Analyst Talk - Michael Herb - The Make-A-Wish Analyst - Leapodcasts

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(00:00):
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Back to the show.
Welcome to Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.

(01:11):
It's like coffee with an analyst,or it could be whiskey with an
analyst reading a spreadsheet,linking crime events, identifying a
series, and getting the latest scoopon association news and training.
So please don't beat thatanalyst and join us as we define
the law enforcement analysisprofession one episode ahead time.
Thank you for joining me.
I hope many aspects ofyour life are progressing.
My name is Jason Elder, and today ourguest has 10 years of law enforcement

(01:35):
analysis experience with almost 20years of law enforcement experience.
Overall.
He spent time in both Houston,Texas, and Cleveland, Ohio.
He holds a master's of sciencedegree in science, technology and
public safety, and he is currentlyworking on his PhD in public health.
He is currently the senior strategist forpublic safety for the City of Cleveland.

(01:57):
He's gone from officer turnedAnalyst turned director.
Please welcome Mike Herb.
Mike, how we doing?
Doing great.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for being here.
How is Cleveland these days?
Warmed up for a day and now it's goingback to cold and then it'll warm up again.
That's Cleveland weather for us.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, yes, yes.
So I'm from nor I'm fromNorthwestern Pennsylvania.

(02:20):
I don't know if you knew thator not, so I remember those
days of wild spring weather.
Or winter into spring orwhatever it is now at the moment.
So, very good.
So are you a Guardians fan?
I
actually grew up a, a Red Sox fan.
Oh, okay.
So I grew up about two hours away fromBoston in, in New York, and so that I

(02:40):
gravitated towards the Red Sox earlyon, but won't say won a World Series.
My wife is a big Guardians fan,so I, I kinda root for 'em hoping
that they'll get, get there somedayand get their World Series too.
Yeah.
Well you went through so manylean years as a Red Sox fan.
Yeah, it was, it was tough.
Tough watching
us lose to the Yankees overand over and over again.

(03:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But hey, then, then, then you gotthe light at the end of the tunnel.
Right.
And that was the thing.
It's now what, what have they won?
Three, I think, is it three in thelast 15 years or whatever it is.
So that's, it's, it's nice to see them.
Finally a breakthrough.
I think Cleveland actually isthe next on the list of longest

(03:21):
without winning a World Series now.
So yeah.
I, I'm with you.
I hope the, the guardianscan break through here soon.
That's the hope.
So how did you discover the lawenforcement analysis profession?
I actually, it started whenI went to college originally.
I wasn't sure exactly whatI wanted to do, leaving high
school and going into college.
I originally applied to college as amath major and ended up changing over

(03:45):
to criminal justice kinda last minutebefore I even started any classes.
And I don't know if I had visions of beinga, maybe an FBI agent, I think back then.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, a little known fact about me.
I was actually a, a Make-A-Wishkid back when I was 15 years old.
And had a wish granted and mywish was to experience the FBI.

(04:06):
So I actually got sent down there atto Quantico, Virginia, in Washington
DC at 15 years old and, and got toride around with some FBI agents and
see the training that they go through.
And so that shaped, I guess, a littlebit of my life moving me towards and
staying in the criminal justice field.
Oh man.
So you gotta see Hogan's Alley.
Got to see Hogan's Alley.
I was the youngest person that theyhad had there at the time back then.

(04:28):
Wow.
They weren't really, weren'tdoing tours and things back when
I, when I got to go down there.
It was, it was pretty cool.
Yeah.
'cause I went, uh, I went down therein college and after watching Silence
of the Lamps and that there waswhole, all that Hogan's Alley and
everything else was in that movie.
That had to be awesome.
You said you were 15 years old?
Yeah.
I've had, I had a couple brainsurgeries to remove benign brain

(04:51):
tumors when I was 12 and when I was 15.
And so the wish that I had,I actually got to experience
that in between the surgeries.
Wow.
So it was a good, good breakfor me and my family as well.
Oh man.
It seems that I didn't, obviously didnot know that that wouldn't even have
been something I would've asked about.
Um, I mean obviouslyyou're healthy now, right?

(05:12):
This is in, in the rear view mirror.
Yep, yep.
Everything's in the rear view mirror.
All, all good.
They were thankfully benign braintumors, so usually once they're
able to get, remove the entiretumor to, generally speaking,
it's a smooth sailing from there.
And everything's beengood on my end for sure.
Oh, how big were they?
Their original one was a golf ball size.

(05:33):
Oh wow.
Yep.
So I'd had, I had started to havesome medical effects from it that
really mirrored epilepsy and sothey were convinced back then,
they didn't just stick you in anMRI tube and give you a diagnosis.
I can't tell you how many EEGs where theytried to cause a seizure to happen and
they, they never were able to do that.
But I actually ended upgetting a lucky concussion.

(05:54):
I got a concussion.
They did a CT scan from the concussionand found what they thought was cyst at
the time, and then found it to actuallybe an aggressively growing benign tumor.
So,
yeah.
So then, back then, why didyou make that your wish?
I really don't know.
We like my family and I reflect backon it even just some years after, not

(06:15):
even that long when I was in college.
And we really, nobodycan point their finger.
There's no law enforcement in thefamily, nothing in particular.
I wasn't obsessed with.
Different TV shows or anything like that.
It just, I don't know.
I don't really know what caused itto come out, but it ended up being
something that for sure shapedmy life, but also something that
I've just enjoyed ever since then.

(06:36):
Yeah.
So obviously you said it influencedyour career and that's a little bit
of an understatement because youbecome a police officer at Houston
pd.
Yeah, I did.
So I guess I, I talked my wayaround the original question,
which is how I got into it.
So yeah, when I went to collegeand, and was a criminal justice
major, I think I had the ideas inmy head of a federal law enforcement

(06:59):
or something along those lines.
And actually my first year intomy degree, I got exposed to crime
analysis, something that I really knewnothing about when I left high school.
And, and I really got my start and.
A faculty member picked me up and put meon their project Safe Neighborhoods Grant.
And so I originally started doing somedata analytics in my first year in school.

(07:22):
Nice.
And never really looked back after that.
Just kept going down that trackas I got more and more involved.
And that was in Rochester, New York,where I really was able to get some
experience working on different grantswith my faculty advisors, but also
working with the city as they actuallydeveloped a crime analysis unit back,
back then in the early two thousands.

(07:44):
Hmm.
Well then, now I'm curious, how didyou, you're from the Boston area,
you made it to Rochester, thenhow did you make it to Houston?
Yeah, that one.
That one I can, my wifewill take credit for.
Oh, okay.
Um, we met in college and sheactually went into a graduate
program down in Houston, Texas.
And so that took us, took us down thatway where I was looking for my first job

(08:04):
when I finished up my master's degree.
I gotcha.
And that's when HoustonPD comes into the picture.
Okay.
That's, that was the first.
First place that would hire mefresh outta graduate school.
Yeah.
So, so then that was your, your idea.
Get some years of experience as an officerand then be maybe become an FBI agent?
Yeah.
I mean, I honestly, I think whenI first moved down there, I really

(08:25):
had aspirations and thoughts thatI would be going directly into
a crime analysis role, actually.
Mm-hmm.
Up north and northeast in Rochester.
The analysts that they were hiring andthe units that they were developing,
all the analysts were civilians.
When I moved down to Houston,I only knew one law enforcement
contact and I. I had reached outand said, where are these jobs?

