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The Prison Officer Podcast
The Prison Officer Podcast is a place where prison officers and correctional staff share their experiences, discuss leadership, cope with stress, and learn survival strategies for one of the toughest careers out there. Hosted by Michael Cantrell, this podcast delves into the lives, dreams, and challenges faced by those who work inside the walls of our nation’s prisons. It features interviews, insights, and discussions related to the unique and demanding world of corrections. Whether it’s overcoming difficult leaders, understanding rehabilitation, or addressing misconceptions about incarcerated populations, the Prison Officer Podcast provides valuable perspectives from professionals in the field.
The Prison Officer Podcast
106: Jujitsu, Justice, and Leadership - Interview w/Bryan Antonelli
Brian Antonelli, known throughout corrections as "the fixer," pulls back the curtain on what it takes to restore order in some of America's most challenging prisons. Drawing from 32 years of distinguished service in federal and state corrections, Antonelli shares candid stories about transforming troubled facilities like USP Hazleton, where he arrived shortly after high-profile homicides to implement sweeping reforms.
The conversation takes us through Antonelli's remarkable journey from Air Force security forces to becoming a nationally recognized correctional leader. With refreshing honesty, he discusses the realities of prison management – from dealing with gang violence and homicides over trivial debts to the delicate balance of pushing for reform without alienating staff. His experiences activating new facilities, managing high-security inmates, and designing emergency response protocols provide a masterclass in correctional leadership.
What sets this episode apart is Antonelli's unique perspective on physical discipline as a foundation for leadership. As both a black belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and a competitive powerlifter, he explains how martial arts training creates officers who make better decisions under pressure: "I think one of the biggest things that jiu-jitsu gives you is the ability to make tough decisions in the worst possible scenarios." This philosophy extends to his management approach, where he advocates empowering staff to develop solutions rather than micromanaging from above.
The conversation delves into practical leadership frameworks, including the OODA loop for decision-making and techniques for tactfully influencing superiors when necessary. Antonelli's guiding principle—"You can't have programming without discipline, order, and control"—resonates throughout as he explains his counterinsurgency-inspired "Seize Clear, Build, Hold" model for regaining control of troubled facilities.
Connect with Brian on LinkedIn to continue the conversation about corrections leadership, or check out his books for deeper insights into restoring order in challenging correctional environments.
Bryan on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/bryan-a-9b88b44a
Bryan Books:
Leadership Field Manual For Correctional Professionals
SEIZE, CLEAR, BUILD, HOLD: REGAINING CONTROL OF TROUBLED PRISONS
Also, check out Michael's newest book - POWER SKILLS for Correctional Professionals
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Take care of each other and Be Safe behind those walls and fences!
Hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. Before we get to our topic today, I just want to take a minute to thank one of our sponsors. Innovation has always been the key to success of Pepperball, and the Pepperball Blast is just one more way to deliver a payload that will distract, disorient or incapacitate an inmate. This lightweight, refillable delivery system is perfect for carrying in a holster in your pocket or just holding in your hand as part of a cell entry team or a cert team. Each reloadable blast cartridge contains up to three projectiles worth of PAVA powder. When the quick flip safety is turned and depressed, the PAVA powder is pushed out of the tube by a 1.8 gram nitrogen cartridge. This will quickly cover the inmate and saturate the cell. Since there's no actual projectiles deployed upon firing, this is a truly non-lethal product with no impact. To learn more about Pepperball, go to wwwpepperballcom or click on the show notes today for more information. Pepperball is the safer option first. Hey, welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. This is Mike Cantrell.
Speaker 1:Today I've got Brian Antonelli. I've known him for a long time with the Bureau of Prisons. I'm really excited to have him on the podcast. You know, brian's a nationally recognized correctional leader and an Air Force veteran with over 32 years of distinguished service in both federal and state law enforcement. To some he is known as the fixer or the cleanup guy, and I'm sure we'll talk something about that. He built his reputation by restoring order, structure and leadership to some of the most challenging correctional institutions in the country.
Speaker 1:He began his career with the Federal Bureau of Prisons as a correctional officer at FCI Fort Dix, and we'll, of course, go through and get to hear about his career.
Speaker 1:He later in his career was selected as chief of the Bureau's Office of Emergency Preparedness. As a matter of fact, he was there just before I went to Washington DC, so we overlapped on a lot of stuff there. He was involved in, of course, el Chapo's security protocols after his capture in Mexico, and the Willisee private prison riot happened during that time while he was up there. He was subsequently appointed to warden and complex warden and would later be the senior deputy regional director and acting regional Director of the Northeast Region. He now serves with the South Carolina Department of Corrections as Assistant Deputy Director of Prisons, where he continues to lead statewide correctional reform, leadership development and operational restructuring. He's also a black belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. He's a Master Mason, an Air Force veteran and the author of a couple of books, one of which we're going to discuss both but one I have read, so we're going to discuss that today, but welcome to the podcast, brian.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks, brother. Great to be here, man. It's been a long time coming. We've been chatting for a while and my schedule's been crazy, your schedule's been crazy, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm just happy to get you here. I know you've a wealth of information. We have a lot of stuff to talk about, but I kind of start my interviews the same way. I always like to hear you know where you grew up and how you got into corrections. Did you do it accidentally or was it something you thought about?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, totally accidentally. To be honest with you, you know, I grew up in a small little town called Nanuet, new York. Avid athlete, couldn't wait to, you know, spread my wings and get out of there. So I joined the Air Force right after high school. I did four years. It was a great time I was security forces. But to show how I wasn't intending on going into corrections, I'll remember my recruiter's name to this day, john Vaccaro.
Speaker 2:I went in to see him. I said you know, I'd like to be an airborne tactical computer system specialist. So he looked up at his little DOS computer and said yeah, I've got a report date of about two years. I said okay, I was thinking more, like two weeks. So I went back to the book and said I bought a law enforcement specialist. John said you don't want to do that. I said no, yeah, I've always been interested in law enforcement. And he said I'm telling you you don't want to do that. He said there's a reason. The score is a 42 and it's the lowest score. It's a cook and a cop. I have the same score. So, yeah, yeah. So I said no, I want to do it. I definitely want to go that route.
Speaker 2:So you know I did it, um, did four years, loved it. Uh, it was a good time. Uh, six months, six months. Where were you? Initial assignment was RAF Mildenhall, england. Uh, wonderful, wonderful, first station. Um, you know, we, we got out a lot, got to see the country played rugby over there. You know it was a real good time.
