Job Openings - Springfield Police Department

Clint Girlie sits down with Greg Anderson and Cris Swaters from the Springfield Police Department to discuss their current push to find qualified and passionate candidates. More info at GoSPD.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, and welcome to a showthat we call iHeart the Ozarks. This
is a half hour long show thatairs across all five of our iHeart Radio
stations here in Springfield, as wellas podcasts on you Guessed It, our
iHeartRadio app Every week we do thisshow and it focuses in on a community
group or effort, organization, whatever, just trying to make the Ozarks a
better place, or doing something positivefor our community, or highlighting an effort

(00:22):
being made in our community right nowthat will pay off in a positive way.
I'll introduce myself first and foremost.My name is Clint Gurley, not
only from pretty much everyone's entire lifeon the radio Springfield, as it's been
now explained to me a couple timesin the past few weeks, and I'm
feeling very self conscious about, butalso the vice president of programming here excited
to be joined by Greg Anderson,Officer Anderson from the Springfield Police Department,

(00:44):
as well as Chris Swater, isan old friend but now not surprisingly doing
great things with the Springfield Police Departmentas public affairs officers. So welcome to
you both. Hi appreciate it.What are we talking about today, guys?
Because I know it's not about me, and I don't think I'm in
trouble, right, I mean,the police don't come by unless you haven't
decided. We'll find out out asthe interview goes on. Good deal,

(01:04):
what are we going to talk abouttoday? Because I know we've Chris,
you and I have been corresponding aboutthis for a couple of months. It's
been a priority for you guys,and us being able to help get the
word out is our privilege. SoOfficer Anderson, yeah, I just you
know, I'm grateful for the opportunityto come in and talk to you.
Just I want to get the wordout that Springfield PD is looking for qualified

(01:26):
people to come be police officers inthe city. This is a job that
I've taken a lot of pride infor the last thirteen years, and I'm
looking for folks that want to jointhe ranks. And as you can imagine,
we're down just about like anywhere elsein the in the in the country.
Yeah, so I'm curious about that. Besides doing this, and this
may come as a total shock becauseof my lack of professionalism, but I'm

(01:49):
also on the city council in Republic. We recently have been you know,
over the last couple of years,we had to go through a bunch of
hiring processes, but that was budgetary, that was we weren't able to pay
as well as places like Springfield we'reable to do. What is the reason
you guys are having trouble hiring now? I mean it could just be your

(02:12):
opinion, but well, I mean, as you can imagine, the last
few years have been rough for youknow, police agencies nationwide to recruit.
Qualify. That's the key word thereis qualified. Can I definitely want to
get into that word here. Ibe absolutely so. I mean not only
you know, police work is isa is a chosen as a chosen career
that's not for everybody, And sothat strengths you're hiring pooled down already significantly,

(02:36):
So you're already looking for a smallerpool of people than you would in
a normal workforce. And on topof that, here at Springfield, we
have really strict hiring standards. Weexpect a lot out of you if you're
going to join our ranks, andit's just it's been a little bit of
a challenge the last few years tofill those ranks because of just of the
high quality candidates we're looking for becausewe we just we won't change our standards.

(02:57):
You know, do you have tobe a Detroit Lions fan to work
here? I mean, I justknow with your chief he was texting me
during the game, right, Yeah, no, maybe it probably would help.
I think it might. Yeah.No, that was yeah. Good
for them though, by the way, I know that's awesome. I was
pumped for him. I was like, dude, the Chiefs don't get in
I want them to win it exactly. I think we're all in that boat.

(03:19):
But yeah, to fill in folksbehind the scenes, the chief of
police here in Springfield is a DetroitLions fan, also a Chiefs fan.
Let's give him a little bits fromDetroit. Yeah, but he's been a
Lions fan. And that's a toughbeat, it is. I mean,
it's tough for anybody. It astough as it's been to recruit for the
Springfield Police Department. Let's just goon record and say it's been much harder
to be a Lions fan for thepast fifty years. I was a Chiefs
fan before it was cool being aChief fan, So I totally remember.

