a bachelor's degree, you finally end up getting one. speaker-2: How long is the Academy for? speaker-1: started in August and ended in December. And it's still about that now, yeah. speaker-2: And you live down there and you're there. speaker-1: Yep. Yep. Yeah. speaker-0: So did you do dispatching and police work in tandem? speaker-1: I did. Okay. So I I continued to work weekends and sometimes nights, but not very often while I was at the Academy. Okay. just because you gotta put gas in the car and put it on the table. but then after I got done with the academy and got through everything and got hired, then once I got hired full time I no longer worked in dispatch. But it was that that connection to dispatch that you know, because I came from dispatch I had that better understanding, I think. And I always I always had that technology connection to and you know, talk about technology back then. It's weird because the sh the the guy who ran communications back then at that point he was a lieutenant and then they upgraded the position to being a captain. He was super smart. And he created his own database program for us to have a a records management system That he made out of the box, right? Taught himself D Base 3 Plus, if anybody even remotely remembers what that product is. You know, and so they were entering calls in a database and printing out papers for us to print to write reports. It wasn't a blotter anymore, a paper blotter. There was no CAD though. No. And there was no 911 yet. Right. This was this was pre-n-enhanced 911. So when you needed the sheriff's office, you called Either an eight hundred number or the seven digit number, depending on where you lived in the county and and so it was several years before nine one one even came to cataragas. yeah, speaker-2: Were you volunteering fire at the speaker-1: I never stopped. Yeah. In fact I I combined that together. I I became a an assistant chief. I was our EMS captain. I really I really enjoyed that. I mean in Cataragas County there's only two paid fire departments, there's only a handful of people at each agency and they don't really pay that well. So the idea of being a fire f a paid firefighter really was not on my radar, particularly once I got working at the sheriff's office. But the ability to combine that with law enforcement got me into fire investigation. So there was an opening on the county's fire investigation team and and I asked to be on it and and they're like, You really want to do that? Yes, I do. So lots of training there, you know, it so that was another way to parallel the fire service along with law enforcement, get in the fire investigation. Eventually in the tech you know, as I moved through the agency and was a detective and then a deck detective sergeant, I was running our or the lead team leader of our fire investigation team and the county's arson investigator. So I was doing that along, you know, so it married that together. I was I was fire chief for nine years during that time in my in my fire department. Yeah. So it was just one thousand percent public safety. Live breathe needed the whole time. Right. Yeah. So speaker-2: were you how were you doing your schedule back then when you were fire chief detective? speaker-1: best you can, just like people do it today, you know. you know, it's difficult for volunteer fire departments to find people that have the dedication and you just you just go and you can. And the nice part about by this when I was fire chief, my time during f being fire chief was while I was a patrol lieutenant and then when I was a captain. That's when I was chief. Yeah. And so that gave me more flexib a little bit more flexibility to Not so much when I was patrol lieutenant, but I was working four, ten hour days, so I had two full three full days off every week to do stuff. And you've got your out of o hours. So but I was getting up it in the middle of the night and going on calls and then when I was communicating when in communications as a captain, still fire investigator, the sh the sheriff gave me really free reign to be able to hey, there's a fire call. I'm gonna go to it. Right. And As long as it was okay and there wasn't anything emergent going on then I could go and and kinda wear both hats and they did not care. Can you speaker-2: So could you operate like that in a larger county or did it help being in a county? speaker-1: I think it helped being in a smaller county for sure. and it helped that the sheriff at the time was also a volunteer. Yeah. speaker-2: So we understood. speaker-1: I worked for four sheriffs and two of the four were were heavy into the volunteer fire department as well. So you know, by the time they were sheriff they weren't they weren't really leading their agency, but they were still active and so they supported it. speaker-2: And is it common in smaller counties to be doing heavy range a bit of everything? speaker-1: I think so because there's only so many people. And if you're if you've got some passion about it and you're good at it, then you know, you d they want you they want you to do it. speaker-2: It is surprising, we've had this conversation a few times, how many th that there's just not very many paid fire positions. Even in Monroe County. Right. There's just speaker-1: Right. And it's I think I don't know what the number is. I remember there was a study ten or fifteen years ago, maybe more, that said it would cost New York State something like two billion dollars a year just to replace the volunteers with clean departments. Yeah. And I mean, there's not two billion dollars laying around to do something with. We don't know where speaker-2: There might be Where it is. speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. Let me ask Joe, obviously you progressed up to leadership. Was that always in mind when you got into like the academy or speaker-1: I was always I was always wanting to do more. I always kind of had that in my head that you know, what's next for me? What you know, thinking in my head what's what's a couple years out. Right. You know, I was doing my job and and felt like I was pretty good at it and g always got good feedback. So I was never discouraged to to not you know, never