Tony & Melody Rodarte
Tony Rodarte retired from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in 2008 with 20 years of service in Arizona. He spent his last 11 years in their Homicide Unit. Tony also spent time with the AZ statewide child abduction task force. Tony spent most of his career in investigations between district detectives, IA, Jail Crimes, and Homicide.
Dr. Melody Rodarte has been a physician for 18 years. She is double board in obesity medicine and internal medicine. She is passionate about whole-person care, especially for first responders who have suffered from trauma. Melody has a private practice in Gilbert, Arizona. Following Tony’s retirement from MCSO, the two founded Compassion Alliance, a non-profit organization focused on shedding light on the needs of first responders and with the goal of changing the stigma associated with asking for help. Through Compassion Alliance, they support and advocate for first responders, retirees, and their spouses throughout the country.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth. Conversations with Community Leaders. In this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and modern moments, an event and meeting venue in the heart of Gilbert and at Gilbert Independent, your valley. net dedicated to serving readers with good community journalism. The Gilbert Independent is a nonpartisan newspaper, an online site that covers our town's institutions, development and events.
Subscribe and follow Your valley. net Daily to stay up to date with latest local news. All right, today's podcast is breaking the mold we have with us. A power couple. One is a renowned physician and six time top doc in obesity medicine. While the other is a retired law enforcement officer with a remarkable career in investigations. They're proud parents of 2501 year old twins, one, a recent graduate of Arizona Christian University and the other soon to graduate from Arizona State University together, they have founded Compassion Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting first responders and their families.
Let's dive into their incredible journey of family, career and community impact. Please welcome Dr Melody and Tony Rodarte. Welcome. Welcome. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for being here. We're going to start with what we call rapid fire. All right, Sarah, you go first. All right. This is for you. Would you rather host a party for all your friends or enjoy a dinner for two? Oh, that's hard. I think it depends on the day, but I'll say a dinner for Two Star Wars or Star Trek. Neither. This is the first and also my kind of guy.
Thank you. Favorite color, blue, winter or summer, winter. What did your mom call you as a kid? Melody. Fair enough. I don't think that's what she was digging for. But, ok. Something in Arabic. I'm sure. Favorite holiday. Christmas. Oh, Sarah's Bells just went off. Ok. Would you ever bungee jump in your teen years? What was your favorite movie? Wow. That's a fantastic question. My teen years, I'm drawing a blank here. Well, that just got awkward. We'll dig into that one later. Yeah. Ok. Next. All right. What is one thing you wish you enjoyed more of hosting parties?
Ok. There we go. Sounds like we have a party on our tents. Ok. Glass, half full or half empty, half full, ding, ding. I feel like same question for you. Half full. There you go. I would expect the same. Yeah. I was hoping she was going to say half empty. This is going to turn into a therapy session. I've got a few things to dig into now. Ok. That's good. Do you ever feel like your business is stuck? It's time to get traction and move it forward.
Call Chris Spear, your business coach and certified E US implementer. He'll help you use the entrepreneurial operating system to get traction and achieve your vision. Call Chris today at 1003. That's 2100. Oh, all right. Well, you're going to have to roll with us because we have never before had two guests. And so we are excited to visit with both of you today. And so let's start with childhood for both of you. I know you're both natives. What did childhood look like? And when did you two cross paths? Yeah. So um it is unique that we are both natives.
I grew up in the mesa area. We met in 210. We met in college um in a college group at church and we still attend that same church to this day. So we got married there. It's been a big part of our life. Uh Childhood in general was really good for me. Just a really close knit family. Um And I'm a blessed guy. I don't, I don't take that for granted. How many siblings? One sibling and your oldest or youngest? I'm youngest. I have an older sister. Yeah. Yeah.
You're up melody. So, I'm first generation. So that was always, uh, different part of my childhood is figuring out, like, you know, I was bilingual and figuring how to be normal with the other kids. So that I, I think it's made me unique as I grew up. Um, I have a younger sibling. He's two years younger than I am. And uh yeah, we met in 220 and the rest is history. I'm curious, what brought your family here? So my dad immigrated in 69 from Lebanon and that was, you know, the dream come to the States, right?
That's where all your dreams come true. So, um they got, my parents got married in 73 and then came over and I was born here and, and they came directly to Arizona. He had some family here. So they, that's how they chose Arizona. Absolutely. And are you, did you have? Oh, sorry, Tony, I guess my listeners are probably like, who is she looking at? What's happening? Was, was your family already established here? I mean, how long had, how many generations before had your family been in Arizona established for a while?