(08:47):
How are they available down here?
LinkedIn wasn't a thing, so it was morechallenging and he tried to help as
much as he could, but eventually he justturned around and said, have you thought
about joining the police department?
The majority, the majority of our analystsare sworn, and he jokingly said, you
come in, you'll, you'll do some timeout on the streets, but they're gonna

(09:08):
realize that that's your, your specialty.
That's what you do, and it won't be longbefore they take you and put you behind
a desk in that analytical capacity.
And that's, sure enough,that's what happens.
So I always joke around that I mightbe one of the worst policemen they had
because I don't know how much moneythey spend or they say they spend
to train you to be out on the road.
But I wasn't on the road fortoo long before, before I got a

(09:31):
a desk job with the department.
I.
That is, that is fascinating to thinkabout that you went for an analyst job but
you went through all the officer trainingjust to get that first analyst job.
That is really interesting.
So, 'cause I was gonna ask, 'causeSean Bair, he always talked about like.

(09:51):
Color coding crime and categorizingcrime in the squad car.
'cause he was thinking analyticallywhen he was an officer.
So that's where my head was going.
I was, I was picturing youbeing this patrol officer and
thinking about data the whole
time.
It, it definitely, it never left my headthat that was something, and it wasn't,

(10:12):
from my perspective, it wasn't a attemptto get out of the patrol world or out.
I, I did some time in patrol, I did sometime on the DWI I task force, um mm-hmm.
Before I, I took an analyticaljob, but it's, it was something
that I could tell in the back of myhead was always still calling me.
Mm-hmm.
That academic type perspectiveof, of evaluating and dealing

(10:33):
with crime, um, especially ina, a city as large as Houston.
Yeah.
Yeah, it definitely,definitely really large.
So you leave Houston and then.
Do you go back to school?
Yeah.
We left Houston.
My, my wife's originally fromthe Cleveland area in Ohio.
Okay.
And I'm, uh, from downstate New York andwe wanted to move back closer to family.

(10:55):
Mm-hmm.
And so I actually started in a PhD programat Penn State and that, so that's what,
that's what our attempt to get back closerto Ohio and New York was start a PhD.
Right.
I was.
I picked a point in the middle of familiesand, and things, and we were there for,
I think about a year and a half and foundout my wife was pregnant with twins.

(11:17):
Oh, nice.
And, yeah.
And so we, I quickly realizedthat the PhD stipend that I was
receiving to go to school full-timewas not gonna support the family.
So took the decision to goback into government work and
went back and, and really.
Applied for jobs in, in NewYork and in Ohio, and ultimately
settled on one here in Ohio.

(11:38):
Wow.
So you were actually atPenn State during this time?
Yeah, I was at Penn State full-time.
I was a full-time student for,for a year and a half before
the, before the twins were born.
Oh
wow.
That had to be a little culture or shockgoing from Houston to Happy Valley.
They say it's a college town and,and that I didn't really understand

(11:58):
it until I was there and then allof a sudden I was like, holy smokes.
There is nothing aroundthe infrastructure.
It's very much blue collar work, greatplace, beautiful place, and it really
enjoyed living there, but it was, wasvery different moving outta Houston.
Yeah.
It doesn't take much to go fromfootball stadium to cornfield.
Yep.

(12:19):
Yeah, if you, it is interesting drivingin 'cause they're like, we gotta be lost.
There's no way that there'sgoing to be a a, a college or
a town in the next two miles.
And then all of a sudden you comeover a little, little hill and
then it opens up and there it is.
So, yep.
Alright.
So when you're an analyst at, atCleveland, you're a civilian now, right?

(12:39):
Yeah.
The, yep.
The first job that I, I'm a civiliannow in my current position, but even
the first job that I took here inOhio, I was working for Cuyahoga
County's Department of Public Safety,which is a non-law enforcement agency.
But I was hired in an analyticalcapacity and yeah, I was a civilian
employee, so that was also also a change.
But I felt like my time asa police officer in Houston

(13:03):
had made me a better analyst.
So I wasn't looking to get backonto a law enforcement agency,
start the career all over again.
I. I was back to looking for a,a civilian analyst job at the
time.
Yeah.
So you mentioned your time in, inHouston making you a better analyst.
Elaborate on that a little bit.
Yeah.

(13:23):
I think my perspective was different.
Mm-hmm.
I spent time in college andgraduate school working with the
police department in Rochester.
I do some ride-alongs now and thenand get a little bit of exposure
to what they might be seeingout on the streets and things.
But there's really, I, well, Ithink that's a good experience for
folks to have, especially analysts.

(13:44):
There's really nothing that can compare tobeing out on the streets and answering the
types of calls that I was reading reportsabout the next day or the next week, and
then trying to piece together the puzzle.
So being out there, hearing the calls,go over the radio, having to respond
and, and actually talking to victimsand witnesses and things like that.

(14:07):
Um, really just, it, it gave me a, itwas a totally different lens to look
at crime through, and especially once Istarted to say, okay, let me put on my
analyst hat and look at things that way.
So I, yeah, I do think it, it.
It gave me a different perspectiveand it made me a better analyst.
It's not for everybody.
I wouldn't say everybody's gottago out there and, and throw on a

(14:28):
uniform and become a sworn officer.
But like I said, in, in originally,it wasn't part of the plan.
It wasn't something that I said I haveto do this to, to really be an analyst.
It's also interesting you beinga analyst as an officer and an
analyst as a civilian as well.
Yeah.
When I look back on it now, especiallybeing in Houston, I was always sworn

(14:48):
as an analyst there, but mm-hmm.
The things that I never had to dealwith here, a hurricane coming in
and suddenly my desk job becominga 16 hour a day emergency disaster
recovery, putting the uniform backon and back out on the street.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, that was, that was certainlysomething that I've never experienced.
Now back into the civilian analyst world,maybe a call off hours that they need some

(15:11):
help on something, but, but no naturaldisaster planning and, and changing.
So the analyst role that youhave here with the county.
Is in the prosecutor'soffice, is that right?
Yeah, so I, I actuallystarted with Cuyahoga County's
Department of Public Safety.
They had a project that they werekicking off and trying to, to build

(15:31):
an analytical unit and capacity.
Cuyahoga County, the county thatsurrounds Cleveland is just very unique.
There are 59 municipalities with 58different municipal police departments.
So there's actually no unincorporatedarea of the county that, like
the sheriff patrols or anything.

(15:51):
They all have theirown police departments.
Oh, wow.
And so when I came here, the, thethought was that the county would
try to build out some capacityto, to share with those agencies.
I was hired in March.
And it was right after an election.
And so the newly elected official camein and just, they didn't cancel the
project or anything, but they tabled it.