Speaker 2:Then, after that, I transferred to McGuire Air Force Base, new Jersey, which happens to connect Now you're going to see the connection here it happens to connect to Fort Dix where the front prison is. So you know, several of us, mcguire was kind of a feeder fish for the Fort Dix prison. So several staff before me had gone over. So I said what the heck, I'll give it a shot. You know I was that guy. Everybody tells you not to do it. But you know, young and stupid, I had an application in with the marshals. So I got into the BOP and I kept saying I'm not going to be here long, I'm golden marshals, you know. So I got into the BOP and I kept saying I'm not going to be here long, I'm Golden Marshalls, I'm not sticking around. I had about a year into it. I was like you know what? This is pretty cool. I think I'm going to stick around.
Speaker 1:So what kind of stuff were you doing in the security forces? Was that actual police work?
Speaker 2:I know I have a brother-in-law that did the same thing, but he was watching a. A missile silo, basically, was what he did, thank god, yes, it was law enforcement. There's two sides. There's law enforcement and security, and you know how we pick on each other. Um, there was some brotherly feuds back and forth and we would call them rivet counters and you know they had all kinds of slang terms for us and it is what it is, but good time yeah, but you were actually doing long, so you were had a little law enforcement background by the time you went into the Bureau.
Speaker 1:Yes sir, yes sir, but did you? Had you done much around jails and prisons at that time?
Speaker 2:Zero, never even dropped a prisoner off at one, to be honest with you, short of our holding cell. That was it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So the first day day, tell me about that. That's always interesting, yeah, real interesting actually for me, uh, to be honest with you. Uh, so I walk into the prison and there's a kid that went to my neighboring high school, that I knew real well, comes running down the hallway trying to say hi to me, and then he comes back like 15 minutes later and says well, that was pretty stupid. He said you know, I'm getting a lot of crap over saying hi to you, so I think we're not going to talk. I said that's probably a good idea. This is so. I'll leave his name out. He's, I think he's out now. Yeah, but I did. It was interesting.
Speaker 2:Fort Dix was one of those places, you know, not designed to be a prison. They not designed to be a prison. They threw a fence around some army barracks, um, you know, 300 and some inmates per unit, 12 man cells, no lock up. Uh, you had, you know, between the two sides you had over 3 000 inmates and not a single lock up bed. So it was, it was challenging to run, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Uh, you had to get pretty creative but and challenging later on in your career or your next steps. Did you feel like you maybe didn't get a good introduction into corrections and had to relearn it next time?
Speaker 2:You know, I hate to say it, I almost think you need to relearn it at every level.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's true, at a low you don't get the security and the response side. Quite honestly, at a low you don't get the security and the response side. Quite honestly, at the Pens you don't get maybe so much in the communication side. Absolutely, it's a lot harder to manage 12-man cells and 360 inmates in a dorm than 128 in a cell that you can lock it in. To be honest with you, yeah, I think it was a good lock it in, to be honest with you. So you know that was. I think it was a good start though, to be honest, it broke me in slow and, you know, moved on from there.
Speaker 2:From there I went over to FTC Philadelphia. I had to think back there, just shy of the activation. I think they had a handful of inmates when I got there. Real good experience. That's kind of when I started to delve into the SAS world a little bit, got a little gang experience which was real neat. A guy by the name of Bill Jazar actually taught me a lot when I was over there. He'd been around for decades at that point, but real good time fdc philly, philly, that's a high rise right.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir talk to me a little bit about the streets because there's a lot of people listening that probably have never been to or around a high rise. How much different is that working in one of those?
Speaker 2:it's crazy. Yeah know you could work the same block every day and it'll be 60% new inmates fresh off the streets. Court runs, guys heading out, got sentenced and heading out to be designated. You never know what you're going to get. Detox, mental health issues you name it Every single day at high-rise. A lot of respect to them, to be honest with you, because you really don't know what you have. Yet At the time they get sentenced, you know to a pen or a medium, you pretty much figured out the image, character and how they're going to act. But they come off the streets Half the times. They're still recovering from being high or still high. You just don't know. Yet you know. So, recovering from being high or still high, you just don't know. Yet We've had some big names come through there too. What the heck was his name? The Dallas Cowboy, hanzo Spelman. He came in through there. I don't know what his issues were, but you get some high publicity cases there too.
Speaker 1:Sure, with all the new inmates coming through, it's probably a good place to get your feet wet in SIS.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And you know especially up in that area of the country, even to this day it still changes all the different blood sets and you know who gets along with who and who doesn't. And you know it, who gets along with who and who doesn't. And you know you really have to be a student in the game and stay after it if you want to be relevant in that world for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think law enforcement forgets sometimes. As a matter of fact, I lead a law enforcement educator and trainers conference last month. Gary York did a class on how much corrections can help law enforcement with intel from the inside.
Speaker 2:God, yeah, yes, sir, I think sometimes they forget us.
Speaker 1:Those inmates talk to us like we're not cops sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they talk on the phone. Like you know nobody's listening. So you know it's a wonderful intel source the emails, the phone calls, you name it. You know obviously they need subpoenas to get the stuff, but you know it's a wonderful intel source the emails, the phone calls, you name it. You know obviously they need subpoenas to get the stuff, but you know it's available and that communication needs to be there to those on the streets that you know we can work together.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what was the biggest thing you learned while you were in the shop? What surprised you? Oh Lord Tons.
Speaker 2:You know it's. There's so many things I could tell you. I mean, you know, dealing with an attempted escape, you know somebody had busted out a window on the top floor. He was all but out but just couldn't get his head through the window frame. I mean, that's how close he was. How close he was. Thankfully Lieutenant was doing his job, paying attention, and caught him standing there with a piece of angle iron that he had broken to bust a window out. But yeah, that was, that could have been a bad day, but he was, he was caught, which is good. You know, being in the shop, I think that one of the biggest things is we really do have to pay more attention to the gangs and not enable them. But we need to understand, you know, we don't need to start our own trouble as well If you've got two groups. You know, back then Border Brothers Barry Ostech is, you know, hit on sight. You had to really pay attention to those tattoos, if not that unit was going to kick off the moment you put one of them in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we do count on the shops a lot because, yeah, one little mistake and you've got a big fight going on the yard.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:So where'd you go from there? What was the?
Speaker 2:next step, back as a lieutenant to Fort Dix. It was an easy move Slid back over there no real, I will say at this point, though they did finally have a lockup, so that was a huge step in regaining order there. Worked for a gentleman by the name of Mike Babcock Real good captain Taught me a lot, really taught me a lot. Uh, really taught me a lot, to be honest. Uh, you know, learned the whole administrative side of things which I didn't know at all. I mean, I knew how to run a prison, but you know the paperwork and all that. That. That was a whole nother world. Um, so he got me ready.
Speaker 2:Um, from there I lateraled out and opened Hurlong California as a lieutenant all the way across country. That was a big move, to be honest with you, but it was a great experience. It was my first real activation. So from there I transferred to Hurlong California. I got my first real full activation in. I actually activated several areas of that institution Emergency preparedness, sis, the admin shop, you name it Activated all three of those which are probably your major components, which gave me a great foundation. You know you've got to. You know, establish your contingency plans, establish your post orders, all of that and you know, when you build them from the ground up, you intimately understand all of it, which was, you know, great for future use.