(03:42):
So I remember those days as well. As Lions fans did the high standards.
I mean, what are we talkingabout here, Well, I mean
law enforcement, you're held to adifferent standard anyway, more so. I
mean you're in the public eye nowmore than ever. I mean, we
have body cameras. There's cameras everywhere, right, so, and we like
that, you know, we wantto be held accountable as law enforcement.
I mean we are serving the public. And you know there's always that cliche.

(04:05):
You know, we pay your salary. You definitely do pay our salary,
and we want to make sure thatwe're giving you your money's worth,
right. We want to make surethat we're providing good service, actually not
just good, excellent service to thecitizens at Springfield, because that's only fair
to them, right. They needto feel safe. Everybody is entitled to
feel safe, right, and thatis our goal all the time, is

(04:26):
to make sure that we have theright folks that have the right mindset.
And as far as the high standardsgo, I you know some things that
I look for. You know,before we got one on air, we
talked about teamwork, like with beingon football teams. Sure, I look
for team oriented folks who want tocome in because this is a team.
This is not a singular effort inlaw enforcement, like we want people that
and you can see our calendar.There are people that were part of a

(04:47):
sports team. That's one of thetraits that I always look for is like,
have you been under pressure before?Law enforcement is all about performance under
pressure, and anybody that's played sportscan can totally you know, relate to
that. Yeah, that makes sense. So that's always you know, a
try to look for. Obviously,we look for military folks that want to
maybe transition out of the military.You know, the military has extremely high

(05:09):
standards the same way we do.So I mean it's a really easy transition
to get folks from the military tocome to us. And you know,
as anybody, it's not just thosetwo factions of life. It's all walks
of life. I Mean I havepeople come from you know, physical therapy
that are like, you know,when I'm tired of being a physical therapist,
I'm gonna be a cop. Iwant to serve in a different way,
or somebody that's worked in age factfor ten years. You know,

(05:30):
that's just like I'm i want tobe fulfilled, you know. So I
just kind of see it come fromall over the place, and just you
know, we just want people thathave high morals, that are very driven.
Integrity is huge. Doing the rightthing when nobody's looking, that's that's
that's bigger now more than ever,Yeah, no doubt, And in an
age where more people are looking thanever, being able to do the right

(05:50):
thing when even those cameras aren't on, it's kind of a big deal because
those are far and few between opportunities. Yeah, visiting with Chris Waters,
who hasn't said any from the PublicAffairs office at the Springfield Police Department,
as well as Officer Anderson here fromSPD, and we're talking about hiring and
a need for police officers in ourcommunity. This show is not a it's

(06:14):
not a commercial, you know,like you guys haven't paid to come on
here and talk about this. Weas broadcasters have a mandate. And by
the way, I'm think I'm sayingthis because I literally took the FCC yearly
training yesterday, so it's very freshin my thad. We have a mandate
and we take it really seriously hereas much as I joke around to put
things on the air that we feelare either highlighting positive things happening in our

(06:38):
community or or our needs in ourcommunity, and having a fully staffed police
force is one of them. Alot of different circumstances we talked earlier,
Sometimes we just don't have the moneyto hire. Sure that's not the case
right now, is it? No? Not at all? Okay, this
is a different job than like applyingfor say, you know, retail or

(06:59):
something. Right. Yeah, forme who is a layman when it comes
to this, what happens? DoI just fill out an application? Like
what are those steps look like?Start me from? I'm a regular everyday
citizen who decides that might be somethingI'm interested in? Absolutely, So,
you know, you decide do youwant to come do this job? And
when we have a really awesome websitethat you go to, it's go SPD
dot com, right, you jumpon there. The thing about us is

(07:21):
is you have to meet certain testingstandards before I'm sorry, back up a
little bit. You have to meetcertain requirements before you're allowed to come test
with us, right they So,is it a too long of a list
to do right now? Or Ican? I can name them off.
So there's a few different there's afew different ways that you can qualify to
come and test for the position apolice officer. Right now, if you

(07:44):
have thirty hours of college credit,which is you know, a couple of
semesters worth of college and we dowe do that because our cat, our
Police Academy is is academia based aswell as far as the physical stuff as
well as the physical stuff. Soif you have some college that will get
you qualified. If you don't havecollege, if you served in the military,
if you're two years you know,full time in the military or four
years in the reserves, that willqualify you as well. You know,