So, um my parents both grew up in Arizona as well. Um And then my father's parents immigrated in and my mother's parents had also not in Arizona, but they had been in the States. So, our roots were pretty deep. I want to point out this is probably the first and last time there's a couple. No, that's not true. That's not true. I mean, Ben's really confused right now but that's ok. He'll be ok. I mean, yeah, I didn't know this was happening to. This is great. Oh, my gosh.
Ok. So, you both grew up then in Mesa, but different high schools. Yeah, we didn't know each other really until later in the college years of life. I also want to point out too that not only did Melody's parents immigrate here for their Children as newlyweds, but like they are the American dream. They had two kids, they both went on to become physicians, um, and just have dedicated their entire lives to their two kids. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. That is amazing and amazing that, um, obviously medicine is something that's in your family and you continue to do that as well.
Do your Children do? Either one of them have interest in practicing? Neither of them want to do. There's two career paths that our Children will not go into and that's law enforcement and medicine just because they've seen the extreme sides of both of those occupations and they're like, I'm not going anywhere near that. Yeah. Ok. So, Melody, I'm curious for you. When did you know that medicine was the direction to go from my early years? Like, I always wanted to be a doctor. You did. I did.
Yeah, I liked watching how people were put back together and if they were sick, how they got well. And, um, so, I mean, my mom has a picture of me. I think I was four or five with my first little doctor's kit and I taking it with me everywhere. So it was definitely something I always wanted to do. I want to dig into the high school years fast because it's always interesting for me to hear about the journeys you had during that time period and who mentored you who brought you into like the next phase of your life?
Like, is there anything that comes to mind when you think about any coaches, any teachers for either of you? Yeah. So for me, I think just in life was just my family and the impact my family had. Um it was, it was very positive uh professionally. Um There really wasn't anybody, I was the first one in my family to go into law enforcement. So there was really nobody that I looked up to or that kind of guided me down that road. But just in general, my life experience was, was hugely impacted by my parents, both mom and dad.
Ok. I had, I had both like my parents were great. I think their work ethic and teaching us that we could do whatever we wanted to do was great. And so whatever sport my brother and I wanted to try we were always like, go for it. Um, but I will tell you in high school, I loved actually starting in junior high. I had coaches. Um I played tennis so they really spoke and they were always female coaches. So that was really great to see. And then I was able to kind of start if you think about the old days candy stripers, like the white and red.
And so I got to meet um I was in hospitals and I got to meet a couple. So I'm Ad O and so I got to follow around a couple of D OS and really liked how they practiced medicine. And so that was really good for me because there wasn't a physician for me to follow here. And it's like, how do you do what you did? Like, what are the next steps that I need to do? I think also I was able in high school to get into a part of a group that was for first generation college students, college bound students.
And that really allowed me to have mentors to know like what I set my mind to do. I can do like just because nobody in my family hasn't, has done it so I can follow them like we will show you how to do it. And those are so important in the kind of growth patterns that you have is how you can develop. So that's good. Great. Um OK, so what hospital. Did you do your candy striping? Um It's called Banner. It was Banner Mesa Lutheran Lutheran. Thank you.
I'm thinking of the real name right now. I wanted to say Banner Corporate. I also was a candy striper at Chandler, but I was really there for the free drinks. So I was pretty excited that you could go to the fountain as many times as you want. I'm sure Ben surprised by going to just keep my mouth shut right now. Uh, ok, so let's go back to how do you end up, um, at college? And then, and then how do you end up meeting each other? I know you alluded to it a little bit.
But what does that time in your life look like for both of you? Yeah. So, uh, pretty hectic. So coming out of high school, going to college, I worked for an ambulance company, um, trying to get into law enforcement. I knew law enforcement was where I wanted to land, um, for the ambulance service. You know, 20% of the guys wanted to be cops and 80% wanted to be fire. But it gave me the life experience to get through some oral boards and law enforcement. Um, and then Melody and I met, um, again at church through a college group, um, at a time when we were both kind of busy, um, and, and really not looking for each other.
Um, and, and, and we stumbled upon each other and like melody said, the, the rest is history. Yeah, it was, it was kind of fun because neither of us were looking for a relationship. So, everybody around us was like, you guys should date. We're like, no, I, for me I had blinders on, I'm like, I'm going to med school. I can't have anybody get in my way. So it was kind of, we kind of all of a sudden we were like, oh, maybe we do a lot together, maybe we shouldn't date.
So what I'm curious. So, did you go away for med school? No, I was lucky. So I was able to stay here in Arizona. So I went to Midwestern University and they had just opened their campus in Glendale in 96 which was great. Then I didn't have to, it was my first choice and not having to leave the state. So I can only imagine those early years. Those are two intense careers to start chasing when you look back at that time. Are there other individuals that influenced you helped you through that time?