(16:13):
And I, I just don't really sitstill very well to kinda wait
for it to come back around.
And so when working with the directorof, of the county's department
of Public Safety at the time, andthey put me on the loan over to
Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office.
Oh,
okay.
And so I started doing some work thereand ultimately they ended up hiring me

(16:33):
away from the County Department of PublicSafety and into the county prosecutor's
office, different elected official.
So a little bit of a change,but ultimately, I, I carried
the title of crime analystwith the prosecutor's office.
And I've had a couple of analystson the show now that are, were
part of a prosecutor's office.
It's, it's definitely something.
Before I started this podcast, Ididn't even think about a prosecutor's

(16:58):
office needing an analyst support.
So what were some of the tasksthat you were assigned during your
time with the prosecutor's office?
Yeah.
It started off, even though I was workingfor the county prosecutor's office,
it started off, I was actually lookinga lot at the city of Cleveland and
the violent crime that was occurring.
The prosecutor's office, the countyprosecutor's offices here in Ohio handle

(17:21):
felony cases, so drove the boat for that.
The county prosecutor's office, theyled the way in, in violent offenses
compared to the rest of the county.
So, but really I had direct accessto Cleveland's records management
system, and I start, started outthere by just building a simple
Microsoft Access database thatallowed me to, to code reports.

(17:46):
When I started the, the division ofpolice, the Cleveland Division of
Police, were still handwriting reports.
And so there was no backenddatabase to really easily go
in and extract information.
So wait, wait, this is like,this is like 20 16, 20 17, right?
Yes, it was.
It was.
And they're still
on paper reports.
They they were, and things werestill getting scanned in and

(18:09):
records was still entering them.
But information is easily missed,I guess you could say, when
we're doing things that way.
Uh, and so, yeah, so I mean, I startedout and said, boy, we, we need a database
really, we need a records managementsystem that can, can look at these things.
And so as, as backwards, I guess as inlike the current analytical capacity
would be, I, I started out just readingsome of these violent offense reports,

(18:32):
like robberies and shootings and codingmy own data and pulling back summaries
to, to share with prosecutors thatworked to the different regions and the
different parts of the cities, what wewere seeing as far as violence goes.
So you move on from there, thenbecome an administrator for.
The county Sheriff's Department.

(18:53):
Yeah, so the, the project that hadbeen tabled came back full circle.
Ah, and I saw the project comingback around and actually applied.
The administrator position actuallywas supervising now the project as they
brought it back around full circle.
So it was administrative in title, butreally I had my hand in analysis and the

(19:13):
projects that we were trying to launch.
Now again, we're launching them atthe county level to try to help.
Local municipal agencies.
So it's not like every day I wascoming in and looking at the Sheriff's
Department reports, because as I said,there's no unincorporated area, so
there's not regular patrol that's beingworked by the sheriff's department.
So, so I came in and they, I. Hadthe project that they were looking

(19:38):
at two years before and they hiredme back as a supervisor to take on
the main project and, and informationsharing projects really, that they
were launching out of the county.
Hmm.
Alright, so this brings usto your analyst badge story.
And for those that may be new tothe show, the analyst badge story
is the career defining case orproject that an analyst works.

(19:59):
So we're here, it's around 2018 and you'veset the table, we're talking about 50,
58, 59 municipalities in this one county.
All these separate policedepartments obviously having
an issue with sharing data.
Yeah, the, the, the, it, it's somethingthat I've, if I tell people this,

(20:20):
they, they laugh just like you did.
It's something that I think is veryunique that we just haven't seen 58
municipalities or, or municipal policedepartments means 58 police chiefs,
and that's just the municipal areas.
We still have regional departmentstoo, like the Transit Authority or the
metro parks, and so between those 58departments, there were five different

(20:42):
records management systems that were used.
So we had neighboring jurisdictionsthat used different records
management systems and the systemsdidn't communicate with each other.
Mm-hmm.
So they could be dealing with the samecriminals in, in many cases, as I'm sure
they were, and just have no idea of whattype of footprint they're this person may

(21:02):
be having in, in a neighboring community.
Of course, the agencies talked witheach other, but having still disparate
data systems is, is its own challenge.
Um.
Mm-hmm.
Even when we're dealing withmaybe two disparate systems.
In this case, we're trying tolink the entire county together.
So that was the big project.
That was really what I was hired to do.
I was brought in and they had alreadystarted to build out and they had

(21:25):
a contract with a local dispatchcenter actually to build out a data
warehouse, ultimately to bring togetherrecords management system data from
these different municipalities andput it into one location and host it.
In 2018, these solutions existed.
There were private companies that didthis, but every time we looked around

(21:45):
and, and tried to think about getting aquote, they would look at how many police
agencies we had in the county, how manysworn police officers we have, and you can
imagine how expensive the, the bill got.
It was over, it was millions of dollarsand we just didn't have that money.
Mm-hmm.
So contracting with a local dispatchcenter that used their IT folks to

(22:06):
really build out a warehouse that was.
That was what I was brought in for andthat's what led to me 58 police chiefs.
That was 58 meetings of sittingdown one-on-one with the police
chief and really trying to gaintheir trust and selling myself
as much as selling the project.
To get them, I had to get themto release and, and be okay
with others seeing their data.

(22:29):
That's always a challenge in lawenforcement, but also understanding
that not just others are gonna be seeingit, but we as the county or the county
Sheriff's Department, we're gonna have tobe in there and really pulling back the
veil to make sure that the data's cleanwhen it's going into this, this system.
And so it was a big project, but it'ssomething that when I left the sheriff's

(22:49):
department, I was really proud ofthe fact that we had accomplished it.
Things have changed since I left.
Of course, the times have progressed,other systems have been been looked
at, but I think the county as a whole,because of that project is in a better
place communication wise between the.
Many agencies and many chiefsand folks that are there.

(23:12):
Hmm.
So did you end up building it in-house?
Yeah, so it was built, we, soit was a local dispatch center.
Mm-hmm.
Chagrin Valley dispatchthat we actually contracted.
The county contracted with them and theybuilt out initially a shell of a system.
The contract was inplace before I came over.
I came over.

(23:33):
Or came back to the county fromthe prosecutor's office and saw it.
And one of the things that I noticedthat we were really missing, if we're
gonna truly try to share informationbetween police departments, we were
missing narratives to police reports.
Mm-hmm.
You know, if we're trying to figureout what's really going on in the
case, the, the basic identifiersof people and things like that,

(23:55):
that doesn't really tell the story.
And so when I came in, I camein and they were like, look
here, we've, we've built it.
This is what we were tasked with doing.
I said, this isn't good enough.
This isn't the end solution for what weneed to be giving the municipal agencies.
And so we actually went back to thedrawing board of what they thought was
a product that was ready to be released.

(24:15):
I pumped the brakes on and said,Nope, we've, we've gotta do better.
The county has, has had a reputation ofdropping the ball on projects before, and
I don't want this to come out and not bethe, the best product that we can make it.
And, and so yeah, we pumpedthe brakes, pulled it back.
Really went through, reevaluatedwhat data was gonna be in this,
how we were gonna share it.

(24:37):
And, and like I said, I was outdoing the traveling roadshow, selling
what we were doing and talkingabout its importance before we
actually went live with the system.
Hmm.
Yeah, because it obviously, to, tomake that call, you're gonna have
to explain why we're doing it.
Right.
People are like, if it'sready, let's launch it.
I can just imagine, I canjust hear the conversation.
You are obviously, were ableto successfully articulate your

(24:58):
reasons for pumping the brakes.
Yeah, it was, it was definitelya, an interesting conversation
when I, when I tried to come in.
'cause I was really aanalytical unit of one.
I was brought in as the administratorto run the project and the, I get
in and within the first month I'mlike, I, I know you think this
is a, a great finished, polishedproduct, but it's not good enough.

