I originally wrote this article for a recent presentation for the employees of the Village of Plain City, Ohio.  I am pleased to share it as a reintroduction to who I am, and how my background provides my clients unique expertise from the perspective of an Educator and a First Responder.

I was already eight years into my teaching career.  I had a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership.  I was tracking to move from the classroom teacher to a building administrator. 

Instead, I took a position as a police officer for a suburb in my county.

Avocare:
to call, to summon away  | Latin

In Ohio, agencies can hire auxiliary officers.  For my agency, it meant I was a sworn officer with arrest powers, but I was not paid when I worked.  During the school year, I taught Monday through Friday and then worked as a patrol officer on Saturday, usually second shift.  During the summer, I worked patrol more often.  I know that in 2024 people would never understand working as a police officer for free.  It was Whitehall Police Chief Jim Stacey who reminded us that working as an auxiliary was not our vocation but our avocation. 

A vocation is the work you do because you have to; an avocation is what you do for pleasure, not pay.  The ancient Latin root is avocare: a calling away from one’s work, or a distraction. I began working the streets when crack was starting to take hold in our communities.  As an eighth-grade science teacher, going from teaching the periodic table to young teens to arresting drug dealers was certainly a distraction from my normal routine.

Educator by Day
Police Officer by Night

One of the real advantages of working part-time at an agency was the ability to take training outside of the mandated CPTs necessary to keep our law enforcement certifications.  Because I was still teaching, I took whatever training I could that was related to school safety. It was this training, combined with my law enforcement experience and teaching that led to my promotion to district safety director.

I retired from education in 2012.  I still hold a police commission, but I no longer work in patrol.  I am a teacher again.  I am a trainer for my agency, and I do community outreach.  I’ve developed teen driving programs, women’s safety courses, and parent education programs.  There is often a crossover between the training I do for my business and what I do for the community and recently, for the employees of Plain City.  Recently, I did a Workplace Violence/Active Threat training for all city employees.