(08:07):
if you've worked in public service likeat nine one one for a couple of
years, that'll qualify you. Ifyou've worked in one of our nonswarm positions
at the police department for a coupleof years, that will qualify you.
Right, So we we screen thosefolks that submit those applications, make sure
you meet those basic requirements, rightand on top of that, I mean
no felony convictions, you know,clean lifestyle, that kind of thing,

(08:28):
sure drug use, you know,things of that nature. So once you
once we determine that you are,you know, you're fit and you're and
you're ready to come test. Youknow, we have a We usually have
between ten and eleven testing dates throughoutthe year. So when I say testing
dates, people will come. Takea written exam, which is like a
basic aptitude test. Right, there'sreading comprehension, there's math, there's problem

(08:50):
solving in this like written like youwere like you would in school. Okay,
yeah, and and take this basictest. If you pass this test,
we go outside and we go runa physical agility course, right,
because cops need to be in shape, so we got to make sure that
we're we have that standard of physicalagility. It's about a half mile course
total. There's about six obstacles involvedin that, and on our website go

(09:11):
SPD it shows a good breakdown ofwhat those obstacles are. And there's a
time limit. There's a standard timethat you have to meet to pass that.
If you pass that, we haveoral boards, so you have an
oral interview either that day or thefollowing week, depending on if you're an
out of town applicant or not.Now, if you pass all of that,
it sounds like a lot right upat the beginning, which it is,

(09:31):
we're kind of funneling people through.If you pass all that, we
move you on to the background investigations, which is by far the longest part
of the process. I mean,we tear apart every part of your life.
We want to make sure again Iback it up, that we are
hiring the right people to come dothis job. Do people slip through the
cracks at everywhere, absolutely, butwe do our dantis to make sure that

(09:54):
those people don't slip through the cracks. And that's the part of the process.
We're reallyosing on that. So we'lltalk to work references, school references,
talk to everybody from your personal life, you know. Just we check
your credit history, we check obviouslyyour criminal history, anything you can think
of, we check it. Soif you pass that, you'll get a

(10:16):
conditional offer of employment and you'll berequired to take which a lot of agencies
will do this. A polygraph examination, wide detector test for people don't know
what that is, and then apsychological evaluation, which is huge in my
opinion, to make sure we're againgetting those right mindset of individuals to come
in and do this, and thena drug test and a medical screening.
If you pass all of that,I just broke it down at about three

(10:37):
minutes. I know, that's great. Yeah, if you pass all of
that, you're accepted into into ourpolice academy, and we run an academy
about every six to seven months.Yeah, I've seen the movies, I
know. I remember, Yeah,how those are right? Super fun?
It looks like absolutely yeah that isnot sure, sure it is, but
it's it's it's a it's an intensiveprocess just to get into the academy.

(11:00):
So this is are you hired atthat point to be a police officer when
you're in the academy? So wethat entire process is to hire you for
the police academy. Gotcha? Sothen you have to complete another six months
of training before you're an actual swornin uniform police officer. Is the academy?
Like? So me thinking about thisjust again as a layman, but
coming down off the street, let'ssay I would I passed all the things

(11:22):
that big chunk of day somehow physicallyI made it through. You know,
Like I just say that, AmI not getting paid for six months because
I'm going to the academy? Youare getting paid, you are, okay?
Which that sets us apart I thinkas far as recruiting and just overall
what our department is. We payyou throughout the end you are a city
employee, day one of the academy, full pay and benefits. Yeah,

(11:43):
that starts your career right there.It's a huge benefit. We're one of
four agencies in the state that doesthat, you know, US Higher Patrol,
Saint Louis, Kansas City, allthe major agencies in the state.
That's awesome. Yeah, So itreally is a big draw for people that
don't. You don't a lot ofother places make you go and get your
own certification and then try to apply. Not us. We want to train
you the way we want to trainyou, and we're going to pay to

(12:03):
do it. So during those sixmonths, I mean, what is it,
you know, it's a lot.Yeah, I would imagine yes,
and actually would would hope it would. It is. People can rest easy
knowing listening to this that people thatfolks that are in our police Academy are
very highly trained individuals. Yes,it is like drinking from a fire hose

(12:24):
a little bit because it's a lotof information. We put a lot of
pressure on those folks to perform.And that's six months during the police academy.
There is I guess I had mentionedearlier, there's academia based training.
So I mean you'll have you know, four or five hundred hours in the
classroom learning state statutes, constitutional law, ressergaencies or whatever you can think of.
Yeah, then we have you shiftall of that. Everything you've learned.

