Melissa (Mel) Turnquist, CEO, Texas Center for the Missing

Melissa (Mel) Turnquist, CEO, Texas Center for the Missing has 20+ years of nonprofit development, community education, and training experience.  As CEO of Texas Center for the MIssing, she is responsible for financial accountability, board development, marketing, education and outreach, and fund development.  centerforthemissing.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This week on the Art of Improvement, I'll be speaking with Melissa Turnquist,
CEO for the Texas Center for theMissing. Melissa has over twenty years of
nonprofit development, community education, andtraining experience. You'll love to hear her
story about the Texas Center for theMissing. My conversation with mel comes up
next on the Art of Improvement.Thank you so much for listening to the

(00:26):
Art of Improvement. I'm Karen Klausand my guest today is Melissa Turnquist.
Mel Hi, how are you doingtoday? I'm very fabulous. How are
you, Karen? Great? Well, we have never met in person,
but when I saw that you arethe CEO of the Texas Center for the
Missing, I had to have aconversation with you because I understand that you're

(00:49):
You know, the Texas Center forthe Missing is a non profit company.
What exactly do you guys do so? Texas Center for the Missing is the
Greater Houston's Amber Alert and Silver Alertprovider. Our primary focus is to impact
the missing person's issue through prevention education, prepare law enforcement to know how and

(01:14):
when to activate emergency alerts, andthen things to do when those very specific
criteria are not met. Because oneof the things that is shocking for many
people to realize is there are nomissing persons training for investigators within any local
training academy for our Yeah, soa big part of what we do is
training law enforcement on what the lawsays and the resources that exist for them.

(01:38):
And then our other pillar. Wetry to put everything that we do
into the three pillars of impact theissue, prepare law enforcement, and then
respond to searching families in crisis.And so we have a case manager who
is bilingual who can support families tonavigate that missing person's process because it's overwhelm

(02:00):
no one expects it to happen tothem. Our boomer generation is growing and
aging very rapidly. We actually haveseen a slip in our missing persons cases,
especially our emergency alerts. Last yearwe activated ten to almost ten times
the number of Silver alerts that wedid Amber alerts. Wow. So those

(02:21):
folks battling dementia. As our populationages, we're just going to have more
and more of those folks wandering.And it's a very dangerous circumstances for those
folks battling dementia if they do wander. Because with the extreme weather we have
here in Southeast Texas, the lackof medications, and then just possibly becoming
victims of crime or even just beingharmed in some sort of vehicular accident.

(02:45):
And so a big piece of whatwe do is just talk to the community
people like you, let people knowresources that are available. We are always
available. June is Internet Safety Months, so we want to bring as many
Internet safety trainings that we can intothe community at summer camps or church camps
or anywhere that we would be welcometo share that message so kids can help

(03:05):
keep themselves safe as well. Soyou are based out of Houston, but
when we say the Texas Center forthe Missing, what area do you actually
cover? So our primary service areais Harris County and the thirteen counties that
surrounded. And so when we renamedourselves many moons ago, we were originally

(03:29):
called Gabriel's Gifts, but people thoughtthat we were a Christian bookstore, so
we wanted to we wanted to pivotand change our name to serve our mission
better. And our goal is toeventually replicate ourselves in other metropolitan areas.
However, the vast, vast majorityof missing persons in Texas are from Greater
Houston. There's over six million peoplein our service area, and we represent

(03:53):
there are more. We have alarger population in Harris County than in twenty
eight of the contiguous United States.So it truly and we do serve people
outside of our primary region. That'sjust where we focus our efforts. Because
the vast majority of missing persons inTexas are from Greater Houston. Why is
that? I mean, is thata dumb question, But why is that?

(04:16):
I think it's just it's sheer size, okay, and we're also a
major corridor, you know, ITen goes through us. I think it's
just the number of humans that arein our area. We're the fourth largest
city in the nation, so weshould be, you know, just population
wise representative of those issues, rightright, So this is this is probably

(04:43):
so simple a question for me toask, but I imagine that no one
thinks it's ever going to happen tothem, and when it does, you
just like you said, who doyou go to? Who knows how to
you know what steps to take?So what would a person do if someone
went missing? Well, I meanthe first thing to know and to understand

(05:04):
is there is no twenty four hourwaiting period to report a missing person,
especially here in Texas. Despite whatpopular television may have told us, is
just going to say that, yeah, that is not accurate. And in
fact, at the twenty twenty threethere is some legislative changes here in Texas
to where you absolutely cannot law enforcementcannot wait that long and take a missing

