“I’m kinda pissed off at the good Lord lately,” Paul states in his honest, direct, and colorful manner.
He and I are talking about his 1 Inspiration: Sense of service.
“You know I have Parkinson’s and have a sense of desperation to offer [what I can.]”
Paul has always served on “big picture” law enforcement operations and because his sense of service to others is so strong - he questions how he affected individual lives. He finds his current capacity of warden more rewarding because he interacts one on one with inmates, employees, and the public.
He continues, “When I meet St. Peter and he plugs in the DVD of my life I hope it shows the contributions I’ve made to society.”
He has many accomplishments in his career and is self-effacing in speaking of them. Here are highlights of a few achievements in the DVD:
He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, (FBINA), an Academy established in 1939 to provide standardization and professionalism to law enforcement. The applicants are accepted after a long and strict vetting process. The 10 week Academy offers undergraduate and graduate courses, leadership and specialized classes, and a strenuous fitness challenge called the “yellow brick road”. Most recently Paul volunteered to train for the demanding Cooper Standards. Additionally, in an effort to better serve as a warden, he chose to go through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), course for corrections personnel to better understand and have working knowledge of what his detention personnel underwent.
Paul achieved the rank of Deputy Chief of a metropolitan agency and had over 600 personnel under his command and was part of successful department operations. After he retired, he became the director of an intelligence agency that deals in drug interdiction and intelligence. He is now warden for a detention center at a Native American pueblo.
He has known disappointments in his career as well. But he doesn’t dwell on the disappointments and choses to practice forgiveness. He also feels he lost productive time by holding grudges. He is motivated to share his knowledge as part of his service to others.
“I am honing my skills, both physical and mental, because dementia is part of Parkinson’s Disease.” He is seeing his own future battles as his father is in the same fight with the same disease. His father is now succumbing to the dementia of Parkinson’s. Paul says of his father, “He is a better man that I ever was.”
His father was an engineer and expected him to go to college. Smiling, he tells me he didn’t want to be in college: “I earned C’s in school and I wanted to keep working at McDonald’s, have a nice car, and date. I enrolled to prove to my dad that I was stupid and because God made me stupid at math.” What he proved, more to himself than to his father, was that he was a good college student earning A’s and B’s and earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and a minor in Mathematics.
He tells me of his early days as a law enforcement officer and his entering the service wanting to be a hero but that wasn’t an easy task. When trying to arrest a drug dealer, Paul states, “He stabbed me, I have a scar (he points to the back of his shoulder) and this guy was kicking my ass. He was fit and apparently, I wasn’t. So, I grabbed a full bottle of Clorox and busted it over his head. He was stunned and if I hadn’t stunned him, I wouldn’t have been able to cuff him.”
In his current capacity as warden, Paul has gained the respect of inmates and staff personnel, who frequently reach out to him for counsel. He says, “I feel that being able to talk to others based on my life experiences gives those reaching out to me an opportunity to have their voices heard. I feel I am serving a greater purpose.”
“I tried to serve myself, and I’m better at serving others.”
Paul, you live your life as a leader and mentor and I’m convinced someday you’ll hear the words from the Bible: “Well done my good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23)