(25:20):
And so the hundreds of thousands ofdollars that were spent at, at the end,
we were gonna put out the same product.
A product was gonna go outregardless of when we did it.
So I, I really didn't wanna rush intosomething that I thought we would be
judged poorly on or that folks would seeit and be like, where's the value added?
'cause I didn't thinkwe had it at the time.
Yeah.
So thinking about.

(25:40):
Now and looking back, what weremaybe some of the bigger roadblocks
and, and what, and that could beany realm of things, whether that's
people, agencies, data, technology.
What, what were some of the majorroadblocks with this project?
Yeah, I mean, I, I won't name names,but I definitely walked into some

(26:00):
meetings to pitch the project.
And some of the first thingsout of folks mouths were, how's
the county gonna fail us now?
And so I was fighting a, a battle thatI, I didn't know the history of, right?
I was coming into a project and the, andthe county trying to launch something
that would span municipalities.
And I didn't know that there had beenprevious projects, not necessarily to

(26:23):
this degree of what we were trying toaccomplish, but that they felt that
the county had, I don't wanna saymismanaged or just had, let the wheels
fall off of whatever the project was.
And so I. It was, a lot of themeetings that I went to was, was
really trying to convince folksthat I was a different person.
I am not from the county and Ihave a different background and

(26:48):
this is the way I'm approaching it.
And I really was not, not gonna acceptany type of drop in the ball or failure
from my perspective, but those weresome tough conversations to have.
Uh, and, and some chiefs grilled me morethan others as to what I was gonna do.
What am I gonna do if I run intothis scenario or that scenario.
Or they'd start asking legal questionsand I'm not an attorney, so I had to

(27:11):
do a lot of, I'll get back to you, orby the time I got maybe 20 chiefs in,
I was getting, I was pretty preparedon the legal questions and, and ready
to answer with how we had addressed.
The legal issues or potential hurdlesthat were in the way of, of just sharing
the data that we wanted to share.
Yeah.
So you have one county, 58 municipalities.

(27:32):
Was this a mandate?
Was somebody, was somebody over topof these 58 saying like, Hey, we're
going to do this, or was this, or didthey have the option of opting out?
Y
yeah, they absolutely hadthe option to, to opt out.
Uh, the, the entire time there wasnothing that required them to participate.

(27:54):
But part of the, the selling was, Hey,the county is putting the bill for this.
I don't need you or yourdepartment or your officers to
do anything any differently.
We were working with the recordsmanagement system vendors to pull
this data into one location, so.
Other than telling us, yeah, you've,you've got our blessing to do this.

(28:16):
We didn't need them tochange how they were entering
records or anything like that.
So part of the, the, the reason itcame about is there's a unique obscure
law in the Ohio revised code that.
Basically says if you are in a countywhere you have a certain number,
and I don't recall the number, but avery high number of municipal police

(28:39):
agencies, every moving violationconviction in that county, a $5 fee
is to be added onto the ticket, and ithas to be used for information sharing.
So it's a very strange revenuegenerating system, and the funds have
to be used for a very specific purpose.

(28:59):
And so that actually is whatwas funding the project.
So I was able to come in the municipalagencies through their regular operations
of writing traffic tickets, and it's.
There definitely is no, hey,go write more tickets so we can
do more, more with this money.
That's not how it was working.
It just that fee was mandatedin the Ohio revised code.
It had been like that for years.

(29:21):
And to be honest with you, CuyahogaCounty and its unique number of
municipalities is the only one inthe state of Ohio that fits, that has
that fund and that funding source.
So.
So, yeah, so it was optional foreverybody, but it was being funded.
The county was able to come in andI was able to say, Hey, I don't need
you to do anything any different, andyou're not gonna pay for anything.

(29:41):
I just need you to give us theokay to work with your vendor
to pull back the information.
So a lot of MOUs, legal MOUs, obviously,between the county and the individual
police agencies, but they were the onessigning off and, and if I didn't have an
MOU, they weren't coming into the system.
Yeah.
Seem to remember some odd rules whenI, I was at, spent time at Cincinnati.

(30:04):
Mm-hmm.
I think it, you cancorrect me if I'm wrong.
I think the state of Ohio requiresemployers to actually give
every employee a paper pay stop.
Like, you can't make that fully
electronic.
Yeah.
I, I, so I think you can, if theperson opts to keep it electronic,
they can, but you can't force them.

(30:25):
So I know some folks, especially inthe policing world, that are like,
Nope, I want my printed pay stub.
I will never opt or give it.
I don't know what they do with them.
Yeah,
yeah.
Maybe they did because I rememberI always got one and I'm like,
why do I, I don't need this.
It's direct deposit.
So what are you, why are youdoing handing that to me?
Can't I get this electronically?
But anyway, that is some,obviously some obscure.

(30:47):
Rules there.
So, and every state has, butin terms of the optout, did
any municipalities opt out?
Nobody opted out.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, we had some holdups, uh, that werea little bit cautious and reserved
about releasing their informationand kinda letting us at it, so to
speak, to, to bring it together.

(31:08):
Cleveland being a, a big one.
Mm-hmm.
Now, of the five records managementsystems, they were a municipality
that had a records management systemthat no one else had, so mm-hmm.
It was gonna be a, a uniquepartnership that, that had to work
to bring their data into the system.
We never got there.
While I was there, we hadvery positive relationship.

(31:29):
I'd like to think that through thisprocess we really built up a good
communication relationship thathas allowed, while the system is
not in its state like it was whenI was there and we were building
it, I think the communication and.
The sharing of information has had alasting impact from that project and
from all the outreach that was done.

(31:50):
Hmm.
Now that is, that is interesting.
You're a team of one and did thatobviously is quite an endeavor.
Dealing with all those personalities, allthose municipalities you talked about,
the legal aspects to the whole thing.
That is obviously something, uh,that's quite to say it's a project
is probably a, a disservice it.

(32:10):
That is really impressive.
It was, it was fun.
It was definitely, like yousaid with the, the bad story.
I, I don't look at back at it and sayI was the most, that, that was the most
successful thing ever in the country.
Anything like that.
It just, the challenges that came withit, the things that I learned through
that process, they certainly werenothing that I would've ever forecast

(32:33):
that I'd be working on or that thatwould've come down the pipe from my time.
Any, uh, anywhere else, uh, previous inmy career of the, the things I was doing.
So.
Uh, this is Erin Wickersham and mypublic service announcement is to go on
a court along, uh, you may have been ona ride along and I think someone else

(32:59):
recommended a 9 1 1 operator sit along.
So find a prosecutor in your jurisdictionand see if you can go to court with 'em.
You'll learn a lot about the processand about the work that they're doing.
Hi, this is Patrick Baldwin, formerdirector of Crime Analysis for the Las
Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
I had two managerial axiomswhen I was a director.

(33:22):
You're either in or you're out.
I never liked peopledabbling in my business.
You had something to, you wantedto work with something and you're
all in, and the other one wasstay in your lane as an analyst.
There's lots of people doing work.
Stay in your own lane.

(33:45):
All right.
So as you mentioned, you did leavethe sheriff's department and you
take a director's role with theNortheast Ohio Regional Fusion Center.
Yeah, so I, I step away really fromthe, the analytical work that I was
doing with the sheriff's department andthe design and build out and move over
into the world of homeland security.

(34:06):
And I take over a fusion center,which covers northeast Ohio.
At the time it covered five counties toinclude the Cleveland area, the Greater
Cleveland area and Cuyahoga County.
And I went from being an administratorwith the Sheriff's department
and supervising an analyst overthere to really running an entire
center with multiple analysts.