(12:46):
You have practical exercises where we haverole players come in and do a
myriad of you know, calls thatyou might experience on the road. We
work out really hard. I'm goingto make sure that you're in really good
physical condition. And I say thatbecause a lot of people don't expect that
whenever they come in. Is howhow hard we work at that because cops
need to be in shape. It'sdown and that's the down and dirty of
it. Cops need to be inshape because at any moment it could be

(13:09):
a fight for our life. Andthat's just the real that's just the reality
of it. And we want tomake sure you're ready for that. So
not only are we getting you physicallyin shape, we also have really a
lot of hours of defensive tactics,almost six hundred hours of resilient jiu jitsu
concept defensive tactics. So we reallyjust and on top of all that driving,

(13:31):
shooting, you know, anything youcan think of that that we need.
There are a lot of push ups, a lot of push ups,
a lot of wall sets, pullups. We don't run as much as
we used to, which is whenI went to the academy almost fourteen years
ago, we ran eight or ninemiles a week, you know, which
I suck at running too. Yeah, it's terrible. I'm a big guy

(13:52):
like you. Now we've kind ofshifted to that strength training stuff so we
can and I wish we would havedone that years ago, but now here
we are because you know, it'smore applicable to the job. In my
opinion, is the academy like basictraining? Are they away? Are you
away from family? Like, sayyou live in Springfield? Are you away
for six months? Absolutely not.You get to go home at night.
Oh that is cool, that's cool. Yeah, so basic training. I

(14:15):
mean I know a lot of Iwasn't in the military, and a lot
of friends are like that was theworst part of basic training, you know,
leaving my family for six months.Sure, Yes, the academy is
really hard. It's Monday through Friday, you know, bankers hours typically,
But you get to go home atnight and see your loved ones and reset
for the next day, which isa big draw. I'm again for people
Officer Anderson from the Springfield Police Department. Here we're talking about recruiting for our

(14:37):
police department here locally. You alsoheard Chris Waters. Thanks for chiming in.
There are a lot of push ups. You know. I almost feel
bad. I almost feel bad forthe recruits sometimes, you know, I
go in and teach a class andthey stand at attention when I walk through
the door. The first time Itaught that class, no one told me
that they would stand at attention untilI told them they could relax freak out.

(14:58):
They were just staring at me,and I was like, uh,
you know, y'all can sit down. And then I gave them a break,
and no one told me that ifI gave them a break, they
had to do push ups. Andthen I felt that secrets. Okay,
this is all good stuff. Thisis all very dissuasive for me personally.
So I'm glad because for a secondthere, I was like, this doesn't
sound too bad. I can getit in shape and do something that's a

(15:20):
positive thing for our community. Ihad a question and then Chris, oh,
yeah, the question was for you. Was it about did me and
you being my intern decades ago therefor life in the police department. Nice.
It makes me feel I know you'relying. I mean, I know,
there's no way I didn't do anythingfor that. So very early on

(15:43):
here we talked about morals and thehigh standards you guys have for the people
that you're you're looking for. Yes, I'm curious you personally because I think
it speaks to maybe a larger questionthat can come afterwards. What was it
about this job that made you think, yeah, I want to do that
in the first place. Well,and by that, I mean being a
police officer. Just for those maybejust tuning in, so, you know,

(16:07):
like a lot of folks that gointo law enforcement, My father was
in law enforcement my entire life,okay, and in my low in my
in my small town that I grewup, and now he works with the
federal government. My uncle is aretired Kingsas city police officer. I have
some cousins down in the Boothill.So I was just I was surrounded by
that growing up. I you know, I just I saw how they trea,

(16:27):
how they treated people. I sawhow like that professionalism. I saw
how they lived their life. Imean just you know, you know,
I want to say, you justlive a little bit of a higher standard
just because you're expected to. AndI always saw, you know, my
dad polishes boots every night, andyou know, Polish's brash and his brass,
and you know you come home andtake that uniform off. I'm like,

(16:48):
man, that's so cool, youknow what I mean, Like,
yeah, you're just kind of likethis I don't want to say like beacon,
just kind of this like really coolfigure that I could like look up
to. And other people did too, you know, all my buddies that
would come over that. Man,your dad is so cool I stripping off
that Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I mean
it, it is really. Butyou know what's funny is is that in
college I went to college to bea teacher. And that's so funny.