Speaker 1:To be honest, Because that became your wheelhouse quite a bit. Yeah, is that where you got the knack for it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the EP side of things really is where that really clicked on, and the SAS side, to be honest with you, is really kind of where things started to click there. The next move was the big one, though, and this was really where I started to earn my keep. Got a phone call from a correctional services administrator in the Mid-Atlantic Said hey, you want to be the new SIA at Hazleton? Oh wow, at that point, yeah at that. To be the new SIA at Hazleton? Oh wow, At that point, yeah, at that point. I had no idea where Hazleton was and never heard of it. It was brand new. My answer was where the hell is Hazleton? You know, I had no idea. So he told me a little bit about it, and I said sure, I'm up for a challenge. Um, so I went there and, oh boy, oh boy, that place was in bad shape. It was in dire need of a. Oh yes, sir.
Speaker 2:They brought in myself, lenny Odo, john Krogan and Joe Driver, all within a month or so of each other, so a complete regime change, and we really did get some solid control. We had some great, great lieutenants, great staff. Quite frankly, the staff were just begging for leadership. Uh, and I'm not talking bad about anybody but, um, you know they they wanted it. Um, you know they wanted to get the place back under control, so it wasn't even hard to get their buy-in. To be honest with you, um, so that was uh many, many, many long days. Uh, you, that's also when I had my twin daughters that were born out at born right about that time. So, um, you know you're working 12, 14, 16 hours a day. You know, six, seven days a week, uh, plus two brand new kids. So that was an interesting time to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, the inmates at that place were looking for leadership too. Sometimes people forget, you know they want to live in a safe place most of them. Now we've always got that section over there that doesn't but a lot of them. They're looking for somebody to come in and keep things running good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, they were definitely looking forward to it. You know there were several homicides right before we got there, even one right as we got there, to be honest with you, you know, and you know we learned a lot too while we were there and I can tell you one lesson I learned is sometimes you can't keep pushing right. We were doing the right thing. We got things under control. Might have been going a little fast, to be honest with you. So what we ended up doing was having a pretty large-scale work and food strike at one point during our take back of the institution. Not to say we did anything wrong, but we probably did go a little bit fast, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Push back from the inmates? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, we were definitely doing the right thing, you know 100%, but maybe the speed was a little fast. You know, if we would have slowed it down and spread it out a little more, we probably would not have had that issue.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I mean, that's what experience gives us, you know, yeah. So we can make better decisions next time.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, what else? So to experience my first homicide, first and second homicide there and really, you know, to show the whole prison subculture without names or situations or anything. The first homicide was over a $35 debt. An inmate at another yard it was just the principal in the respect had checked in and not given any names up, owing another inmate $35. Well, because he didn't cooperate and give any names up, owing another inmate $35. Yeah, well, because he didn't cooperate and give any names up. They ended up at Hazleton together and he killed him over $35. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the part they don't show in the movies and the TV shows. Yeah, yeah, yes sir.
Speaker 2:Yes sir, but that was a very challenging yard, very DC inmate, heavy, strong Mexican Mafia and Serrano presence, you know, a couple hundred between Emi Serrano's New Mexico Syndicate. They were all running together, sprinkled and some Paisa here and there that were running in with the Serrano's. So that was a heavy yard, you know, and you wonder why there was so much here and there that were running in with the Serenios. So that was a heavy yard, you know, and you wonder why there was so much violence and there was 300 to 400 DCs alone. So, and those are notoriously violent inmates, well, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, so where was the next?
Speaker 2:From there. It was a man, what a downshift this was. My hardest shift of my whole career was going from Hazleton to captain at Safford Arizona. Wow, went from a million miles an hour to the slowest yard you could ever ask for. To be honest with you, basically I can't put the fence around it. You know it was. You know it's low security technically, but nothing ever happens there. Very well run yard, great again. A great bunch of staff. I was very lucky to work with some of the best staff in the world.
Speaker 2:Man, you know I'll leave his name out just because I don't want the union getting mad at him. But so the union president at the time comes to see me, says you know I'll leave his name out just because I don't want the union getting mad at him. But so the union president at the time comes to see me. He says you know, you don't know me, I don't know you. He said we're not here to file any stupid stuff. You know you can continue doing roll calls. Because I was getting ready to kill the roll calls because we had already lost that portable settlement. He said you know, here you can continue doing roll calls and you will never see us file on that. He said we love the information, we appreciate our jobs, we want our jobs, you know, and he kept his word. They've never filed on that ever.
Speaker 1:That was such a loss for the Bureau as a whole, oh yeah, yeah, that was yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I mean it was our number one source of information uniform inspection, making sure people are fit for duty, nobody's coming in intoxicated, inebriated, whatever, and you lose all that, but it was great to look forward to it.
Speaker 1:I was, of course. I was always one of those people who showed up early anyway. Yes sir, yeah, I was sitting there in the chair ready to hear what was going on and prepare myself. Yes sir, we didn't get to do that much afterwards.
Speaker 2:No, and you also didn't make the connections. To be honest with you. You lost a lot of personal connections, the whole I call it the. You know the Bureau, family, the brotherhood, sisterhood. You know people actually made plans at, at, at roll call, you know, go out after work or you know go play on the softball team or whatever the case may be. And when that died, a lot of that went with it. Yeah, it's too bad. Yeah, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where to?
Speaker 2:next, uh, who, um, then was back up, back up to the big leagues, uh, from there, captain, at USP McCreary, um, and that's right, when it had become a penitentiary it opened as a medium and then I, I grabbed it and it was had just become a pen. So, um, that was interesting for me. That was my first texas yard, uh, where we had texas syndicate, uh, you know, uh, you know, excuse me, texas hemi, uh, mexican me, um, so that was a a whole new world, norteños and western familia, uh, the whole opposite side of of what I'd ever been used to. So it was good to learn both sides of the coin, uh, of who can walk with who and who can't. That was a very, very good yard. Again, the staff were great. In fact, I can't there's no place that I'll talk about that. I won't say I had the best staff I could have ever asked for, made the job easy. They really did.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm still, to this day, I'm one of those that likes to get out there. I, even to this moment, unless I absolutely have to. You will not see me in a shirt and tie, right, I'll be in a polo shirt, five 11s and I'll be shaking down right next to you, you know, crawling under the beds, I don't you know, grabbing hooch or buck or whatever anyone calls it out from the cells. That the bands I, I don't, you know, grab a hooch or buck or whatever anyone calls it out from the cells. That's what I do. I'm a ceo by heart, man, um, so you know, to this day you'll still see that, but leading from the front, oh, yeah, yeah, no doubt. And um mccurry? Uh, in fact there's. There's one example I'll give there. Um, I was in a suit and tie for one occasion. I quite frankly can't remember the occasion, but I went out to sword training and the leader was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 2:And they were running the obstacle course. So I took off my blazer, my suit jacket and I ran the obstacle course with the team in dress shoes and a tie. Now I will freely admit I skipped the what's? The sideways rope, the Mary Jane, skipped the Mary Jane. But there's some good pictures of me somewhere going up the tough one in a suit and a tie excuse me, a shirt and a tie, with dress shoes on. So that was pretty comical, but I didn't hear the end of that for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great that you went out there. You know, I had a discussion in a class a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about how important it is for leadership to go out and see the teams because someday you're you're going to have to make decisions based on what they can truly do, Not what somebody's told you they can do, and from an emergency preparedness standpoint, I know you understand that how important that is.