(34:27):
And from the time I was there, westarted, we had two and a half.
I had a part-time critical infrastructureanalyst that was there, and when I
left we had seven people in the office.
So we really grew andexpanded in that time.
Alright, so I like to ask questions ofthe managers that I have on this show.
Just different hiring practices.

(34:48):
Like when you're hiring an analyst, whatare some things that you're looking for?
Do you have standard interviewquestions, for instance?
Yeah.
You, as far as like standard questions,I do have a standard grouping
of questions that I would ask.
Some were generic and have transcendedhiring I've done of crime analysts
and Homeland Security, so there'sa little bit of difference, but.

(35:10):
At the end of the day, there's analyticalcomponents to what they're doing.
And then others got more specific into thefield that they were actually looking at.
Uh, something unique that I hadin the Fusion Center, none of the
analysts actually worked for me.
I was a director of a regional shopand all of the analysts had a parent

(35:30):
agency that they came from to me.
Oh, okay.
So they were assigned to you?
They were assigned to me, yeah.
So when it came down to some of theadministrative functions, I had the
administrative rules and I. Operatingmanual that I wrote for the Fusion Center
that also had to coincide with whatevertypes of rules and regulations they had

(35:51):
with the agency that they came from.
And so I had people from CuyahogaCounty's Department of Public Safety,
the CUA County Sheriff's Department, thecity of Cleveland Division of Police,
the US Department of Homeland Security.
So I had all these folks inin one area and made hirings
from these respective agencies.
And so I had different processes dependingon where I was, but I carried that book

(36:14):
of questions with me from place to place.
Hmm.
And I think it's interesting now thatyou're at the director level, because
obviously when you're a supervisoror a manager of analysts, you're.
You're hiring and, but you'renot team building per se.
Right.
And I, and somebody's probably going todisagree with me on, on that, but where

(36:36):
I'm getting at is when you get underthat director's role, you're building
the team and you have it, it seems tome like it's more strategic as opposed
to when you're supervisor or middlemanager somebody, executives are really
doing a lot of the strategic planning.
But when you're in that directorrole, you are strategic planning

(36:56):
and putting a team in place anddoing a little bit of management.
Do you agree or am I off?
Yeah, no, I mean that this was, it wasa unique role that I stepped into, and I
would agree a hundred percent with that.
I came in, they hadn't had a full-timedirector in over a year, but that
director position reports to an actualgovernance board that covers, and so I.

(37:19):
I was a city of Cleveland employee onpaper, and I always explain somebody had
to pay and give benefits to that position.
But ultimately my boss was 13 individualsfrom across the five counties.
And so when I walked in there, it was alittle bit of a shock 'cause I said, boy,
they, they expect me to have some magicalvision of what I want this center to do.

(37:41):
And that, that really ran the gambit fromdeveloping a policy manual to figuring
out how it was gonna fund the centerto, Hey, I think we could add this.
Capacity to the office.
And if we were adding it, thatmeant I had to sell it to the team.
But it also meant I had to find thefunding if there was a, a software

(38:01):
need or a, a need for a new tool.
And so it really, I stepped into thingsthat I, I didn't, I couldn't even
envision in the lead up to taking the job.
So, but yeah, it was, it was a differentperspective than just supervising
an analyst and maybe feeling likeI was guiding the ship mm-hmm.
To all of a suddenfeeling like I, it was me.
I was, I was steering the entireship as to where we were gonna go

(38:24):
and what our vision was gonna be.
Hmm.
So you're there just shy of five years.
So what are you most proudof or what do you think you
accomplished during this time?
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm definitelymost proud of the growth
that we had in the center.
Like I said, we started with, with twoand a half individuals that were up
there, and when I was leaving, we hadgrown, I had agencies that had added

(38:48):
staff to the center that had neverhad a staff member in the center.
We had, I had over a million dollarsin grant funds that had come in to
the office for grants that I wrote.
And we had taken on so much withthe increased number of personnel.
Our requests had gone from, I'mgonna butcher the numbers and
my analysts will be mad at me.

(39:09):
But we had gone from somewherearound a thousand requests a year,
requests for support to over 3000.
And so we, in five years, the, the growththat we saw and the partnerships that
were, were built with those agencies.
I, I was most proud of that when I walkedaway after the, after the five years,

(39:29):
I felt like it wasn't something that Iwas like, oh, I, I put my name on it.
No, I just felt like I got it into a placewhere folks felt it was a trusted resource
and they were willing to support it.
Whether it was voting to award some of thegrant money, some Homeland Security grant
money to the center, or if it was puttingpersonnel up there, I. I felt like when I

(39:51):
was walking away, I had good relationshipsthat were built and there was trust in
the center and how it was operating.
Yeah.
So it sounds like you, you leftit better than you found it.
That's certainly how I felt.
So, Hey Eddie, you'regetting a little better.
You went from 58, uh, that youhave to deal with down to 13.
So that's, that's a little bitof a, of, of, of an improvement.

(40:14):
So that brings us to where you arenow, which as I mentioned in your
intro, you were the senior strategistfor public safety for Cleveland.
Yeah.
Yep.
It was a position that I don't know thatI fully knew what I was walking into.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, I understood, I guessto some extent where senior
strategists fit in, in mm-hmm.

(40:34):
The business world, but notas much in local government.
And so for me it was, I think Isaid before, I was a city employee
already being the Fusion director.
So it really was like a lateralmovement for me, uh, on paper and.
I've actually had thesame boss the entire time.
It was always the city ofCleveland Safety Director.

(40:55):
Uh, but coming over to this position,I'm starting to branch out into fields
that I really have never had regularinteractions with because the Department
of Public Safety for the City of Clevelandincludes the divisions of police,
fire, EMS, and animal care and control.
Hmm.
So while I have a heavy law enforcementbackground and that division is what

(41:18):
gets probably the biggest lens fromthe public perspective, I'm having
to learn some more about these otherdivisions that I. Haven't previously
really had any experience with.
Yeah.
So, so what are your majorobjectives or what maybe some of
the projects that you're working on?
Yeah, so one of the big ones I walkedinto under our current mayor, Justin

(41:40):
Bibb, he really pushed for opening upthe information that we have across the
city, making the city more transparent.
And so he, they started with a, adepartment outta the mayor's office
called Urban Analytics and Innovation.
And they were tasked with going throughthe city department by department and

(42:00):
building out dashboards and maps andthings that would allow the city to
share its information, things from publicworks all the way to public safety.
And so when I walked in the door.
I was told, Hey, urban ai, as they'reknown, has built a bunch of these
dashboards and this is how we'resharing information with the public.
And I went in, saw what wasbuilt, was like, this is great,

(42:23):
but it needs to be better.
And so one of the first tasks that Itook on when I came in was trying to
improve one of the, they they have.
Many dashboards.
So I'm certainly not gonna saythat I, I built the entire thing.
I built one map, but it was the onethat I came in and said, from an
analyst perspective, what is it that anycitizen is gonna wanna be able to do?

(42:48):
And it was the thing that I felt wasmissing was a more robust mapping
component that really allowedsomebody to go in draw shape around
a particular area, a neighborhoodin the city of Cleveland, and figure
out what's going on in this area.
And so that really ate up, uh, a goodchunk of my first couple months because

(43:10):
I'd been out of the analytical gamefor a little while, and so suddenly
I found myself having to go backin and recreate a map and remember
how to build it out and add some.
Add some features to it,work through some bugs.
Thankfully, the, the de the folks at UrbanAI and their team there were fantastic.