Yeah. So, so we had some mentors uh really through our church, but it was a very blurry time. Um because we were so busy, you know, when I first started, I was working nights and melody was, you know, basically we got married and went right into these careers. And so the first several years, we literally were like two ships passing in the night. Um, and we wouldn't see each other a whole lot. Um, especially with me working graves and her being gone all day. So we just kind of hit the ground running and our life has been pretty stressful and I feel like it started there and then, you know, you morph that into having twins.
We hit the ground running with twins too. We didn't know anything different and it's just been a busy time and it's funny because I feel like we're living in reverse. Like now our kids are, you know, coming out of school, we're empty nesting and, and really having more time together than I feel like we've probably ever had in our life. It's, it's really unique and cool but very different. Yeah, absolutely. When you look back on that time in those early years, is there something that you, if you could go back and tell yourself that you would tell yourself about that time?
Any advice you would give for sure. I'd tell myself, buckle up, buckle up because it's gonna get a little rocky. I think we both had blinders on. I think we just assumed our careers were supposed to go this way and everything would be fine and, and ultimately it worked out. But it's, our, our life journey was pretty bumpy throughout the process. And I think if I could go back and talk to a younger version of myself, it would just be like slow down. We got this. Just stay the course.
So, Bumpy usually means hard life for relationships too. How do you guys, how did you keep that going? You hardly saw each other. You both have stressful jobs and things. I mean, what's the secret there? Because I'm sure lots of people are in that mode in their lives so that, you know, I don't know what that secret sauce is other than just being brutally honest and open, like there was never a topic or a conversation that was taboo for melody and I, and there were some uncomfortable conversations that we had.
Um, and, and my story is, and, and maybe we'll unpack that later. But the career path I chose grossly impacted our marriage and we're standing before you married for 26 years now because of her, not because of me, like, there were some really rough times with my call schedule and just, uh, underbelly of the world that I was dealing with in a homicide unit where I, if it was up to me, I would have totally just checked out. Um, and she's like, no, that's like, not an option.
Um And that's a really quick version of what took place. But when I say Bumpy and Rocky, like, seriously Bumpy and Rocky, I get that. What's your version of that? You know, you don't know until you're in the middle of something, right? And you don't know what's normal, what's not normal, but I think one of the things that really Tony and I agreed to and it's just because, like, our church made us do premarital counseling and then we had to do counseling at one year anniversary and have mentors.
And I think that really made a huge difference because you had a neutral person to bring you together to, to have these hard conversations and to figure this out. I had never lived with anybody. He, you know, like, I didn't know who puts the dishes away, you know, who takes the trash out, who does the groceries and then throw into that where, you know, I'm a full time med med student and then into residency and he's working graves and then we have Children and it's like, who's, who has what role?
Right? And how did that work? So I feel very blessed that we had people to like older married couples who could help us, you know, through this. And I think that made all of the difference and we did have an open conversation and one of the things that Tony is great with, you know, I would want, we were, if we allude to earlier, I would have a party of two and, you know, hosting is not always my favorite thing, Tony always likes the social things and one of the things he made is yearly, we got away, we had some type of vacation and that allowed us to continue to connect even when we had small Children.
Like thank God, both of our parents lived here in Arizona because they allowed us to have these types of quick trips and getaways so that we could stay connected and then we would be able to unpack whatever was going on in our lives. Tony. What's the best trip you guys have had? Oh my gosh. We, we have lit seriously. We live a very blessed life and we have traveled the globe. I would say I, I like some of our best trips are in the Middle East. That's just a region of the world that's very special to my heart.
I love the culture. I love the food. I love the people. Um But we've, we've traveled all over. I, I think probably my favorite favorite for our 103th anniversary. We went to Bora Bora and we stayed in the above water huts that it was not a hut. It was beautiful. That's probably right at the top of my list. Absolutely. Well, thank you for doing those vacations because I don't get away. But I watch you guys on Facebook and it looks amazing. So keep doing that. So, Melanie, I'm curious from your perspective because sometimes it takes a greater inner strength to hold somebody accountable and to lift them up when they're down and to not just cash in your chips and walk away. Right.
Where does that strength come from? My faith. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I've I've had a very strong faith and I'm very blessed to have had that, that stability and I made a commitment to Tony. And I see the good, I mean, I wouldn't have married him if I didn't, you know, and, and so as he talks about the bumps and the roads, he just chose a career that literally saw the underbelly of life every single day and yet such an important career and something that I can't imagine the toll it takes.