Speaker 2:And when you flip that coin over, they have to trust your decisions. That's true. You know that they have to have full faith and full buy-in that you're leading them in the right direction. And if you're not out there, at least kicking some dirt with them. You're not going to have that, you're just simply not going to be there. Yeah, there, at least kicking some dirt with them.
Speaker 1:You're not going to have that. Yeah, you're just simply not going to be there. Yeah, absolutely so. Were you getting the idea they kept sending you to these places that needed? Was this the beginning of you going?
Speaker 2:hmm, they keep sending me places that need a little fix it uh, yeah, I mean, maybe I really, to this day, that I've never referred to myself as that. To be honest with you, that came from several other bureau staff, you know. I just think, you know I'm security-minded, I stick to the basics, I don't do anything extravagant, and that's how you fix prison, right? No, you can't have, and don't get me wrong by this. I agree with programming, right, but you can't have. And don't get me wrong by this. I agree with programming, right, but you can't have any of that programming without discipline, order and control in a prison. It's completely useless without that. So I've always stuck to that. You know, I've had people around me that were good and experts in the programming. I'll give you the calm and the order so you can do it. You know, and that's kind of the way I've always liked to approach it.
Speaker 1:But I think the inmates appreciate that too, the ones that want it.
Speaker 2:The ones that actually want to go home love it. You know, if you're looking to further your criminal career and be a better drug dealer, then you're not going to like me. Right, plain and simple, you know. But there were several lows but you know we dealt with that. It's all good. And you know McCreary was also challenging for its remote location. That was really out there. You know Dry County had to drive an hour and a half to lexington if you wanted a beer. That, yeah, that was. That was super interesting. Not that we're huge drinkers or anything, but you know I mean, listen, if you want a beer with dinner, it's not an option and that's when you miss it, you know so I don't think I knew that about McCreary.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, it may be. I think they changed the term now. I think they call it a moist county now, so I think certain restaurants are allowed to sell it. They've progressed a little bit, but it's hilarious. Yeah, yes, sir, but after McCreary was another activation. I learned a ton up there. I activated berlin, new hampshire, as an associate warden. Okay, um, and you, you'd be amazed that you know. Yes, it was freezing, yes, it snows a ton, but man, was it outdoors? Paradise up there.
Speaker 1:Um, some of the two years ago up there first time I got got to see it. It's gorgeous, nicest people you'd ever meet.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the locals up there would give you the shirt off their back. As a matter of fact, I was talking to the old sheriff and chief of police. He's been both Last week. We still keep in touch. He's actually considering a career in corrections now, so I'm definitely hoping he gets what he's looking for. So I can't be specific there, but he's definitely heading in the right direction. But up there it was wonderful. Again learned a lot activating at the executive staff level. Activating at the executive staff level. I had a great warden. Deb Schultz was our activating warden up there. She was amazing to work for Tom Warlick I don't know if you remember him. He was my counterpart. We had a real good time up there. The inmates were fine. They didn't want to be there. Just to be honest with you, we had a hard time staffing the place just because of how remote it was. You know, no matter what, no matter what incentives you threw, just the applicant pool just wasn't there, just because of how far north it was.
Speaker 1:But where else could you see a moose on the perimeter road?
Speaker 2:we had a moose in the perimeter fence. Oh really, before the fence was closed, oh yeah, oh yeah. There on property the campers would not go out to get contraband because of the bear. Right, they were scared to death to go out in the woods at night. Um, oh, it was, uh, but. But I will tell you it's minus 30. I'll give you an example. A year before I left we had a barbecue planned for Memorial Day. So, mind you, late May we had to cancel it Because of three inches of snow Still, but it was great. Atv riding. We got one of those Side byby-sides up there. The wife and kids and I would all go out on rides on the weekends. Wonderful trail system, you know, great outdoors area, so it was good. It was definitely a real good time up there.
Speaker 1:How many years did you stay up there?
Speaker 2:Was it three, two and a half, three, something like that? It wasn't too long, yeah. But from there, that's when I went down to DC as the chief of emergency preparedness. Big job, very big job. And, to be honest, for me it was really personally tough because, I will will admit, while I got up in New Hampshire I got fat and lazy. Um, I was in the worst shape of my life. Uh, I mean, I let it go, I stopped working out. You know it was. It was not me, yeah, I'll be honest with you. So.
Speaker 2:So then you show back up in DC and you've got all these sort teams, you know, and DCT teams that you're providing, you know, trying to make training recommendations to, and you're the out of shape guy. So that was, for me, that was personally challenging. As soon as I left there, I kicked myself in the butt and got my tail back in shape, because you know, that was again. You know, I stress this in the book you have to lead yourself first. Again, I stress this in the book you have to lead yourself first. If you're not practicing what you preach, I mean, it's useless. And sometimes others can tell you, hey, you're getting a little big there, man, but until you decide yourself that, hey, what are you doing, buddy, get back in the gym, get disciplined, hit the reset here. It definitely takes some discipline and dedication, but I loved it though. Dc was a great assignment. Worked for a bunch of good people up there, several regimes.
Speaker 2:I was there for a while. Got to go on security assessments, like you mentioned, with Chapo Security assessment with the Saipan prisons. Got to go down there and check out Guam and Saipan. That was pretty neat. Yeah, how different is that? Saipan looks just like ours, to be honest, but Guam is very different, Um, very, very different. Um, not saying anything bad, just just different. Oh, but no, saipan, you, you could, you could almost interchange um, the. The way they run and the way we run is very, very similar.
Speaker 1:Yes sir, yes sir.