(43:31):
A lot of support helping meget through that process.
But at the end of the day, that wassomething that I did not foresee
being the task of the job, butsomething that I, I think even in the.
However many months it's been now,I guess, I think I went over in
August, so seven, eight months.
It's something that I'm very proud of,that we built out and have launched

(43:52):
and, and really I'm doing a travelingroad show for that right now too, trying
to get folks to understand that we'reputting the, the data in their fingertips.
So, so that's been, that was a big projectthat I walked into right off the rip.
Yeah, I would imagine that the folks in,in the area that are asking for this are.
Older in nature, and yet that'sthe, also the population that

(44:17):
struggles the most with technology.
So you have this gadget, as yousaid, the, the mapping, the,
the website for them to go to.
So I would imagine that that's, there'sa pretty big learning curve showing
these folks how to use the system.
And that's part of the reason why I sayI'm out doing the Traveling Road show.

(44:38):
Mm-hmm.
That's, uh, built some features into it.
It's easy to go in and run a littlefilter to, to do some predefined
boundaries like the policedistricts or the city council wards.
But yeah, the, the more complicatedgeocoding things that can be done, shapes
being drawn and drawing those things out,that's really what I'm out there doing.
And so I've got a lot of, I'm out there inperson for some of these other times, I'm

(45:02):
just doing teams meetings and things likethat and sharing my screen and showing
folks how they can really work with that.
And that's, that's gone across theboard from, I've met with folks from
Cleveland Public Library to the ClevelandMetropolitan School districts and.
Really trying to show some of the,the business organizations, the,
the, the powers in their hands.

(45:22):
They can make a public recordsrequest to the city, but that takes
some time to, to go through review,figure out what the return is gonna
be or what it can be from the city.
Um, versus, hey, we can put it in yourfingertips and we can put it out there.
It just went live in January and I'mhoping here in the next month to really

(45:42):
build out a short video that really goesover the capabilities components and
the little bit of the how to so thatI'll never take away the face-to-face
or the presentations that I do.
I think that's good community buildingwith folks to understand really what the
city's doing to, to share this data andto analyze this data, but, but certainly
making it so that somebody can go to thatsite blind and figure out what they're

(46:06):
doing, I think is, is where we're headed
as we're talking aboutdata sharing is the line.
Of what to share andwhat not to share Clear?
Or is there a pretty good debate?
Over what should be shared,what shouldn't be shared.
I think it's pretty clear Now.
I, I've been talking with folks asI've done these presentations and I've

(46:29):
done 'em for some analysts that are inother fields are working with private
sector partners, and they wanna seethe data that's available for the city.
I think it's pretty clear in mostcases as to where we have to draw
the line as far as protecting lawenforcement investigations and protecting
victims of crimes, things like that.

(46:49):
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and you know, there, there willalways be the critics that say we're
trying to hide something or we'retrying to put up a wall between us.
But the reality is, my boss, a safetydirector, mayor, mayor Bibb, the
chief of police, are all on boardwith, Hey, how can we open this
up to everybody that's out there?
How can we make reports, even from the thechief's office, how can we make reports

(47:14):
that are accessible by any citizen,but also that our own command staff can
use to generate their own statistics?
So even getting away from, oh, we have tobuild these reports and things internally
to just, hey, whatever the citizenscan see, or whatever our command staff
can see, it should all be the same.

(47:35):
As far as statistics, where are thecrimes happening, what are the patterns?
If somebody's out there and theyreally want to dive into it, we
wanna make that available to them.
Yeah, it seems to me a lot is made.
Out of camera footage, whetherthat's a city camera or that's
officer cameras on the officers.
That seems to be the big thing.

(47:56):
Some incident happens and thenthey want all camera footage.
Is that something that you'regetting into or is it more the.
Reports that you mentioned previously?
Yeah, it's, it's the reports for me.
Mm-hmm.
We definitely, I see the volume that havecome in, and actually, if you look at
the state of Ohio, governor DeWine haspushed forward, I believe, I don't think

(48:18):
it's finalized yet, but pushed forwardlegislation that would charge folks that
are requesting the camera footage, becausethe re the request numbers are so high.
That is a, a labor intensive thingto do because it's, we can't just
release the entire camera footage.
If they're talking to a victim that'son the body cam or on the camera

(48:41):
footage, then that's gonna be heldback as part of the investigation.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, so it's, it's just a, it's a process.
And so, I mean, to me it makessense as to where we're trying
to say, look, we'll make it astransparent as possible, but mm-hmm.
There's only so many hours in theday and only so many people we
can hire to, to help release that.
But yeah, the camera footage,the demands are very, very high.

(49:04):
Yeah, and I, you talked about going,going around and that's, I think
that's something that's, I thinkslowly the public, I think realizing
why it's not, why, why are you notreleasing the video right away?
Well, I mean, you have togo through it and touch on.
Some of the stuff that you weretalking about, making sure that

(49:26):
there's not something that shouldn'tbe released for one reason or another.
And it's not, it's not necessarilyabout CYA, but I mean, that's
where a lot of people will jump to.
But, and you understand that I've beenimpressed recently with it's, it's
usually not more than like a day or two.
I've seen police departments islike, it's like a day or two after

(49:46):
the police involved shooting andthey have the video released.
So it's, it's in certain situationsit's not like it's weeks or months.
It's days.
No.
Yeah.
That's definitely the directionthat I think everyone's going
across the country, which is theyknow the demand is gonna be high.
Mm-hmm.
And they want to, if, if officers aredoing what they're not supposed to be
doing, they want to show that just asmuch as they wanna show if officers

(50:10):
are doing all the right things.
So the, yeah.
The video release process forsome of these more serious cases,
whether it's officer involvedshootings or just things that have a.
High political motivation.
They are pushing thoseout as fast as possible.
Yeah.
So, so what's next for your position?
What's, what's coming down the road?
Yeah, so it's a little bit of developmentof just what we're talking, what the

(50:34):
title talks about, a little bit moreof the strategic look at how we can
address safety problems in the city.
So last year my predecessor worked anddeveloped a summer safety plan that really
took a, a whole of government approach.
They went out and really took allthe departments from the city.
And made a lot of contacts with residentsand tried to address all types of issues

(51:00):
from crime to quality of life, and triedto see what impact they could have.
Ultimately, the, the crime numbersdropped substantially from the summer,
in the summer months from 2023 to 2024,and so right now it's, it's working to
try to prepare for this summer and takeon the next safety plan or strategically

(51:20):
look at how the summer can be as safeas possible for our city residents.
All right.
Well, let's move on then.
I wanna talk a little bit about theIACA because you recently participated
in the special election for VP of.
Administration andit's, it is interesting.
You've been, I have a wall of namesthat, of people that have suggested

(51:44):
to be guests on, on the show andyou, embarrassingly enough, your
name's been up there for a while andI just did not got the invite out.
And then, and then I see yourname as one of the six running
for the special election.
So I thought, oh, what bettertime to get you on than now.
So I'm curious, first off is whatwas your motivation to throwing your

(52:06):
name in the hat for the position?
You know, I think like the othercandidates that put their name
in, we want nothing more than tosee the association succeed and
support analysts across the world.
And whether they're at the beginningof their career, the end of their
career, the middle of their career,uh, I think that we probably, the six

(52:27):
of us would all agree that we have.
Had good experiences with, andgotten good resources from the IACA.
And so from my perspective, I've been outof the game for a while for the day-to-day
analytical components to the job.
Mm-hmm.
But what I saw was a parallel to whatI had done when I was in the Fusion

(52:48):
Center and came in a little bit blind.
And figured out, all right, we'vegot policies that need to be updated.
Where can I find the support togo out and find somebody that can
help with these types of things?
And so what I saw or heard from memberswere a desire to update some policies and
some the review process, things like that.