(05:28):
person's report and take action. Now, those different actions depending upon the risks
involved with that particular missing individual changesas far as the timeframe. But you
immediately, if you believe your lovedone is missing, search for them,
if you believe they're in danger,call nine to one one and say I
need to report a missing person.If it's a child, say I need
to report a missing child. Ifit's an endangered adult, say I need

(05:51):
to report a missing endangered adult.Get them and get an intake number,
a case number with whoever you're aagency may be that you're contacting, and
then do reach out to Texas Centerfor the Missing if you need additional resources.
One of the things that I thinkpeople don't understand. Sometimes people say,

(06:11):
well, why isn't law enforcement doingmore? Why is there not more
action being taken? But if youlook at our two largest law enforcement agencies
they received over three I'm sorry,I'm sorry, five thousand missing persons cases
and between the two agencies have fourteeninvestigators. Wow, okay, one we

(06:32):
have one law enforcement partner. Irecall telling me he came in on a
Monday and had over one hundred newmissing persons cases that he needed to do
his job right. And so ifthat your loved one is one of those
hundred people, how do you makethat person in a triage environment rise to
the top of concern. Many familiesdon't want to talk about maybe dangerous behaviors

(06:57):
their loved one may have. Ifyou have a teenager who been battling drug
addiction, or if you have anadult family member who has mental health issues,
all of those kinds of descriptors willhelp elevate the focus and urgency of
investigators. It is not a lackof concern, it's just a sheer number
of it's a sheer volume issues.Yeah, I guess it. Yeah,

(07:19):
we have to triage. We're inan er who's bleeding from a limb,
who can sit there with a bumpon their head. You know, it's
just what are the things that weneed to do? And so some of
what we can do is then helpguide families through processes and steps they can
do that will not impede the investigationor in any way do anything to disrupt

(07:41):
the investigation. But can they calllocal hospitals themselves to say, hey,
I have this loved one. Ibelieve you know, do you have a
Jane or John Doe on the premisesthat could meet this description? And there's
other things and every case is sovery different. We can help the family
navigate that. So once law enforcementhas been noted side so they can start
the investigation. You can reach outto a local nonprofit like ourselves, and

(08:05):
most areas have something, and ifif you can't find it, reach out
to us and we will certainly referyou to those resources in your area.
Yeah, I'm not even making lightof what you just said a few minutes
ago, and I'm just stating likemy own feelings. But when you said,
you know, someone should would calla hospital and say is there a

(08:26):
person there that you know no oneknows anything about? To me that I
think I've called the hospital before.And no, I'm not like totally you
know, dissing hospitals, but ifI ask for some you know, somebody's
room number. It feels like I'masking for like the key to life,

(08:50):
because it's so hard to get ananswer for just somebody's room number. So
if you're calling there by yourself,thinking that you're going to be able to
take care of is there someone thathas checked into the hospital that no one
knows you know their background? Itseems it would seem like you're just I
don't know, shouting at right right. Well, it could be something as

(09:11):
simple as taking a stack of missingperson flyers and visiting the intake or the
volunteer station, and will you putthis in the brake room for the ICU
nurses or the er nurses. Isthis something that you can share at your
information station or you know, somehospital systems are so large they have their

(09:33):
own police and security right right,you can put there, because if someone
does have dementia, perhaps they don'tknow who they are, they could be
behaving erratically. It's just another toolin the toolbox because many times families,
if you don't hear updates, youthink nothing's being done, and then you
get frustrated and you what else canI do? Sor whatever can be done

(10:00):
is probably being done on the investigativeside. However, if you're not drumming
up tips or helping to generate leadsin an effective, respectful way. You
know, some families they make themistake if they put their personal phone number
on the missing person's flyer. It'ssomething as simple as that, where you
need to be sure that tips arebeing directed to the correct investigator, not

(10:24):
just being called into. You know, who love a family member who adores
this missing person, but wouldn't havea first clue of what to do with
that information. So you know whatquestions to ask or what intake information would
be a critical resource for the investigator, because if someone wants to call in
with a tip, they may nevercall you back and they may not want

(10:46):
to be contacted. So it's littlesteps like that that Texas Center for the
Missing can help guide the family through. Because we've worked thousands of cases across
our you know, we're three staffs, so and we've all been here either
here at the organization for a longtime or worked with missing persons in other
fields, so that we can bringall resources to bear and help the families

(11:11):
navigate. When you're having big emotionsand you're in a state of trauma,
and crisis. How do we breakthrough the noise and ask the questions and
really get things moving in the rightdirection. It's something as simple as when
you see a missing person's post onFacebook. Instead of copying and pasting,
hitting share instead of so that way, if it's updated in the original post,

(11:33):
it's not getting reshared over and overagain. Oh well, that person
was found six months ago, andthen it becomes white noise to the community.
And so I do want to sharewith the community as well. How
critically important is to pay attention tothose missing persons posts. The vast majority,
especially of our runaway cases, thoseare resultd through social media. So