Speaker 2:That. That choppo detail was neat. We we flew in it was myself and one of the facilities leadership down there, I'll leave his name out and they they actually flew us into Altaplano where he was on a helicopter, on a Black Hawk, and that was super neat, just to see where he was. You know, without saying too much, you know they made a lot of structural changes based on what had happened when he got out. You know they took a lot of corrective action and listened to our facility staff's advice on rebuilding it. But they also took some strong advice on keeping them in custody and who should watch them and even where to move them, you know, in their own country. So it was good that they sought some advice that was good to go there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the resources he had access to you can't imagine. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely limitless, basically his own army if he wanted. Yeah. So we came to the agreement. We put them without saying where we put them up in the New York area, you know and obviously everything worked out because he's tucked away right now he's fleeing quietly, so when you, whenever you don't hear about it on the news, that that's a good thing for us, right? You know, we, uh, we don't want to be the headline, for damn sure.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, um, did you get to do anything for the teams? I mean, that was one of the. I got interrupted by a covid while I was up there and I went. I went up there with plans of, you know, helping dct and sort and everything. What did you get to do while you were up there?
Speaker 2:so we restructured and and if you remember the complex that was kind of getting put together at tucson for the sort training was kind of like the hub that was started by the teams. It was actually started before me, but we picked up on that and built on it. We kept that going while, I was there.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful Revamped the multi-weapons course. You know that was and we made it realistic. Some of it was in the past. You know those static drills are just turn know, turn shoot, turn shoot, turn shoot it was. You could train a smart monkey to do that. But you know we worked on shooting and moving, staying on target, obviously not lasering anybody, safety issues. But the big one was shooting and moving forward and back. Shooting and moving forward and back. You know, like after, let's say after you do a delivering exchange for either hostage or food or whatever you're dropping off, you know you're moving backwards and you've got to still have eyes on target while you're doing that. And that was a big focus of you know maintaining integrity and safety of the teams at all times, not just you know one direction Right.
Speaker 1:When I really got into breaching. That was when it brought to light for me Corrections you can't train a tactical team for corrections the same way you do a SWAT team. You know when they breach and they go in a house they can go back out any way they want Corrections. You're coming back out the same hole usually. You got to secure that hole and you got to get things back to normal. Coming back out the same hole usually. You got to secure that hole and you got to get things back to normal.
Speaker 2:So it's a different thought process and, yeah, much like you're talking about. Well, and one of the other big things I just remembered this you talked about a SWAT team is what brought it up is we got all the new equipment ordered to include the suppressors and everything else, and that was a long time coming, because anyone that's ever fired a service weapon indoors understands that you're not just going to have ringing ears If you fire that thing in a in a concrete corridor. I mean you're, you're, you're going to incapacitate everybody around you. Nobody's going to hear anything on the radio, um, you know. So we got the uh, you know, obviously the hearing protection, the suppressors, the stuff that attaches to radios. It basically made them a fully functional team the D-balls or PEC-15s on the M4s, some night vision for your snipers, clip-on stuff, so you didn't have to completely change your optic. But it basically gave the team full 24-hour capabilities, because prior to that they were not 24-hour capable. Right, absolutely, that's cool, yeah, it was a good time.
Speaker 2:I really, really enjoyed that assignment. To be honest with you, I will tell one story from that time, and it actually has nothing to do with emergency preparedness. It's when I went down to Guam and Saipan with myself, the director I'll leave his name out at the time, several ADs and we had just toured there in Nagatna. I'm going to butcherred their Nagatna. I'm going to butcher the name Nagatnya it's a name they use down there, their correctional facility. And quite frankly, you know I wasn't very impressed, right? But of course we can't say that.
Speaker 2:So we walk into what's supposed to be a private town hall with their governor and some local key leadership and as soon as we sit down, on cue, the media comes out, cameras, everything. It was a total, complete setup, right? If you remember one of our directors there was a negative saturday night live skit about him not long before that, about cell size. I don't know if you remember seeing that when they asked him, they said director, you know, as the leader of the world's largest correctional organization, he just toured our facility. What was your opinion of the facility? And of course he can't, you know, he's not going to publicly, you know, discuss that. That's going to be a private conversation and there's a long pause with no answer. So then the governor repeats the question and there was a pause again, and I'm going to say it was five to 10 seconds at this point, and jumped in. I said, director, would you mind if I took this question for you? Huge risk, right, because I could have ended my career politically right there, uh, but it was uncomfortable, the pause, and I didn't want to let him because he couldn't answer that. You know I could better. So, uh, I'll leave the attorney's name out, but I never saw a head snap in my direction so fast in my life, um, but the director said sure, brian, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So I said, well, uh, governor, uh, you know, in addition to coming down here to represent correctional programs, uh, my full-time job at the, at the bureau of prisons chief ofness, part of our jobs there are to conduct assessments of correctional facilities, which we spend at least 40 to 80 hours reviewing blueprints, plans, procedures, et cetera, and at least another 40 hours inside the facility. He said, sir, we were in your facility for about an hour. You can't ask us to offer any sort of effective, informed decision on your facility in that timeframe. So he took it and let it go the ride back. We jokingly had a big kid car and a little kid car. I was in the little kid car at the time and nobody would speak to me. So finally, about halfway back to the hotel, I cracked a joke. I said well, I think in a few minutes we're going to find hotel. I cracked a joke. I said, well, I think in a few minutes we're going to find out. Either I'm okay or my career is over.
Speaker 1:And everybody laughed.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I mean, what can you do at that point? You know it's it's done, you know, um. So anyway, actually he was waiting for me in the lobby and, um, he actually all he wanted to do was say thank you. You know, he thanked me for helping him out there. He was not prepared for the media coming out and none of us were. To be honest with you, um, and I've always, to this day, I've always thought very highly of that man for that, because you know he could have easily said you know, this was on statewide tv down there, so he easily could have said you know, who are you to speak for me and you know, you know, had a big ego about it. Um, he was very, very appreciative, um, and I was, you know, I've not forgotten that he was. He was a great man to work for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think I know who you're talking about and he is a. He is a a lot from him too. Yes, sir, um, yes, sir, so I'd like to. Before we talk about where you're at now, let's talk a little bit about. You said you came back from getting out of shape. I know that you're, uh, you've gotten big into jujitsu again. I don't think you'd like it, but it's kind of come back in your life, is that right?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, yes, sir yeah, yes, sir, tell me about that. You get to win powerlifting.
Speaker 1:How that affects your career and your mentality, all of it.
Speaker 2:You know, I think a lot of people fear submissions and chokeholds and all this. They're worried about legalities. I'm going to guarantee that you'll find that anyone that's actually trained will use it less. They will make better decisions in all aspects of their jobs. You know, imagine, you know, I'm in the heavyweight class. So imagine a 280-pound behemoth who's also a black belt on top of you trying to choke you out. If you don't relax and make solid decisions, you're done. You're absolutely done. So I think one of the biggest things that jiu-jitsu gives you is the ability to make tough decisions in the worst possible scenarios.
Speaker 2:You know, I firmly believe that there's a discipline, there's a humility that has to come with it. You know there's days, you, that has to come with it. Um, you know there's days you're going to be the hammer, but there's a heck of a lot more days you're going to be the nail right, you know when you're training anyway. So, um, you know I'm hooked. Um, I'll be. I'll be doing the world championships or the masters, the old, the deal man, world championships, uh, again this summer.