(53:09):
And so I was, was candid when I threwmy name out there of just, I may not be
the right candidate for it, but mm-hmm.
I felt that what my background wasand what I had just done in the
previous five years was maybe somethingthat could be supportive to what
we were, where we're trying to go.
Yeah.
It's a work in progress.
It, it definitely is.
And I, I think one of the thingsis that the association has

(53:33):
grown to 7,000 members and.
It might have grown faster.
It, it has, it is just gone through somegrowing pains of growing too fast and
you still have just five people on theexecutive board trying to manage this
whole thing and more needs to be done.
And I think it's just thepoint that you're making is,

(53:55):
bylaws need to be updated.
Rules and regulationsneed to be updated there.
There's needs to be more ofa checks and balances system.
I. I think the association'seventually going to get there.
So to take the snapshot now is definitelyan incomplete picture at the moment, but
it, it was obviously some things happenedin the fall and, and earlier this year

(54:18):
that have, have been disappointing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like I, like I said, I wascoming into it a little bit blind.
I hadn't been paying, I've beena member of the ISCA for a number
of years, and I'm certified.
Law enforcement analysts.
So I'd gone through that several yearsago, but I felt in, in the one sense, not
knowing the full story to some extent,just being able to maybe look at the

(54:40):
bylaws and say, okay, where are we behind?
Mm-hmm.
Um, so to speak, because the,the bylaws have been there.
They, they, it's not like theywere without bylaws, but mm-hmm.
Uh, the Fusion Center wasthe same when I came in.
My, I saw a place that had bylawsthat were 10 years old, and of
course, technologies changed.
Operations have changed, roles havechanged, and, and we just can't

(55:03):
survive on adding little patchesto bylaws and regulations and
things like that over the years.
They really have to beevaluated regularly.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I, I have to, I didn't, I have to dosome research on this, but I, Aliyah
just had their elections recentlyand they have 11 folks on the, on

(55:25):
the board there, and seven of the 11.
Certified and which I thought wasincredibly high and impressive, and I got
this again, I haven't done the research.
I was like, I'm pretty sure Idon't know if anybody anybody's
certified that's on the board now.
And it got me thinking, I. Howfar back I would have to go before

(55:45):
I would get somebody certified.
I, again, I didn't do, it's just,I'm just thinking off the cuff here.
I, I didn't do it, but I, I didn'tactually do the research, but it,
it, it, it doesn't seem like thatmany people that are on the executive
board are actually certified.
Yeah, I, I, that one I couldn't answer.
I know a handful of peoplethat are certified or have gone
through the certification mm-hmm.
Over the years.

(56:06):
But I've met different folks.
Andy Mitchell, I, I met.
Mm-hmm.
She actually came to town when shewas over a membership and for a
small conference that we had here.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and so knew her from previousinteractions, but other than that, yeah.
I'm not as familiar with everybodythat's on the board currently.
So there is gonna be opportunities tohelp out and improve the association.

(56:29):
So be on the lookout.
Alright, let's get to the advicesection then, and so we've gone
through your, your career thus far.
And so if, what advice do you have forour listeners, whether that would be
maybe folks looking to get into theanalyst field or maybe just starting
out as analysts or experienced analysts?
What, what advice do you have for them?

(56:51):
The, the first thing I, and I've hadthis conversation with people over
lots of different careers, is just thatimposter syndrome is, is a real thing.
And I, there has not been a jobthat I have taken that I didn't
immediately, within the first week.
I look at myself and go, amI even qualified to do this
job that I have taken on?

(57:12):
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and I think that that actually,that reflection that I have at the
beginning of each of these positionsreally helps me sit down and try
to define what is the role gonna beand what do I bring to the table?
The idea I had in my head of whatthat job might be that I don't
feel like I'm qualified for.
I almost need that quick panicmoment to force me to really

(57:35):
dive into that job and say, allright, there are some things that.
Some unique perspectives that Ibring to this job and I, I need to
stop trying to define the job tothe letter before I even get there.
So that's, that's first and foremost.
I think for me, another one, anotherpiece of advice that I have for everybody
is to, to never stop trying to learn.

(57:55):
Of course, I say that as I'm back inschool at Kent State in this PhD program.
I would recommend if you're gonnago back for your PhD, maybe do that
before your kids get, get older orafter they are moved out of the house.
Because what started out okay whenthe kids were little just became
more and more challenging the moreactivities they have going on.
But yeah, I mean, that's what drew meback into, into school is, is my desire

(58:19):
to, to really just keep learning,learning new ways to approach problems.
It's, uh.
PhD in public health.
So it's really, I'm looking at crimethrough an, an, again, another,
another lens just like I did froma law enforcement perspective.
Now sometimes I'm looking at itthrough a, a public health lens, but
that desire to keep learning is justputting more skills in my pocket.

(58:41):
Not necessarily, it doesn't have tobe for certifications or degrees, but
try to keep challenging yourself, Ithink is, is a, a great lesson that
I've benefited from over my career.
All right.
Very good.
Well, you just mentioned the PhDprogram that you're going through,
so let's explore that a little bit.
What exactly are you hoping for?
That's a great question.

(59:02):
I'm not sure I knowwhat I'm hoping for yet.
I, I guess I've always been in andaround in my current job and really
in the last 10 years that I've beenworking here in Ohio, been in and
around academic partners, been doingresearch or it's been a component
of some of the work that I've done.
Mm-hmm.
And so one of those research partnerseventually twisted my arm enough,

(59:22):
uh, that I think I said that's soundslike a good idea to go back and
finish the degree that I had startedwhen I was in a PhD program at Penn
State and have gotten back into it.
It's a long process, obviously.
I think I'm in my, mm-hmm.
Fourth year.
Um, but I get to keep workingwith the same academic partners.
Different researchopportunities have come up.
From those partnerships, I get achance to teach college classes.