(11:54):
a simple share is a passive act, It's not It doesn't take a whole
lot of energy that can bring aperson home. So I do encourage people
to pay attention to those, especiallyif they say lasting in an area of
town that perhaps you live in,or work in, or know someone in.
And just the more we share those, the greater the opportunity to bring

(12:16):
those folks home. Is that allof that is such great information and I
feel like I wish I could hearit one hundred times more, and I'm
wondering, I mean, you knowfrequency helps people remember things, but I
keep on thinking, you know,there's got to be somewhere to go that
has all of this information. Ifyou've just now joined us. This is
a mail Turnquist. She's the CEOof Texas Center for the Missing. And

(12:39):
that's my next question, mail Wherecan people go to find this information?
You bet so. Our website isCenterfothemissing dot org and on our homepage there
are every icon known to man.If you want to engage with us on
social media, most of the defaultsfor our handles are at TX Center and

(13:03):
you can find us on LinkedIn,Facebook x, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
That's incredible. I mean, justwhat you said a minute ago is
so encouraging, and also, Imean it's a happy thing. A lot
of times people are like, ah, social media, it's just a disturbance
and kids need to get off ofit. But if it's helping, this

(13:26):
would be one circumstance where you'd actuallybenefit, possibly benefit from using it.
Absolutely. And you know, oneof the things we focus on when we
do our internet safety training in thecommunity is to emphasize that social media is
a tool and the same way thata hammer is great when you're trying to
build a fence, but it's notgreat if you hit someone over the head
with it. That's how social mediais. If it's used as a tool

(13:50):
to be educational and impactful in apositive way, it's a tool. It
becomes a weapon when it becomes atool for bullying or for you know,
inappropriate behaviors that could get a childor an adult in trouble. And so
it's really important for everyone to cometo these resources and think, how can
I make this positive for both myselfand the community at large. Mel Another

(14:16):
thing you mentioned I wanted to askabout. You said that it's so important
for people to know that your TexasCenter for the Missing can actually come and
speak at an event. Can youtalk about that a bit. Absolutely.
We have a selection of prevention educationtrainings that we provide. We are a

(14:37):
local provider of the net Smart's training, which is actually produced and provided by
the National Center for Missing Exploited Children. They're a partner of ours. We're
not like a subsidiary or anything likethat. They're just also in the field.
But the net Smart's training is brokenout into age appropriate focus, age
appropriate presentation, so it can befor K through second third through fifth tweens,

(15:01):
teens and then caring adults and sothat way it can be age appropriate.
So you start, when we starttalking to young children, it's really
about connecticuete and how do you howare you a good friend online? And
then as kids get older, westart talking about what is your brand online?
How can you avoid predators? Howcan you keep yourself from participating and

(15:22):
cyberbullying, either as a bystander ora perpetrator, you know, And so
it just it becomes a part ofongoing safety conversations instead of just don't do
this, don't do that, whichwe know that does not work with you.
We want everyone to be empowered tounderstand. Look, if you have

(15:43):
good practices online, you're setting anexample for others. And oh, by
the way, you can then helpkeep other kids and other individuals safe.
So it becomes more of these areproactive actions as opposed to don't do this,
don't you go on Instagram it's thedevil. We don't want to get
into those kinds of conversations. Wewant to have conversations that are productive and

(16:04):
proactive. And so if internet sakyis not your interest, we also can
do some training just on missing persons, the issue, how you can get
engaged with it, with our withourselves, and for targeted audiences. Let's
say someone is a Sandwich generation.They're raising their kids, but they also
have an aging parent and they're concernedabout their loved one with Alzheimer's. We

(16:27):
can give people. We can talkabout the safety tips necessary to prevent the
wandering, and then what in theworld to do if and when that loved
one does wander. We have developeda special presentation for parents that have children
or family members on the autistic spectrum, because they have a completely different method
by which those folks may wander.For instance, that you know, while

(16:52):
it is true that if you've metone person with autism, you have met
one person with autism, there arestill some trends and tendencies. We can
talk to parents about things to havein place beforehand. Yeah, so smart,
absolutely, Yeah, Melissa, So, before you know we were all
of this up, I wanted toask you a little bit about yourself,
because this is such a passionate organizationand as you said, it was a

(17:18):
nonprofit organization. How did you howdid you find your way to being the
CEO of the Texas Center for themissing Well. It was a journey that
started about nineteen years ago. Theformer CEO was pretty was by herself running
this organization and she was looking tohave someone help her grow the organization and