discouraged from from taking the next leap. speaker-0: Yeah, and I feel like in public safety they have a predefined path. So you see speaker-1: You could make it. Right. speaker-2: Yeah. And do they help guide you through that path or is it on speaker-1: Well in my agency a little bit of both. I think the initiatives open the opens the eyes to the leaders to say, you know, we've got this person that we want to push through the agency and help us grow. I think if you don't if you don't kind of make it known a little bit, then you may be under the radar and and then and then wonder why they didn't come to you. Yeah. So you kinda have to speak up. Mm-hmm. But There were a few times where I, you know, said, Hey, I really want to do this. Yeah. You know, so right. And and and they always and the leaders were always like, That's interesting. I'm glad you told me. Let's see where that goes. Yeah. You know, I keep you in mind. And so that's why, you know, I bounced around a little bit. I think that You know, pretty early on I think the sheriff knew that when the guy that was running communications retired that he wanted me to do it because I was just total geek, right? You know, when I was in the Detective Bureau, I took the I took the the software that they made for communications and I built a fire investigation database because I was tired of trying to read the fire investigators' handwriting. You know, so I made I spun up a little program. It took me like a long weekend to build it. So that they could type the reports in so I could read them. speaker-2: Yeah. So you think the sheriff knew for a while he y he had you circled? speaker-1: Then you know, the one of the patrol lieutenants retired and I went to him and said, Hey, I don't want to jump from a sergeant to a captain. I think that creates an environment where people think you're preordained. Yeah. I'd rather be a lieutenant for a while. I'd like to go back on patrol and they're like, What? We don't want you to do that. And like, but it makes sense. And I argued my point and About a week later he said I thought about it and let's do it. So I went back to patrol. Wow. For a couple years. And so that was kind of a weird mix because I was still fire investigator and and you know, I luckily I got to coach, you know, and help the person that took my spot as the is the lead fire investigator and arson investigator. It was an interesting time. speaker-0: Yeah, but I can imagine it would. speaker-1: Worth it. speaker-2: What's patrol like in Cataragas? speaker-1: It's funny. So a neighbor of mine in Florida retired from Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. And his stories and my stories are hilarious because he was like full time SWAT and has all these really cool stories about all this stuff that's happened, you know, because they've hosted a Super Bowl. Yeah. And they've had some really high level people visit Jacksonville because it's a big city. President's visit, like Leaders of foreign countries visit and all this stuff. And then I tell stories about, you know, not having to have backup on a domestic because they were always over with by the time you got there. Or, you know, getting hit by a cow, like trying to get a speaker-0: There's gotta be something with cows out there. Yeah, there's gotta be something with cows out. speaker-1: A car cow accident one time and the cow was hurt and the cow you know, we're trying to get the ear tag to figure out whose it is whose cow it was, and the cow just put their head down and the head butted me and knocked me down and and my partner I had a partner with me that night and he was just, Are you okay? Yes, and then burst out laughing, just dying because and so the the disparity in stories. Yeah. Right. And this really is it's so much different in the rural areas, you know, it's right. And in i in in New York in the rural counties, you know, the problems are kind of the same as they have in urban areas. There's just not as much necessarily you know, high level crime that goes with it. It's you know, people stealing stuff so they can go buy their next drugs and such. so there is a bit of that, but not really that much of it. Was it speaker-2: I forgot who we were talking to. I think it was Mike Soretto. Do you know Mike from Monroe? He was down in the southern tier doing something for a while. And he I think it was maybe meth or it's a drug before that. That there was a lot of action going on. Yeah. Was that before or after your time? speaker-1: Meth Lab, yeah, there was definitely meth labs. You know, you always get the trailer out in the little woods that burn down. And you know, you have to have a hazmat team come to the fire because of all the all the the prerequisite components of speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: not being very good. Yeah. You know, so there there's a bit of that. you know, but it's la it's more laid back. And I think one of the most important things that's still true for the most part today in the rural counties is that People still like for the most part like law enforcement. Even in speaker-2: Where speaker-1: the urban areas, there's a lot more angst. Right. and that's a great point. And I think that's subsided a bit over the last couple of years. But it was it was pretty bad for a while. And I don't think it really ever did that in the rural counties. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: there's always gonna be people, but they're the ones that are. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. speaker-2: Have their private property defensed up. speaker-0: Yeah. all right, Joe, I called this out a little bit in your intro, but with your volunteer firefighting you went down to New York City during nine eleven. speaker-1: Actually through the sheriff's office. So I was patrol lieutenant on nine eleven and the sheriff's offices were all trying to coordinate how they could help. And the way that most of the the way that it worked out was that agencies that had canines that were useful to go there got called. And so we had a we had a canine unit w that was a had a cadaver dog. Okay. And so we deployed to About ten days afterwards, we deployed to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island where they were taking all the stuff that they were excavating from the site and sorting through it for evidence, body parts, property that belonged to the city. And so we spent a week there helping basically doing the off shift work 'cause NYPD was doing the bulk of the work, but there was a long gap while they changed shifts. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So we would step in and continue to to do the work when they were wow changing shifts. and that happened that happened for a few weeks. the team that we sent a second team down the week after I was there and they they sent they stopped doing it. It gotten further it gotten it had progressed long enough that that they wanted to just do it on their own. And I think most of those sheriff's office and other agency teams got pulled out of there. Right. But so I spent a week doing that. And it was interesting because, you know, basically You know, they're they're sprinkling and sorting, you know, payloader buckets full of debris out on the ground. Wow. And you're just looking for the things that they ask you to look for. You know, computer boards, speaker-2: Search and three. speaker-1: city documents, city property like radios and things like that. And then remains. Mm-hmm. You know, so it was an interesting interesting time down there. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. So speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: It was it was it was a proud moment to be able to go down there and do that work. It was solemn it was a very solemn work. Right. but it's something I definitely won't forget. 'Cause you get to see that that aspect to it. And it was also a big eye opener is y you know, you never really grasp how complex processing something like that is until you actually see how much work had to go into it. You know, it's just mind numbing how much Work had to go into getting through all that. speaker-2: So you were down there for a week or speaker-1: Roughly. Right. speaker-2: and just you guys were staying at a hotel and then you'd come in and speaker-1: Actually the first we didn't even stay at a hotel the first few nights. We stayed at a Catholic school gymnasium and cot. Yep. speaker-0: Really? Wow. speaker-1: So we had our our clothes with us and you know, basically you like w washing clothes in a sink and hanging up and that's crazy. You know, roughing it in a yeah. A Catholic school gymnasium in a cot. speaker-0: Yeah. But I can imagine like the pride behind it too. Like the it speaks to the community aspect of public safety. For sure. For sure. All right. Well thank you for sharing about that. We appreciate it. so after then twenty four years in law enforcement, you made the move to the private sector. Well Mac. speaker-1: I did it. speaker-0: Yeah. So what drove that decision? speaker-1: Well, I think you know in in the sheriff's office, it was above where I was was politics. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, you run for sheriff or be the under sheriff. Right. Do you really want to do that? Mm-hmm. And then my personal life had made a change and I was I was ready to do something different as well. So the opportunity came and I wanted to continue, you know, I talked about always wanting to grow. Yes. You know, wanting to go explore the next thing. And so getting into the private sector and having a technology, you know, that that geek squad kind of can I say that? Best wife's probably gonna spest wife's not a sponsor. You can cut that out. you know, having that that technology b kind of I o I wanted to be in technology kind of you know, any of the technology providers always thought that was kind of a neat thing to do to be able to continue to help public safety find solutions to their problems. Mm-hmm. keep my finger in public safety because it really has you know it r obviously i i when you talk about everything I've done, yeah it's very clear that I just want to be in public. speaker-0: Very common thread. speaker-1: So it was a good mix and you know, I don't know if you remember, but that's not what I first did initially when I came to Womac. you know when I first came I was sales engineer and handling the small the small contact center customers. So okay. It was a really change. Cool anything under fifty recording channels. Yeah. And almost all in finance and the small contact center. So it was really interesting because it gave me the opportunity to de dig deep and, you know, kind of adjacent public safety, learn more about telephony. Yep. And Automatic call distribution and you know, these trading floor back that you know, I don't even know if they're still using analog turret systems. Everything's IP based now mostly probably. speaker-2: Pretty much. You still have some old ones out there though. That industry's an industry. speaker-1: Really cool to learn all that. And but then it was pretty quick. You know, some people moved around at Wilmack, and then pretty soon I'm right back where I intended to be right in public safety. So that was pretty cool. And learned a lot. really interesting to be partnered up and and really work for you know someone who is representing the art. Probably arguably, but I'd still say it the the leader in in that speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: with nice. And and just grow with grow with that group, right? Because, you know, we acquired that DOE and it gr grew a lot of customer base and got some really cool new customers like, you know, New Jersey. speaker-2: State police still still big. speaker-1: And you know, is really It really cool and interesting to be able to get into agencies of that size and really provide help that they weren't getting. Right? Because we listened and understood and were creative to come up with something that fit fit their needs. So look at speaker-2: back at it now. So was it interesting or you had your perspective from Cataragas, which is a smaller county, and then you were going into these larger counties, was it interesting to hear with their stories or did you have a good handle on it just from being in the industry? speaker-1: It's so funny because I get asked that and sometimes often and then I also