Speaker 2:Um, didn't fare so well last year. I'm actually trying to drop a weight class, uh, and see if I can get out of the uh, as I call it, the big boy division. Um, so we'll see. Um, there are some monsters out there, right, right, you know, last, last year, I lost to fabiano scherner, who I believe is 13 time world champion, so that doesn't feel too bad, no, no, um, I mean no excuses, right, I, I always want to win, right, but I mean, yeah, I also thanked him at the end for sharing the mat with me. I mean, what do you say to a guy like that? You know?
Speaker 1:yeah, so I was, uh, but I was going through a book. Have you ever read, uh, prisons and beyond by the first director of the bop? I have not, actually, so there's a part in there and I'm gonna read this because I think it's interesting. I think you'll get a kick out of it too. So jujitsu was taught in the original correctional officer training. Did you know that back in the 50s? Oh sir, yeah. So here's just a little story. I think it's pretty cool. So they had a new recruit, uh, good use was made of the physical training portion of the course.
Speaker 1:Later, one of the graduates of this course, doing guard duty at a prison camp, uh, was sent without a gun or club into open country to hunt for two prisoners who had walked off. He came upon them suddenly in the dark and held out his hand as though he had a revolver, and they put up their hands. As he approached, though, the prisoners saw that he was unarmed and rushed him was the way they wrote it one of them with a dangerous knife. The guard guard not only started off the attack of the prisoners with approved jujitsu fashion, he took the knife of one of them, whirling it to the ground, to the side of the road, captured the man with a left hammer lock and when the other prisoner attacked him, he took possession with a right hammer lock and led them back to the camp.
Speaker 1:It is impossible to discover the inherent characteristics of a man with such courage, dependability and alertness. But much can be said to stimulate judgment he's talking about jujitsu. Much can be said to stimulate judgment, initiative and resourcefulness to such measure. Yes, sir, that was what 70 years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and things don't change. I mean, it is what it is. I'm going to go back and read that now for an unsure.
Speaker 1:I'm a huge reader.
Speaker 2:I'm going to read the whole thing. That's really cool. I've seen that the FBI and the Marshals have adopted a jiu-jitsu curriculum and I'm very hopeful that for the safety of the staff and, quite frankly, the safety of the inmates, that the Bureau gets into some sort of jiu-jitsu training. For anyone listening to this, if your agency doesn't train you, I fully recommend you go out and train, fully recommend. And, quite frankly, even the training you'll get with your agency is not going to be anywhere enough to be proficient. It'll be a starter or an exposure at best. But when it becomes muscle memory, that's when you're relaxed and that's when you're confident and, quite frankly, that's when you'll muscle memory.
Speaker 1:That's when you're relaxed and that's when you're confident and, quite frankly, that's when you'll actually use less force because you're confident in yourself in most situations yeah, I was talking to sim fosnot, uh, last episode and he teaches for our tactical and him and I got in a discussion about the way the public sees us on these videos on YouTube and stuff and you see so many officers that don't have the ability to control the inmates they're fighting, or even three or four officers not able to control an inmate. And when you have those skills which I have never taken jujitsu, but I thought the state of Missouri did a really good job of teaching me arm bars and stuff very early yes sir, not just offensive but some tactics to control an inmate, and we look so much better when we can get immediate control, when we can protect them, not hurt them, and get control of them.
Speaker 2:We're calm, we're not screaming, it is better and it looks better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yes, sir. So tell me about the other better. Yeah, absolutely yes, sir, so tell me about the other thing. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. The other thing I've recently got into is competitive powerlifting, that's what I was going to ask about.
Speaker 2:So, as a matter of fact, I'm doing a heavy bench day tomorrow. I'm trying to break the old man bench record Right now 275, it's 860 on open power lifting. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get around 700. Uh, brand new shirt, um breaking in a little bit so we'll see um still ways off. But uh, you know, at this point I'll be top five in the world if I do that in a in a meet Nice. Yeah, it's getting there.
Speaker 2:I'm one of those people that's never satisfied. I've got to push myself and my wife. She's an amazing partner. We're up at 4.30 every morning. We hit the gym together. She's as dedicated, if not more, than I am. So it makes eating, working out, everything's easy when your partner's doing it with you. You know, and that's the other thing people don't realize is so much of being healthy and being in shape is almost purely diet. You know, prioritize protein. Do not listen to what you've been told for the last 30, 40 years. Protein is the key. Uh, keep your protein intake high. Keep your sugar intake low. Fat it's moderate, you're good to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's uh, I've always loved strength sports. Uh, so it's. I love watching your posts on there and stuff. I used to compete in Highland games. That's what some of those swords are back there. Yes, sir, yeah, I love strength sports, throwing defense bowls yes sir. Yeah, because it's personal. In most of those sports it's you against you. You, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, so doing all that when do you have time?
Speaker 2:That took forever and, to be honest with you, the second book is stuff I pulled out of the first book that was just either too long or didn't fit the same. It wasn't really leadership, it was more prison management on how to run the prison. So I took that all out, reorganized it and the second book wasn't really a full second endeavor. It was stuff I retracted from the first book. To be honest, that took me God. When did I start that? At least five years of dabbling back and forth, um 2022 is when I got the majority of it done.
Speaker 2:I um, right before I retired, I ended up having my C five, six and C six seven replaced with uh metal discs. There's metal box inserted in there. Now they cut you, move your throat over, put metal vertebra or metal discs in between your vertebrae, um, which it's much better than a fusion. You retain the majority of your mobility, uh, or at least some of it anyway, versus a fusion. You're very stiff. But that's when I got the majority of the book writing done. You know I had a lot of time where I couldn't do much, so I was laid up and just sat my butt in front of the computer and got after it.
Speaker 1:So well, I had a couple of things in here when I've you touched on a couple of things that I haven't heard other leaders talk about, so I want to, you know, pick your brain a little bit. One of them is is tactfully pushing back against poor decisions, and I think everyone listening has probably been in that situation where, uh, you know there's a poor decision being made, uh, you may not be in the position to, uh, to stop it, but how do you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:What's your so you have to be careful, right, um, because if you push too hard, or so there is. There's also another book I recommend reading, the Art of the Indirect Approach by Wendell Hart. It's an older book, he's a British guy, okay, but if you were to make a decision that I didn't agree with and I came directly at you, you know, mike, what the hell are you thinking? You know you're instantly going to be defensive and you're instantly going to be defensive Versus. If I look at it, maybe we talk to some of the teams hey, mike, I got your idea. I see it, it's on point. But the guys have a way that they really prefer to do things, still achieving the same end goal. Could you take a look at the ops order that they prepared? Big difference to me coming directly at you and say you know, hey, I don't agree with this. This is dumb.