(17:11):
We're best friends at this point becauseI did too for the first semester.
Nope, not that's not that youknow, it's my first semester and I
had a buddy that went to thehigher patrol and I was like, you
know, you know, it's funny. My dad and my uncle were like,
don't go into law enforcement. Youknow, it's a great career.
It's a rewarding career, but it'sa tough career. Yeah. And they
told me just because you know,I'm you know, related to them,
and I said, okay, Iwon't, but then I did. Yeah,

(17:33):
because you don't ever listen to yourparents. Well no, And I
think that their words are one thing, but the example being set over years
and years and years is a biggercontributing factor than the one time they were
like, hey, don't do it. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, for
sure. And obviously times have changedsince you know, the eighties and nineties,
so they're like, it's just differentout there. Yeah it is,
but you know, I would havechanged the thing. It is literally the

(17:56):
best decision I ever made. Thisjob has been so good to me and
my family. And it's not ajob, I say job, it's a
career. It's a lifestyle. Yeah. I've made so many good friends along
the way. And that's another thingthat's not talked about a lot of law
enforcement is just the camaraderie, thebrotherhood, the sisterhood of everybody that we
work with. Yeah, it's justa different connection. We're brothers and sisters
without the blood, you know whatI'm saying. Yeah, it makes sense.

(18:21):
That's something we've had some discussions about, just me and within my friend
group about how it's a it doesseem a more of a lifestyle. Yes,
my brother in law was a marineand then is now on the SWAT
team up in Kansas City, andit's been fun to watch him transition from

(18:41):
military life to this life as apolice officer and he's on the beat.
He was working overnights for a longtime, was a police officer up there.
But I think that that's the thingthat kept him coming back to a
career like this was the fact thathe had a built in family almost there,
and that's a really neat thing.I think. Obviously, just like

(19:03):
with any other family, this isjust me now being there can be downsides
to that, right, But Ithink over the last couple of years we've
seen I've seen at least a switchfrom you know, always doing what the
police do is right. So nowthe police are doing things for the community
in a public way that I thinkare being picked up bond by the community.

(19:25):
I know it's being very vague,but I like how Springfield Police is
more now than I did when Ifirst got here twenty years ago. And
maybe that's just me getting older andhaving a better perception or understanding of it.
But to me, you're more peoplethan cops at this point. Does
that make sense? That's the goal. Yeah, and that's something Chief Chief

(19:48):
Williams has been here. He's beenmy chief my entire career. Yeah,
he's been here about fourteen years.I believe that's a big goal of is
coming in was community policing, becausethe community is the police, the police's
community. The way we look atit, I mean, we are people
living in your community. We needto be approachable. We are people.
Yeah, you know, we're justnormal folks, you know, is that
here doing this job and that's whatwe want people to know, you know.

(20:11):
Yeah, and it's you know,it's unfortunate that you know, most
times, most people's interactions with policesare you know, on their on their
worst day. Absolutely, and youknow, being able to be be seen
as human and you know, we'rejust there to to do our best to
help you even though this may beyour worst day. Yeah. Yeah,
let's talk a little bit more aboutthis policing as a career. Yeah.