have people that think it's drastically different. Yeah. And I my answer is typically, almost always, little agency has the exact same problems, but they're just there's not there's one of them, not ten of them. Yeah, volume. Right. So I have problem A, it's the exact same problem that you have, like with the problem employee. Or compliance piece or whatever it might be. And in a small agency, you are the you're wearing all the hats. So you're handling all of those little things. Where at some larger agencies, somebody's handling that sea sleeve of a problem. You know, someone else is handling a different sleeve. So there's an argument to me made it's actually a little bit easier in a large agency. The problems are the same. I think the big, big agencies have new problems that that come out here like for example here in Monroe County and Rochester and other big agencies, they have, I think, more problems with recruiting and retention and getting a good pool of applicants. Where I think in the smaller agencies, you don't need as many people. So y you know, we always loved to recruit from the volunteer fire service in Ketaraugh County for dispatchers. It almost always worked out great. Yeah. where, you know When you get into some place where there is none where I interact with my customers in my work today with fully paid agencies, you don't have these vol you don't have these volunteers that want to have a full time job and and have their foot in volunteerism and have a full time job as well, as much as you do in this area. So, you know, they don't have the they're just flat out recruiting just like anybody else for any other job. speaker-2: that's the biggest thing we hear from from the larger counties. Talent and retention. speaker-1: Well, and people don't work for the same reasons. Right. people work for time off. Yep. People aren't really all that interested in overtime anymore, most of it's really difficult to find people that want to work shift work. Yep. particularly afternoons. Right. You know, I worked afternoons the entire time I was on patrol. the first five you know, five years I was at the sheriff's office and I loved it. But I was I did not have kids and was not married yet. Right. So it was easy for me to work afternoons and it was fun and and didn't matter. But the but the people who had kids wanted to be on either midnights or days. They didn't want to be on afternoons because they were missing out on T ball and ba you know, and all the other things that happened in the afternoon and evening. speaker-0: Can I ask, how did you originally like find out about Wilmack? Was it Jim his sister? speaker-2: Customer. speaker-0: It was it was Jim? I was joking. I I was gonna say that's what I figured. Okay. speaker-1: Yeah, I was a customer. Yeah, it was Jim O. Yeah, we're a customer. Yeah. f Jim first and then gosh. Trying to think who it it w I it doesn't matter. But you know, Jim was Jim got busy and you know, somebody else got assigned and I can't remember who it was. But he was busy in Canada. And but we always kept track of one another and and a lot of a you know, that was there was a big like Monero County bought everybody was leaving dictaphone back then. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And because their stuff was just speaker-2: Row and speaker-1: And you know, they went they bought like WordNet series threes and when they did, everybody else was like, Well, if it's good enough for Monroe County, it's good enough for us. And you know, everybody was buying the same thing. Right. And, you know, doing it in a new way. And so it was really it was really cool to to have Jim be like, Hey, you know, if you're looking for something to do, we might have something for you. So that's kind of how it happened. Jim gets the recruiting the speaker-0: So let me ask you too, when you started at Willmac, I know you said you were on the contact center side, but then you got into the public safety side eventually. Like was there a any big surprises that came from the private to public that you didn't necessarily or public to private that you didn't necessarily expect? speaker-1: no, I think when you get to the core of it, it's kind of all the same. Okay. I think the big difference in the in the beginning there the the application wasn't even different. Right. Be between you were using the exact same application for contact center versus public safety. But then you know, nice started to add more more evidence, more public safety specific features to it. And it started to really become a thing of its own with with the ability to import media and do all these things and and reconstruct events beyond just the voice recording piece. So that's where they really started to stand out and be different. in qual you know QA questions and when they started to launch all that, it really, really became much different. Although I would argue that those same tools for public safety Or easily used in a small contact center if you really wanted to. I mean, hey, did did they answer the phone the right way, yes or no? So speaker-2: You s we still have a mix. Sometimes you'll have a trading floor that we have public safety software and inform in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. just because it was a better fit when you actually drill down into how they're utilizing speaker-0: goes to what you talked about too about their creativity, being able to be flexible. speaker-1: Yeah, but it really is. I mean, you know, when you listen to the customers needs, you know, it might it might not be what you think. Right. You might be giving them an application they never thought they would use or you wouldn't think that they would use just because it actually checked the box and yeah solved the problem. speaker-0: Let me also ask too, I'm I'm curious. So obviously you had a background in public safety to kind of boost your credibility right off the bat with some of the customers. Do you feel like that was a huge help? Like they might have relaxed a little bit more. Yeah. Absolutely. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean it's it's almost like a free pass in speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: some respects. but along with that becomes comes this responsibility. Right. Right. That you you can't leave your friend hanging. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. If you when you go especially for example, if you go to a customer who is not using the product that you're selling and based on that trust and and and obviously the product being the right fit, you They buy yours and switch. Now you've got even more you know, your skins in the game to come through. and so that was always really important. And it was different, you know, I was doing stuff in Canada too, mm-hmm with public safety 'cause it was doing all the public safety stuff. And I didn't ha like being from little old Cataragas County Sheriff's Office didn't really make that much difference, speaker-0: carry as much weight. speaker-1: right? 'Cause you're but it did a little. but interestingly enough, the at that time the he was deputy chief and then he was chief at York Regional Police, went to the FBI National Academy with me. wow. So I would go to York Regional Police and say, like, Hey, can I stop in? And and we'd catch up and cool. And so there was a a level of connection there too, which was valuable. Right. speaker-2: It is I d I am surprised how often I see in public safety the people that are in public safety move over to the private side. It's pr it's more prevalent than I thought. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: It it and it my son in law is a is a deputy sheriff in Orleans County and I you know, I'm like, Hey, when you get you need to find something that is you don't want to just go be like the the security guy at whatever. Right. Right. You want to think about career two. Not just career two, not a job. Yeah. Yeah. To go with retirement. Yeah. And so, you know, the there's some there's some sleeves of stuff that lead to decent post law enforcement jobs. And you know, it's it's mostly technology. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And the you know, the investigation things can work well if you've got like a really good niche. Like traffic like Crash investigations is a niche and some other things are niche things where you can find a good second career, but mostly it's technical. It really is. speaker-0: Okay. So your role evolved and then from Will Mac to to Moto, from sales to customer success. So what has the difference been in kind of the day to days from those perspectives? speaker-1: You know at Wilmac and then as a s as an individual contributor in sales at Motorola and then a sales manager at Motorola, you know, you become really in tune with how we can get disconnected from what the customer really intended the solution to be. Yeah. We can we can realize that they're not r really adopting fully what they bought. They're missing out on something. or that You know, there are problems that are not being resolved quickly enough that are preventing them from from from getting the most out of their investment. And it can be configuration problems, it can be interfaces. You know, interfaces are the bane of everyone's existence, right? So because when you try to get two different things to talk together, even within your own portfolio basically. There's the two different sleeves of people developing the product and there you know, somewhere there has to be a handshake and invariably the handshake misses a finger, right? So it has to be sorted out. So, you know, that transition to to customer success, customer service really has been how do I take the vision of what was agreed to and sold, right? Because we we engaged and entered into a partnership when they were excited and then they decided to buy our solution. And then you go through, and it doesn't matter what product it is, what company it is, you go through the ug, right? Of The project, the pain. You know, the implementation stuff that happens, stuff going wrong, stuff going right. And in the intervening time, and the more complex the project, the longer that time is. And in the middle, the fire went out. Right. The the reason why gets lost. The excitement gets lost. And so, you know, now I think it's our our role is to try to keep that excitement up during it to as a reminder of Can't you wait? The other thing is that really trying to do an early adoption, you'd buy a complex solution that has components that could be installed and deployed really early to get the benefit of this easy to deploy things early while you spend the time to do the long pole in the tent. So that you kind of keep that live. You've got some tailwind to get through the project and then to remind everybody and then To go back after they get into it a little bit and say, are are you is everything what are you missing? Right. Did you know this? It's really difficult, particularly as we get more and more into cloud, that the features are coming so fast. Yeah. And you can build in the pop ups like, Hey, did you know we added this? And you can do webinars and you can do email blasts, but the noise that public safety professionals have from all of that, from social media from email blasts, from like I get too much stuff, so I accidentally unsubscribed one day when I was mad. So now I'm not getting anything. Yeah. Right? So it's just really difficult to make sure that you stay connected and they understand where what they bought is is growing within what they already bought. Like what new feature got added today that which hey, it's cloud and today we turned on something new. But then also what's adjacent to it that we've added that they don't think about. And this is universal, like you know, the old box sale, right? You you sold somebody a recording system or a phone system or whatever and you install it. And in the old days it sat there for five years, you never touched it, and you went back five years later and replaced it. Now you have your competitor having a new feature the year after you went live that you also have But they don't think to call you first. Yeah. Right. So that comes back to that drip, right? How important it is to make sure people are staying up to speed on the fact that you're innovating just as well as the all the other competitors are so that they they really feel like you're paying attention to their needs and and developing things that solve problems. Right. speaker-2: You guys responsible for all right, you're in there, they're using your the solution that was sold correctly, but another use case pops up that you guys discover and you're like, Wow, this is a perfect use case for a different product in our portfolio. I need we need to go bring these people in and get get set set that meeting up for what you typically call cross sell or upsell, but it's another use case and something that you guys speaker-1: We actually have a term for it. It's customer success qualified lead. Okay. Right. CFQLs. Nice. Yeah. And and so yeah, they do that. And it's a it's a thing that is that we measure people on. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Right. Like are you generating new business? And sometimes people are in in the roles that are on my team, they don't they're like, I don't want to be a sales person. You speaker-0: Yeah, I I can imagine. speaker-1: don't have sales sales is I don't want to say sales is easy, but The telling people about new products and solving their problems is the easier part of sales. You know, uncovering it, presenting it, you know, getting them excited about it. It's the closing. Yeah. And the finances and the overcoming objections and the you know executing contracts. Yeah. That's the part you don't want to do if you don't want to be in sales, right? The actual getting people excited about something new is the is kind of the easier part I speaker-2: Well, and then you'd think you know the customer inside and out if you're discovering new use cases and you know their environment, you're the kind of the expert on it. speaker-1: Yeah. Right. And then the other piece to that is we've got a customer in West Virginia that just went live on our and our new cloud call handling product. And it com it has a pretty extensive suite of things that are outside call handling with AI and and and translation, transcription synopsis of the calls and all that cool stuff that we're doing at AI. And so they've been live for a couple of months and we're going back to do a chair side with them so that we can A an expert in the product can say, Hey, did you know you could do this? Right. But then also to get feedback from them about their workflow to pass along the product. So that's another piece that that our organization likes to do speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: is to take that feedback and give it to the product owners so that they can we can find out if it's already thought about, if it's on the roadmap, if it's a really important idea and and it ends up being a really quick turnaround that they can do fast to make some change. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: it there's really it's really cool. And it's so much easier to do in cloud, right? So hey, next sprint we're gonna add this little feature. Yeah. And it's gonna be out in three weeks instead of we can develop it in three weeks, but now you have to do a full system upgrade. You know on a on a premise based system. Right. You know, it's it's just so much easier when you're in the cloud. speaker-0: Yeah. And I think the crux of what you're talking about too that we've had conversations about on the this podcast before is like industry partner versus vendor. Like partnering has a feedback loop. It has that ever evolving constant communication versus a vendor as a set it and forget it. Yeah. Exactly. So I just wanted to call that out. But okay, you you mentioned too, Joe, the the AI piece. I know you're involved with that at at Moto, but P PCAPs, it seems like they're starting to open up to AI. More. but I I think we've seen hesitation still a little bit. I think fairly so. but what are you seeing from that perspective? speaker-1: it's really so leader personality based, I feel like. Okay. You have the early adopters, the people that like they see what AI is doing and they they recognize the value immediately. And then you have other people who see it and they're like, Yeah, but yeah, but I have to take this to court. Yeah, but I'm worried about you know, the content You know, we had a really extensive conversation with a customer about AI AI assisted report writing. And it's a huge hot topic. And you get a knee-jerk reaction from like state agencies or state attorneys in other parts of the country where they flat out say no. No not a single word of a police report can be written by AI. It's all gotta be written. And that's the other right, that's a super wild extreme, right, that I don't agree with. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: sh you should not you should not just not write your report, right? Because you have testify to it. Mm-hmm. But if you have all the facts and you can have and you've got all this you've got a CAD or you've got a CAD incident with all kinds of notes from the dispatcher. You've got radio traffic, you've got telephone traffic that you can all ingest. Yeah. You've got what you did in your own notes, then you add your report. There's no reason why AI can't pull all that together and write a report based on guidelines the agency gives. And then you go make sure it's right. Yeah. You speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: don't want it to be automatic. I I completely understand that and I don't think it should ever be that. It's gotta be something that the person reads and confirms it's right. But there's a tremendous amount of time saving that put ends up putting officers back on the street quicker if they can get through that information and distill it down. More easily. And quite frankly, it's gonna be spelled right. Yeah. speaker-2: Well that that was I had two questions to that. One is that is a ton of information for an officer to gather. And if he's doing it manually, there's a chance he's gonna miss something. And to your point, he he's spending I always wonder this, how much time do police officers spending writing reports? That's gotta be a speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Tremendous. speaker-2: imagine the time they get back to get back out there. Probably speaker-1: Absolutely. speaker-2: not something that they