Speaker 2:You know, whatever, you have to realize a few things. One you're dealing with another human's ego, right, which everybody has an ego, I don't care how much we try to check it. Every single one of us has an ego. Number two you have to stay in the game. If I piss you off enough and you're my boss you're not going to hear anything I say in the future. In fact, you may take me off count and move me somewhere, right? So then nobody's going to push back. So it's got to be delicate. Um, I'm not saying go question your boss on everything, and there are some things that, quite frankly, aren't worth the fight, right. But if it's something that's worth the fight, that that's when I still say approach delicately, but, you know, get your point across in a in a non-direct manner. I call it. Leading up channel is really what I call it.
Speaker 1:I know that you and I are both fans of Jocko and I heard him talk about it. Yes, yeah, he talked about you know, you get these people who go. Well, I'm not going to be part of this. Well, if you pull yourself out of it, you can't protect the people below you, you can't protect your team. You have no influence at that point.
Speaker 2:Right. Then they put a yes person in place and it's over Right. So you know it's delicate balance and you really do have to pick your battles. But when it's important to you and or your team, again I still say I wouldn't approach it directly head-on, at least not right away, you know again, offer an alternative. Hey boss, would you mind just taking a look at this? I'm really trying to build the morale and future leaders of the team they developed this plan. It'll achieve the same end result. I really believe it'll also help their morale and more often than not they're at least going to read it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's one of my weaknesses. That's another reason why I chose that one. I'm not always the best at being tactful in some of those situations I have to make myself, but it's good you know that right, because I'm the same way.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I want to jump right head on at something, but we have to be aware of our own weaknesses as well and, again, stay in the game.
Speaker 1:Another thing I wanted to ask you about, just because I talk to a lot of leaders on here and one of the subjects that I haven't really drilled down on is decision-making, and you have decision-making frameworks there. So tell me about some of your thoughts on when you make decisions. How do you do that? What are you looking at?
Speaker 2:So one of the biggest things I use is called an OODA loop, observe and Jocko, as you said, talks about this at length Observe, orient, decide and act. And it's almost a constant cycle and when you really get into it you can almost have several OODA loops inside of maybe one big OODA loop when you really start getting deep into things. But starting off what that process does, it avoids decision-making paralysis. So the third step is you decide, you know you have to make a damn decision. You've talked about all this, you've observed, you've developed, you know at least a concept. You're deciding, and the fourth step is act. So if it needs to be tweaked, you're going to pick it up on your next loop. Or observe, orient the side. Do I need to tweak it? Do I not need to tweak it? Act or maintain status quo, right, right.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the biggest and the easiest methods to teach. It's been around. I should know that it was an Air Force pilot, but it was a pilot from the Boyd, somewhere in the 50s, I believe that came up with it. Yeah, did you say Boyd Boyd, colonel Boyd? That might be right. That might be right. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think people do get stuck. The OODA loop doesn't just go around once it's spinning.
Speaker 2:Like a record. It's going round and round. Yes, sir, and it's. You know, it's great to teach your staff too, because then they don't get scared to make decisions. You know, and while I say that and I know it's probably touched on, it's definitely touched on in the book but if your staff make a mistake because they made a decision where they were trying to do the right thing, don't kill them. Oh, yeah, yeah, have that. Talk with them. You know, hey, man, you need to find another way to do this, because that one didn't work. Brother, you know they make the same mistake two or three times. Then maybe we have a different conversation, right? But the last thing you want is staff that are scared to make a decision, or staff that run to their supervisor a decision, um, or staff that run to their supervisor. This is going on. What do I do? Well, why do I have you?
Speaker 1:you know so um, I talked about that in a keynote I did a few years back, and the way I picture it is is you've got one like one of those old Roman boats, you know, where everybody's got an oar. You've got one of those old Roman boats where everybody's got an oar, and if you reach down and slap somebody every time they make a little mistake, pretty soon you're not going anywhere because everybody quits rowing. That's all they do. Yes, sir, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and the other thing talking about the decision-making process, and this may or may not be where you're going with this, but I also try not to make every damn decision. You know, there's a story in the book and and names are out on purpose. When I first showed up at Hazleton the second time as warden, right after the Whitey Bulger murders a murderer, I should say I was walking around and there were two AWs and you know, and probably the captain and a few other people walking with me, and one of the AWs was just in my ear the whole time. This is Hazleton. We don't have time to do all this. I'd never worked there before and didn't understand how busy the place was. I was just ignoring it, didn't say a word. What I left out is the first day when I was politely asked to go up there.
Speaker 2:I drove up from Williamsburg. I was actually on vacation in Myrtle Beach sitting on our fifth wheel. All of a sudden my truck started. I was going north. So I ended up there and got there at like five o'clock. I was like, well, screw it, I'm not going to go. You know, sit in a bar or sit in a hotel, I might as well, go to prison.
Speaker 2:So I'm walking around and, and you know one thing, like on lockdowns, we normally don't do showers at nights. At nighttime, you know, there's less staff. I walk into one of the housing units and they're about halfway done. They weren't even close. The staff didn't even know who I was at that point A bunch of new kids. So I jumped in, I started helping them pull inmates for showers. We got it done. I think we're down like 8, 30, 9 o'clock at night. Crazy it, crazy. It wasn't working. So I mentioned that to you know, the aws and the captain that next morning I said hey, man, you gotta look at that is whatever we're doing. Something, something's not going right there, sure? So on the third day the one aw says to the other one he says hey, get all the execs together in the warden's conference room at two o'clock and we'll develop a new shower plant. I turned around I said stop, you've been telling me for three days how busy we are and how we don't have time to walk around and get the pulse of the place and see what's going on. I'll say the one guy's name. I said Ryan, two senior officers. Grab a union steward, grab a lieutenant, put them in a room together, ask them to write you a shower plan and, if it makes half a bit of sense, enact it. So he looks at me, he laughs and he goes and does it, because he had worked for me before so he knows how I like to operate. So they do it. We take an hour the next morning to brief the plan, you know, and a staff recall, you know so you lose an hour of the day there. They were done with showers by about 1.30, 2 o'clock, not because their plan was seven hours more efficient, because it was their plan. They were bought in and they wanted to look good. Sure, and that's the goal, man, you want their buy-in. They even skipped eating lunch to finish the showers earlier and then ate afterwards. Yeah, uh, just so you know their plan would look that much better.
Speaker 2:And you know, yeah, there are times when we have to snipe decisions. I'm a big leadership capital believer, so every time we snipe one of those decisions, we're burning capital. Anytime we got our staff involved and we get them involved in the planning process, we're building capital. You know, so it's. You get so much more. You know another example there uh, I was looking to find a way to copy. The mail bureau had never done that before. Um, you know, full scale copying, especially at a large complex. Sure, we were getting slaughtered with paper drugs coming in.