(17:40):
just to be another person because it'spretty overwhelming as it is. We've tripled
in size since those days. We'renow three people. But Beth retired about
two years ago, and I'm justpassionate about the issue. I had a
grandmother with Alzheimer's. I have twoyoung children ish they're now teen and preteen.
But I just I remember the nightthat my grandmother got out of our

(18:04):
house, and as soon as Ilearned what this mission was, I was
like, I want to know more. I want to know how I can
help people. And it's a missionthat has a lot of really happy endings.
Our Amber alert has a ninety sixpercent success right here in our region,
and our Silver alert has a ninetyeight percent. Wow, So while
the issue is huge, we getto have a lot of joy and celebration

(18:29):
while we're still trying to navigate theissue. That those are incredible numbers,
and so I mean, I don'tneed to ask this question, but what
is the feedback that you get fromthe families. I mean, for the
most part, everyone is just sothrilled to have their loved one home,
and they're just incredibly grateful that we'rehere to be a voice on the other

(18:52):
end of the phone. You needsomeone who can stay calm in those moments
of crisis, and I cannot.The reason I go by mel is our
case manager, Melissa. You know, two thirds of our staff have the
name Melissa, so I will goby my college nickname, primarily to help
avoid with confusion, right, butjust to have Melissa who is there to
help ask the questions and help thefamily navigate what are some things they haven't

(19:17):
thought of to share with law enforcementthat could help refocus. And it's just
a really beautiful thing to experience,just the joy of those reunifications and you
know, and then to bookend thatthough, there's also some cases where the
loved the teenage child disappeared ten yearsor more ago, and that's a whole

(19:41):
other sort of care and support that'sneeded, because once you become a long
term missing case, it's a rarerand rare circumstance where someone else will be
able to relate to what you're goingthrough. You have a support yeah.
So we do have a support groupalso for those folks with long term missing
loved ones, so that we canhelp them, you know, navigate those

(20:02):
emotions. And are there other thingsthat even they, these people who've been
dealing with it for so long,haven't thought of. And that actually is
what launched I get so excited aboutthis topic. I apologize, I'm here,
No you should. Yes, wehave an annual event called Missing in
Southeast Texas Day that just passed.It's in April each year and it's a
one stop shop for families so thatfolks can come. You can get your

(20:23):
DNA swabs, you can get anage progressed art an artist with the HPD,
a sketch artist, we'll do anage progression for you. You get
entered into all the national databases,and there's a support group and there's panels
about new things in science that mightbe able to help solve some cases.
And last year's event solved a twentythree year old case through the DNA submission

(20:47):
of that event. Wow. Soit's just and it's so powerful, and
it's nobody gives us any there's nogovernment funding to support these programs. We
get one small grant from the HoustonGalveson Air Council to support eighty percent of
our case manager. Everything else isthrough private donations of carring individuals and just
volunteers who donate their time. Sowe just really want the community to know

(21:11):
we're here to help and support andif you're able to help and support us,
we would love to be engaged withyou as well. How can people
give? We have and there's everyway under the sun. We try to
be as available as possible. Anonline Dot center for the Missing dot Org
is our secure online payment system.You can always mail a check where we
take PayPal and Venmo and all thosegood things. We do have a program

(21:37):
we're really trying to purport promote.It's our Century Club and that's our recur
our monthly recurring donor society, sothat we're not always worrying about when's our
next fundraising event, where it's aone and done gift and that can just
really be a sustainer. We wouldlove to grow those individuals that give twenty
five dollars or more a month sowe can stay open twenty four to seven,

(21:57):
three hundred and sixty five days ayear. If every person in Houston
that receives our protection and services.Would give a dollar a year, we
would be able to replicate ourselves inall the major metropolitan areas in Texas.
Wow, what a beautiful thought thatis and reason enough for anyone that's listening

(22:17):
right now. Hey, this isyour turn, you know, let's give
back to something that maybe think nevergoing to happen to you, and hopefully
it won't, but you want tobe prepared. And so as we wrap
up here, I want to sayonce again, this is Melissa or mel
Turnquist. She is the CEO ofthe Texas Center for the Missing. How

(22:37):
can people get in touch with youto get more information? You can connect
with us via our website at Centerfothemissingdot org. Our email is a little
bit complex, it's support at tcFtM dot org. Those are the initials
of Texas Center for the Missing.And you can just connect with us on

(22:59):
social media on Facebook, Instagram,LinkedIn, YouTube x and we are here
to support you in any way thatwe can. Well, mel thank you
so much for taking the time today, and please feel free to reach out
to me with any updates or newsthat you want to tell. Like somebody
giving you a million dollars, I'dlove to hear from you again, and

(23:22):
thank you so much. Thank you, Karen. We appreciate you shining the
light on this issue that is soimportant to so many folks.