(59:46):
So for now, I don't knowthat anything would change.
I finished the degree and Idon't have any intention of just.
Packing up shop from the government andgoing right into academia or anything.
But, but it's, I I think it's,it's opened more doors than
it, than it has closed them.
Of course.
It's, it's been a painful process.
It's a lot of work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's almost something I was waydone once I was finishing up my

(01:00:09):
master, so I was like, I don't wannaread another textbook ever again.
So I'm always impressed what I hear aLS go on to get their PhD. 'cause I know
it's, I, I can't even begin to understandhow much more work it is beyond it.
The master's.
'cause I thought themaster's was scrolling.
Yeah, it, it was definitely whenI was in my first semester, I knew

(01:00:31):
it would be a sink or swim thing.
So the, the fall semester cameand I said, I'm either gonna
love this or I'm gonna hate it.
I'm either gonna hate being backin a classroom or I'm gonna love ch
challenging my brain and looking atthings, the PhD's in public health.
So I'm a. Criminologists throughand through, and it's a little
bit of a different perspective.
So it was, it was a goodchallenging that fall semester

(01:00:53):
turned into the next several years.
Well talk a little bit about your thesis
and your project.
Yeah, so a lot of the work thatI'm working on right now is
focused around the opioid epidemic.
So the, the dissertation will come, reallystart more full swing into it next year.
I've been, I guess when I was doingmy master's degree, I probably, like

(01:01:13):
other people weren't sitting thereand saying, oh, I have a topic ready
to go that I'm gonna write my thesison for my master's with the PhD
because I'm older and I was coming inalready had those academic partners.
I said, these are things I'm passionateabout that could fit the bill
and the public health department.
Right.
Not every topic is gonna work, butI've been so heavily involved in, in

(01:01:34):
supporting the partners that we have forthe opioid epidemic that it really was a
natural fit to slide some things that I'dbeen doing for work now into the degree
and, and that'll be a, a long process.
It's not like I have somethingready to go, but I have an idea
of things that are formulating.
There's data available.
We just have quite a problem herein northeast Ohio and really all

(01:01:58):
over the United States of non-fataloverdoses and fatal overdoses of
folks that are just being impacted by.
The opioid epidemic that it's ripe forresearch and partnerships and, and all the
work that's going into the degree that'llculminate with a project involving it.
Hmm.
I think you said during the prep call theidea of treating like crime as a disease.

(01:02:22):
Yeah.
And that, that vantage fromcoming at it at the opioid
epidemic, from that vantage point.
Yeah.
I mean, that's part of my advisor inthe program is a, is a criminologist.
That's where he comes from.
And of course, he's in theCollege of Public Health.
And so one of the things that we lookat, in addition to what I'm looking at
for my thesis, but a topic is just howto look at violence specifically, really

(01:02:46):
as, as a public health problem, right?
So how do we, how do we, how can welook at that almost like the spread
of a disease and how we would treat.
Another type of epidemicthat might be breaking out.
And so that's a, a perspective thatafter being in the field for years,
I never necessarily like went downthat, that path to even think about it.
The public health departmentopened my eyes to it.

(01:03:08):
And, and now I see even more opportunitiesto really educate both sides.
'cause I find in the, in lawenforcement and criminology.
It's not something that'soften thought about.
And then even in the public healthsector, getting them to understand
people in the public health sectorthat both we can, it's a mutually
beneficial relationship between criminaljustice and public health that I

(01:03:31):
don't think is exploited or explored.
Mm-hmm.
Enough.
So it's, it's been, it's been aneye-opening process for me for sure.
In the couple of documentariesthat I've watched.
So I'm, I'm definitely not an expertthing, but on the opioid epidemic, it
does seem just the right place at theright time aspect to, to the epidemic,

(01:03:52):
meaning that this was able to flourishbecause no one was really looking for it.
No one was able to really track it.
We had people writing prescriptions andno one tracking the prescriptions, so
they were just being able to be produced.
And obviously the, the drug manufacturerswere making all these drugs and.

(01:04:13):
So hopefully Will, will never ha somethinglike this won't ever happen again.
Or at least won't happenexactly like this.
But at the same time, there was this pointin time where it just went on and on and
on and didn't get picked up right away.
Yeah, it, it definitely, I mean, that'swhy you've started to see, and actually
there was a class action lawsuit here inKyo County in northern Ohio where they

(01:04:37):
sued the pharmaceutical companies and won.
We actually had a settlement here,or I guess I shouldn't say won.
There was a settlement and thehundreds of millions of dollars have
been poured into the area to take.
Take that different aspect, and it'snot necessarily law enforcement.
Most of it's health and human services.
How do we treat people that areon the wrong side of the epidemic?

(01:04:57):
But yeah, I mean the, we're startingto see in, in higher numbers the
prescription companies be heldaccountable for what their role was in
this, the, the spread of the epidemic.
Hmm.
I guess from the analyst point ofview, and maybe a listener to this
show, what would your advice be ofmaybe how I. An analyst could leverage

(01:05:20):
the healthcare side of things orwork with healthcare professionals?
Well, first and foremost, I thinkif you're trying to get outside of
the healthcare investigators, right?
Some folks have easy ties.
We have a very strong hospitaldistrict here in Cleveland.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and so a lot of 'em have theirown police departments, and so
that's a way to get in the door.
Uh, but for me, like my exposureto a lot of this stuff came from

(01:05:46):
finding that first academic partnerthat nobody was making money.
It's not like I was gettingpaid as a subject matter expert.
The university wasn't getting a hugecontract or money from the government,
but it was just like an exploratory thing.
And it was just, it was a good exposureto now, hey, of course, the first time I

(01:06:07):
talked to 'em, it was criminology related.
It was, I'm not from Ohio, so I wasjust getting to know people in the area.
Then it turned into, Hey, I thinkyou could, you have a unique
perspective and you might be able tohelp us look at this opioid problem.
We've got this other research goingon, and then that just flourished.
And it became, suddenly I had my, myhand in the, in the problem and was
helping out and meeting folks in thehealthcare industry, but meeting folks

(01:06:30):
in public health, folks in other partsof the government and, uh, really all
started with that first friendshipand relationship that I had with
the university that I never went to,but, but I now have affiliations with
and actually partnered with them.
And we won some federal grants, soHomeland Security grants to almost
a half a million dollars that I got.

(01:06:51):
Purely out of partnering with someonethat I was working with at a university.
Cool.
Well, good luck
with your PhD in the program and, andhere's to being the future, Dr. Herb.
Thanks.
Thanks.
All right, so let's finishup with words to the world.
This is where you can promoteany idea that you wish.

(01:07:14):
Mike, what are your words to the world?
I think my words
to the world are.
Or to try to build those partnerships.
Obviously I was just talking aboutpublic health, but it really has to do
with everything those partnerships makeor break things that we're doing in
the field, whether that's the privatesector, the public sector, universities,
everybody plays a role in dealing with anyof the problems that we look at, right?

(01:07:38):
Health and safety.
And so I can't tell you how many timesnow after working in all these different
states with folks and then bouncingaround here in Cuyahoga County, around
the Cleveland area where somethingwill come up and inevitably I'm able to
say, has anybody talked to this person?
And it's, it almost comes acrosslike a thinking outside the box.

(01:08:01):
But it really just comes downto I've, I've tried my hardest
to build partnerships in everysector, uh, of the field.
And I. It's a networking thing, right?
It's obviously beneficial for folks toget around in, in the field, but it's
also we're, we're doing good work whenwe're able to, to cross communicate
and join up with these partners.

(01:08:22):
Very good.
Well, I leave every guest with,you've given me just enough
to talk bad about you later,
but I do appreciate you being on the show.
Mike.
Thank you so much and you be safe.
Thank you.
Take care.
Thank you for making it tothe end of another episode of
Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.
You can show your support by sharingthis in other episodes found on

(01:08:43):
our website@www.podcasts.com.
If you have a topic you would likeus to cover or have a suggestion for
our next guest, please send us anemail at elliot podcasts@gmail.com.
Till next time, analysts, keep talking.

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Analyst Talk - Michael Herb - The Make-A-Wish Analyst

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Analyst Talk - Michael Herb - The Make-A-Wish Analyst