Speaker 2:At that point drones weren't an issue yet, probably very close to being an issue, but they weren't yet Right, at least that we knew of anyway. So you know, we had some ideas, but we pulled all the mariner room staff in, a couple of the union folks, lieutenants, put them in a room, you know, to copy Jocko. We gave him the commander's intent and all the senior leadership left. So you know, here's your resources, here's your intent. You know, let us know what your plan is. And I figured it would be a week or two.
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, by 3 o'clock they called us back in and said hey, you know, we've got a plan, it's going to work. Not only did they not ask us for more bodies, they gave us two bodies back. Did they not ask us for more bodies? They gave us two bodies back. So you know, they consolidated the mailroom in one location and it worked like a charm. There was not one issue with it. And again, it was their plan. You know, full disclosure. I would not have thought of. What they thought of, you know that was solid staff making solid decisions, and they know those institutions better than we do, whether we want to admit it or not.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people, when they get in those administrative positions and you kind of touched on it earlier with the analysis paralysis they get so scared of making a mistake that they well, colin Powell, he's got a quote out there that he makes decisions when he has between 40 and 70% of the information. If he makes it with less than 40% of the information he doesn't have enough. If he waits till he's got 100%, the moment to make the decision is gone.
Speaker 1:You know, and we have a lot of administrators that want it, they want everything, they want 100%, and you shouldn't be making good decisions that way, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, sir, and you know. The other thing you fail to do when you make all the decisions is where and I'm going to say this, uh, and I'm not shooting at anybody, but this is what the Bureau of Prisons is dealing with right now you do not gel, develop your next generation of leadership when you treat yourself like robots and you make every decision from the top. You know, and that's, that's a leadership vacuum that they are dealing with right now, Uh, and it's, it's going to take a minute to fix that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, it is. But yeah, we'll hope that some changes are going to happen and things are going to move forward there, because I love the Bureau.
Speaker 2:I'm very confident. I'm very confident in that new director. I know he actually doesn't have that much correctional experience, that new director. I know he actually doesn't have that much correctional experience, but listening to him speak on your podcast talking about you know you have to understand but you don't know how he leads. I'm very confident that he's he's going to be a strong leader for that agency.
Speaker 1:So I saw him walking around the mock riot and of course that's West Virginia's, you know big thing down there. But he came down and he wasn't standing up front and everybody. He was up there talking to everybody, asking questions, seeing what's in there. He was very inquisitive. I enjoyed meeting him there, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he seems like a great guy. I've never met him, but hearing him speak he sounds like exactly what's needed.
Speaker 1:To be honest, yeah, so what's next for Brian Antonelli? I know you got another book.
Speaker 2:Let's talk yeah, that's out, seize Clear.
Speaker 1:Build Hold Regaining Control of Troubled Prisons.
Speaker 2:So Seize Clear, build, hold is how I put it. For the prisons it's modified a little bit. Seize Clear, hold, build the military's counterinsurgency model. Um, that, that is what that's modeled after. And if you think about organized gang activity, drug sales, gang activity, counterinsurgency, that's exactly what it is. That's how we deal with it. That's the model I've used at Hazleton, at Coleman, at Reno McCreary, williamsburg you name it and it's proved effective every single time. Now I didn't have the flashy name for it then, but that's exactly what we did.
Speaker 2:What's next for me? Nothing. I'm in my career. I'm happy where I am right now with the state. Um, I'll do this as long as I want to stay gamefully employed, and then I'm done. Um, you know, I'm just. I'm just going to enjoy life with the family and you know my kids are staying right here. They're going to into college at University of South Carolina, both of them 20 minutes from home. So we're all Gamecock fans.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, no, you know, maybe if I ever get tired of this which I really enjoy what I do right now if I ever get tired of it, maybe some part-time consulting or something on the side. But that'll be when we want to. To be honest with you. It's just, you know, the Bureau of Corrections has been a wonderful career. You know I, I know we take a lot of bad press I recommend it to anybody I really do in the right organization. Anyway, you know we are, we're blessed organization Anyway, um, you know we are, uh, we're blessed to be where we are, to be honest with you. So, and and you know you, you too, you had a wonderful career. Brother, you know something to be proud of for sure.
Speaker 1:So, um, it was uh. I still get to get phone calls and emails from people that I affected, you know, and that's the huge thing. But I see South Carolina. You guys are on LinkedIn or on Facebook and you guys are doing good stuff out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a wonderful director, um, wonderful man to work for. Um, super aggressive uh as far as getting us resources, pay raises for staff technology, you name it. He's probably the leader nationwide in the push for cell phone interdiction and drone interdiction. Amazing man to work for Some great staff out here, and this is one of those. I won't get too much. I promised him I wouldn't talk about South Carolina, but one of the things I love is we don't have the age restriction, right, so we have some staff.
Speaker 2:You know, our director of security, for example, has over 50 years of correctional experience. Okay, that is. I mean, he's a walking enal experience. Okay, that that is. I mean, he's a walking encyclopedia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, um, the thing I like is they don't run their experience out the door. You know, just for a fictitious age number that may or may not be accurate, as to whether or not you can still perform the job, um, I, you know I couldn't be happier. Um, as to whether or not you can still perform the job, you know, I couldn't be happier. You know, my direct boss is wonderful. He's got probably 30, 40 years himself in. You know, I've got 32. My counterpart's 35, 37, I think. So I mean there is a ton of experience down here and everybody is great to work with. So you know the line staff have dealt with a lot, because before they got their pay raises it was it was hard to staff this place, yeah, um, but now that they're uh, they're very competitively paid down here, um, so especially for this area, yeah, well, I love seeing that all across the country.
Speaker 1:That's one thing that this has done. Is it finally bumped up pay for a lot of people 20, 30, 40% in some places. So, yeah, corrections needed it. They deserved it. I'm glad to see that they're getting it.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, Brian, for coming on here tonight. I'll get in the show notes. I'll have Brian's books. I'm actually going to put that one book I wrote it down that you mentioned.
Speaker 2:The art of the indirect approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'll. I'll put a link in there for that too, for anybody that wants to look it up. I know you probably don't want to get bugged at work. Do you have a contact in the book or an email? I?
Speaker 2:don't Okay. I am on LinkedIn, brian Ettenoly, okay, so feel free to reach out there. I do respond to pretty much every message I get on there.
Speaker 1:I'll put that link on the show notes so they can, if somebody wants to reach out and say, hey, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm honored you had me on, brother, you know great talk to you and, you know, always here, uh, if you ever need anything in the future, bro, same here. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. It's uh. I haven't got to talk to you in a long time, so I enjoyed this. Yes, sir, me too. Have a good night you too, hey. Before we go, I'd like to take a minute to thank one of our sponsors.
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