(20:34):
You know, I think part ofthe rap that that job gets is it
doesn't pay great. What's the Imean, I'm not going to ask you
how much either one of you make, but I mean just generally, is
that worth it? I mean,is the pay worth it? So yes,
I will tell you. When Ifirst started, that stigma of law

(20:56):
enforcement and teachers don't make anything,sure that was there. Now we are
one of the highest paid agencies inthe state. Okay, And I'll just
give you a ballpark. You know, when you start the academy, you
make close to fifty thousand dollars whileyou're in the academy, right, that's
right off the bat. Right offthe bat. Officers top out around eighty
and then that that that goes upto as you know, as you promote

(21:19):
throughout the ranks. I mean,it goes up significantly. Yeah. So
there's there's money to be had here. Not only that, you probably see
officers working at a Come and Goor a Walmart or wherever there's overtime all
over the place. Shopper people wantpeople want that security too. I mean,
so there's there's no shortage of moneyto be had if you're willing to
work, and even beyond just thesalary offends the retirement. So yeah,

(21:42):
I wanted to get into retirement aswell. Absolutely, we're We're really blessed
to have. So we are throughanybody listening that may not care, We're
through loggers retirement, which is fundedthrough the state. Right. The cool
thing about the city is the citypays one hundred percent of our retirement.
We don't have to con tribute adiamond or our retirement. Sure, it's
part of our benefits package. Sonot only are you making really good money,

(22:03):
you don't got to worry about yourbension either. Yeah, it's right
there for you. And I knowI'm going to get about seventy percent of
my salary whenever I retire, whichis awesome. So you think about compared
to other agencies where say a certainpercentage of your salary is automatically taken out
of your paycheck. So you maymake your salary maybe more, but you
don't necessarily see it all on yourpaycheck because a certain percentage automatically goes to

(22:26):
a hundred percent. Yeah. Goodfriend of mine just retired within the last
six months and is excited. Spenttwenty some odd years there as a Springfield
police officer and has now started towork a different type of job for the
Missouri highway patrol. Not because hehad to, right, but because he

(22:47):
wanted to and knew that his retirementfrom the police department was going to be
plenty to live on. But alsoit was like, you know, I've
got all this experience. I canput it to use and make even more
money. He's still a relatively youngguy, and he found a job that
would allow him still to go fishingwith me during the week. That was
important to both of us, absolutely. But what I took most away,

(23:08):
obviously the going fishing together thing isawesome for me, was how comfortable he
felt in retiring that financially he wasgoing to be taken care of. I
don't know, in twenty twenty fourhow many professions people can say that about
or feel comfortable about their financial outlookover time. I know here, I

(23:30):
just learned what the word retirement meantlike a couple months ago, right,
So I think that's pretty shock well, and I think that's pretty common too,
is you know, I mean we'rein our thirties, is you know
that's something that we're thinking about.But you know, say somebody who's twenty
one. I know when I wastwenty one, you know that retirement benefit
that was on my first my firstjob out of college. I was like,

(23:52):
eh, whatever, you know,I'm twenty one. But it's like
such a huge benefit. It's abig deal, and I think one that
can't be understayd certainly with a careerlike this, because we talked about the
built in kind of family aspect,the brotherhood's sisterhood. That's something you stay
in for a really long time,and the longer you do stay in,
the better it becomes for you,not just during your career but also afterwards.

(24:15):
Built a lot of relationships in thisjob. Yeah, you know,
professional and personal relationships which you'll havefor life. So when we talk about
recruitment, now we've talked you know, what it takes, what it looks
like. The only question I didn'thave, And I'm glad you brought it
up because it's lipped my mind earlier. Chris. But like you said,
we're in our thirties. I turnedforty in like a month, which freaks
me out a little bit. Whatage range are you looking for here?

(24:37):
Anybody you're telling me that at almostforty years old, I mean, I'm
a great looking forty let's not person. Okay. I was going to try
to recruit you after we go wentoff air, Let's do it. Can
if I can get away for havea five year old and the seven year
old, it gets me out ofthe house a little bit, like I'm
good, I'll just come have yourweekend copping. Yeah, you know we
can do that. Uh yeah,I mean age range. No, the

(24:57):
minimum age is twenty years old,twenty one by the time you graduate the
police Academy, and there is nocap on age. I've had We've had
people in their fifties come through theacademy and pass it with flying colors.
We don't care as long as ifyou feel pulled to this kind of job,
can give us a shot. Whatdo you mean by that pulled?