love to do. No. I would imagine it's kind of a pain speaker-1: It it's absolutely a pain. And and you know particularly if you can find a solution that can be taught to make reports because some agencies have really strict policies about where the reports are supposed to be worded and you can totally teach the program to to format it in the right way, you know, with a with a templated this is the template that this has to follow and and create it in this fashion. So I I use it I use AI every day, right? in some way. It might be something simple, but it's also, you know, something that simplifies tasks that you have to do. make sure you're not missing out on things. I give you an example. We have we have this platform that our that our customer service managers and customer success advocates use to to track interaction with customers. Mm-hmm. And I follow in there all of the customers that are in my world. And so anytime they do an update in there, I was getting an email with what they wrote. Well, when you've got seven or eight people on your team and they're all doing ten entries a day. Now I have eighty emails and I just like I don't want to read all this. But also don't want to miss anything. Right. So AI to the rescue, right, and create a workflow that says take all of these emails and digest them down into Per agency snippets for me each day and send me a chat in the morning. Right. You know, and so now I'm not reading those emails at all. I'm looking through my chat and if I if I'm interested, there's a link there and I can go read the email myself. So it's it's just such a time saver and it it expands you're you you're really a multiplier of what you can get done in a in a day for me. So why wouldn't it be for for anybody else? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: And I I totally agree with you. We use it all the time. And I think efficient w efficiency wise, it's just tremendous. I get, specifically in public saf safety compared to other industries, that there's got to be some checks and balances. So I totally get that. We're not dealing with, you know, ROI or money. We're dealing with life and death. So I'm a hundred percent on board. But I think the technology is there where you could have the checks and balances. speaker-1: Yeah, I'll give you one of the most interesting use cases that I can think of. Y agencies with body worn cameras and in car video cameras have this tremendous amount of evidence coming in. Yeah. And then they get requests for it and invariably there's something that needs to be blocked out, edited, right? They have to redact the video. And so you might have a video where the thing that needs to be redacted is in you have to go frame by frame. Mm-hmm. Right. In the old days, if I needed to block out a license plate, go to the frame, put a block around it, do it over and over again. my gosh. and now, you know, go to the beginning of the video and draw a circle around it and say, every time this pops up, redact this or blur this person's face. Right. And go through a 20 minute video and do an and have AI chew through it in five minutes and have it be done. The original's still there. The redacted piece is still there. You check it, it's good. You just saved the person that's doing that redaction so many hours of work. It's i th I w I was I was given a specific example that there was a forty something minute body worn camera video that had to be redacted and it took the person that was doing the redacting with the old software, it took them two days to get through the whole video. Because the old software they had was legitimately frame by frame. That is so much so they'd get through the part where they had it and then they would they would watch it at normal speed. Yeah. And then when it get to the part where they have to re then they'd have to slow it down and do frame by frame again. Painful. And it's it's just that's bad software for one but that's all you had bad in the beginning. And so there's just this tremendous amount of speaker-2: Yeah. They gotta you do pe do the agencies have to store that somewhere? speaker-1: They speaker-2: A certain amount of time? That's a l that's a lot of storage. It's speaker-1: I mean speaker-2: not voice calls. That's a lot of storage. speaker-0: Yeah. Well thank you for sharing your your perspective on that Joe. You know we're we're big believers in and AI and big proponents of it. And like Steve said, obviously there needs to be checks and balances. But like your the kind of use cases you're talking about, the time that it gives back to public safety is i it helps better protect their communities, more time dedicated towards towards those those sort of high value activities. So okay, before I start to wrap us up, I'm gonna ask you a really general big question. And Steve always jokes with me, because we've had a guest call me out and be like, you s you ask really big questions that have like take a lot of time to respond to. But like from your perspective and your experience, all being in public safety, like where do you see public safety going in the next couple years? Technology speaker-2: Exactly. speaker-0: wise. Technology wise. It's changed quickly, I feel like, in the past few especially. It speaker-1: That is a big question. speaker-0: really is. That's why I had to say it up front. speaker-1: You know, AI is legitimately by storm. Right. Three years ago we weren't AI was not where it needed to be to do any of this. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And so I almost part of me wonders if there won't be a little pullback. Mm-hmm. where you 'cause they're already seeing people are concerned about AI's abilities to grow. You know, the other day, the twenty ninth was was the Ter Terminator, right? April twenty Terminator speaker-2: Twenty nine. speaker-1: when the machines took over. So there's there's some fear factor that I think may throttle where we're going with it. but AI's got a lot of room to grow. Mm-hmm. Right. I'll give you an example. I I I you talked about the Bills. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So I was watching some Bills snippets from the last preseason game. Mm-hmm. And I saw Josh, you know, in a t shirt, right? Not playing. And I wondered how many snaps did Josh take this preseason? So I got on Gemini and I said, How many snaps did Josh Allen take in the preseason? And it said none. And I s wrote back, No, you're wrong. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: You're wrong. He played the first game and he threw a touchdown pass, which I knew asked the Panthers, like, yeah, I'm sorry. And then it gave me the right answer. So you know, as there's always piece that Where it hallucinates, it just doesn't get what you speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: So I think that's gonna temper that kind of thing is gonna temper that's where there's some growth potential for it. I I think there's gonna be over the next few years, I think that the use of other technology along with AI is gonna kind of take off, p particularly drone as a first responder. I think that that value has not really been realized in a lot of places where where people can b you know, get eyes on scene at at the basic level, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: but deliver I I mean there's agencies that have drones that can hang on to things and drop Narcan at a scene. Wow. Right. And do things like that. So I think there's some growth there. I think there's definitely the opportunity to even more streamline dispatch. I think that's there, but I think that the the capabilities that it has as far as like getting translation and transcription accurate and gathering the right insights out of the conversations and getting that to be even more accurate. We get a lot of feedback about you know how accurate is the translation transcription. And I always joke, say d you have an iPhone and you read your voicemail That it transcribed and you get a giggle, but you know what usually you know what it meant. Right. And for some people that's good enough. And you and when it's riding alongside you while you're on the call, it can pick up on the things that maybe you weren't sure about what they said. But then it's also got that same inaccuracy. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know with particularly with voice, I don't know that it's ever gonna get to the point where It's reliable enough because inflection and tone and accents and mixed languages. Mm-hmm. Yep. You know, is always going to be a challenge. But where the real advantage I think is in the written the written word. Yep. Right. That's really where I think it goes next level. So I think there's going to be some advancements. I think it's going to I think it's going to be a bit of a plateau for a little bit until we figure out what's next. Because public safety t still has to digest what's already been dumped on. Everybody is swimming trying to figure out what to do. There's so many providers. Yeah. There's so many little start startups doing little snippets of things and they're doing it in interesting ways. They have different they have very different go to market mentalities that make it challenging for the big dog in the room to write, which would be us. Yeah. To write to to like, hey, we already have that that I talked about earlier. Yeah, but they do this. Well, they're only doing one thing. We're doing this. We're flying this big yeah this big aircraft and we're trying to do it responsibly. And so and have public safety's end result in mind. So I think I think there might be a bit of a plateau, but who what comes after that plateau is speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: really I think anybody's speaker-2: The drone stuff is definitely neat. speaker-1: the drone stuff is super speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. But I mean the needs of our community continue to evolve too, so you gotta assume that more technology will be developed to answer those needs. So yeah, good answer to my big question. You did a good job. Well done. All right. Steve, is there anything else you speaker-2: No, this has been great. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it. speaker-0: Awesome. Yeah. Okay, Joe, I'll give you one last chance if you have any other initiatives or programs at Moto or that you're working on in general or a message that you'd like to share before I wrap us up. speaker-1: I I think the only thing I just you know, for public safety people that listen, I just think it's really important for for public safety professionals and leaders to be mindful, right? Be thoughtful about the choices that you make. think about what your current provider or other providers might have. Do your due diligence, read your contracts, right? Read the fine print. Have somebody go through. Use AI if you have to. just to make sure that everything is what you expect it to be. Right. And and that the end goal is the that you have is the same as your provider has for you. I I would argue that you should ask what their plan is for next. What do you plan to do next? You know, really just make really responsible long-term choices instead of Like, hey, that's really cool, shiny object, and it's pretty inexpensive, so I'm gonna do it. And now now I'm now there's something better and I'm in, you know, or or something a little different, or something that integrated that I didn't know. You know, just kinda step on the brake a little bit and be mindful before you before you jump. Yeah. But but then when you jump. Do it. Yeah. Do it. speaker-0: Well speaker-1: Full force. speaker-0: thank you, Joe, for joining us on the Will MacWire. For our listeners, you can find Joe at Joseph Groob on LinkedIn to connect and follow along with what he's doing. Joe, thank you so much for joining us in person. Thank you for having me. speaker-1: Appreciate it. speaker-2: Thanks, Joe. Awesome. There we go. speaker-0: Thank you for listening to the Wilmac Wire. If you like today's conversation, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Or watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. You can also learn more about Wilmac Technologies and our work in customer interaction technology at Wilmactech.com. We'll be back soon with more conversations with the drivers, those shaping our industry and those building right here in Western New York. See you next time.