(25:19):
This is the elevator pitch, bythe way, Sure this is the one.
This is the internal monologue. Yeah, this is yeah. So I'm
trying to think of the right word. It's hard to explain what this job
like, what it is. Thisis not something where I just wake up,
I'm yeah, I think I'll trybeing a cop today. Right.
Sure, it's something that if youhave that servant mentality of I want to
do something better than what I'm doingnow. I want to I want to

(25:42):
affect more people than just myself.If you feel drawn to that type of
lifestyle, then I say give usa shot. This is that you cannot
be selfish in this career. Youare fixing other people's problems nine percent of
the time. You have to beable to do that with a smile on

(26:03):
your face, you know, andand go home at the end of the
day and think that I made adifference to somebody's lives. If you feel
like that's something you want to do, I say give us a shot,
because you won't find a better agencyto do it at. Yeah. Yeah.
The one question I have to ask, because my wife is a therapist
mental health. How important is thatto you? Guys? Huge? And
what kind of support do you have? Absolutely, it's huge. So backing
up to when you're getting hired,we have a psychological evaluation, right are

(26:26):
you mentally fit and stable to doyour job? That's big and not only
on top of that, we havemental health check ins a. We have
a psychologist like on retainer where wecan check in whenever we want. Awesome,
and it's encouraged like I mean,you know, I mean, I've
been through incidents in my career,really horrific incidents in my career WHEREB said,
you know, I got to talkto somebody and you felt good about

(26:48):
doing that. You didn't feel likethe outside of the old blood was saying,
come on, we don't do thatany No, it's one encouraged and
go talk to somebody. You know, we've got a wellness committee and what
they We've got a wellness app that'sfor our sworn employees and also you know,
the non and sworn employees to haveaccess to it. And I know
they just started some peer check ingroups, you know, where you just

(27:11):
go and you can talk to peoplewho have shared experiences. And that was
a what I heard that was avery well attended. Yeah, very well
attended group. That's awesome. Yeah. So say somebody's catching this and they
think, okay, I would liketo take maybe the first step towards doing
that. Where can I go getmore information? Where can I have a
conversation like this and ask the questionslike where? Where where would you direct

(27:34):
somebody to go? In that instance, easy website, go spd dot com.
My information's on there. So ifthey want to email me, call
me, text me, whatever,come on there. I'm it's the it's
easier. If they're having any kindof questions or doubts or what just call
me. Yeah, okay, allmy information's on there. I can walk
them through, you through the process, and we can get this thing started.

(27:56):
Okay, yeah, Chris, anythingelse. I mean, this has
been a pretty great conversation. Ithink, oh absolutely, you know,
that's filling these spots, that isbenefiting Springfield. Yeah. The more officers
that we can get on board,those quality moral people that we can get

(28:18):
on board, you know, thathelps out internally as well, you know,
relieve some of the pressure on theofficers that are already here, you
know, and allows us to domore proactive work. The more officers we
have on the street, the morewe're able to serve and help Springfield.
So we you know, go SPDdot com even if you think you're interested.
Awesome. Chris Waters, who's apublic affairs officer for SPD, and

(28:42):
officer Greg Anderson, thank you guysfor being here. This is great.
Thank you. I have found Ialways make a big deal about it.
I like to run around the officebeforehand, like the cops are coming,
like everybody hide your stuff. ButI says a joke and then every time
you guys come in, like Idon't even know if they would have,
you know, people here with aguest, because you are just people,

(29:02):
right, it's not the era ofbeing a police officer and you're just It's
become very clear to us who interactwith you guys pretty regularly, you are
people, and you are good people, and you do good for this community.
So thank you much for that,and thank you for being here for
Thank you, thanks for having me. If you guys, if you're just
like tuning in here and you're maybecatching a couple of minutes of this and
you want to hear more of thewhole thing, this is easy to find

(29:23):
on iHeartRadio. Just search iHeart theOzars. That's the name of this show,
where we talk every week to adifferent group organization. This one specifically
though, is up there now soyou can listen to the entire thing.
Or the website is go SPD dotcom if you are in any way,
shape or form interested in becoming involvedwith our Springfield Police Departments. For myself,
Clint Gurley, the rest of ourstaff here at iHeartRadio, thank you

(29:45):
so much for listening. Have agreat rest of your day.