And I am curious to explore it a little bit, but I also the amount of service and good that you have provided to the public is there's no amount of gratitude for that even at the expense of your own. Well being. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't regret for a second, the career path that I chose. Uh I believe I had to impact positive impact in the world. Um And I also believe that I'm a changed man because of it. Uh I grew up a lot in that career path, but if I could go back, I would, I would change some things.
I would still go into law enforcement. I would not stay a decade in a homicide unit. I would move around. I would have some changes that I would put into effect, but I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't not go into law enforcement. And it's, it's tough man in 2024. It's a different world for those guys. That are working the streets right now. It is, it is totally different. It's like we're living in the twilight zone with some of the stuff going on. So I'm thankful that I was in law enforcement when I was.
Um, and then I'm no longer in that world. Um, and it's funny I'll bounce into guys that I worked with and they're like, they don't even, and even recognize me now, on the professional side with running our practice and, you know, everybody that we have working for us and the just the world that we're living in, it's very, very different. But I'm thankful for that. I like where I'm at right now. That was all part of my journey. I don't regret it, but I, it, it made me a better person and I'm ok with that.
I like where I'm at. I'm curious if you could educate the public on just a few things about that career. Um What would you share? What do you wish? Maybe people knew? And um how did you, how did you make your way out of it in a healthy way? Yeah. So, um yeah, I'd be, I'd be happy to share about that. So what I, what I won't do and what I won't share and you know this because you've heard me speak before. So what I won't share are images or things like that.
Like we all have our own trauma in life and I'm not gonna put my trauma into your life through the course of this conversation. Um What uh I enjoyed um most about it is it, it allowed me to grow up as a man. Um And I believe I'm a better father because of the impact that I had some of the things I would change. Like I said, the longevity of where I stayed, um sometimes you just kind of get so numb to that environment. I was a really good homicide cop, but I found um my other role slipping a little bit.
I wasn't a, I wasn't a great husband. Um I wasn't a fantastic father. Um And so I, I would have shifted that a little bit. Um But again, I, I don't regret it. It's, it's part of my story. Um It also led us into post law enforcement and where we're at now and the nonprofit that we're running specifically came out of the need that I had when I was active in law enforcement. And so we, we are saving marriages and lives and I don't say that lightly through the work that we're doing now through the nonprofit and I'm blessed to be able to do that with melody.
Um It's, it's pretty awesome. If you go back like 10 years, I never would have thought we'd be doing what we're doing right now. So it's pretty cool that we could kind of turn some of that hurt into some good, uh, the impact that we're having. Yeah. And I, I do absolutely want to visit that but I am curious from melody from your career. What are some of the greatest lessons or takeaways that you have? Um, and how would you share the highlights of that career with others?
Yeah. I absolutely love what I do. And it's, and I think one of the things I would tell younger physicians is it's ok to not love where you're at at first and to continue growing, you get out of residency thinking, OK, I've learned everything I need to learn. I'll just kind of, you know, start practicing, should be the top doc next month. And, you know, it's very different and even, you know, work hours were different when I went through residency compared to now and the way that insurance is and everything.
And so at first, when I, I'll just take it till to 2012, when I left my primary care practice to try something different, I will, I, I felt like a failure, like I was failing my patience. And it took my coach at the time a few years later to say you saved yourself, you had to, you had to pivot and make a difference for you to learn what you learned. And now, you know, and it did, it propelled me into my own practice years down the road. And so every stepping stone is, if you don't see it as a learning experience, then it can be a failure.
But if you have to fail forward, you have to fail to keep going. And, and, and when I think back to my childhood, I wanted the 100% on all my tests. I wanted to be the top of my class. And so failure was, isn't a good thing back there. But as an adult and if I could go back and talk to that young melody, I'd say like failing is good. That means you're trying like, you know, it's the, what type of failure are we talking about? And I will say I'm going to just correct one thing on Tony, he is, he was, he still is a great father.
He just didn't get to do all of the things he wanted to do and that he's getting to do now. But as a husband and as a father, like I can't, I can't say anything bad. He just wasn't, he didn't get to do all the things he wanted to do as his career was ending. But that was because of, you know, the type of job that he had been out and then sucking the life out of him. But once he retired, we got him back. Well, I love, I love that, that philosophy or that perspective, even of your own career as well because I do think that sometimes the, the desire for perfection actually stalls somebody from taking any action at all.
And then I do think it's important that youth or young professionals understand that it does not have to be figured out today. Just take the next step, do the next right thing. Um And things will unfold as they're meant to unfold, but trying to figure it out. All right now for the rest of your life just doesn't make sense, you know, and we're learning that too in our, in our lives with our kids like melody. And I knew very early on, we knew exactly what we want to do.
There was no confusion. Um, and we were very goal driven and, and we got there but our kids, they didn't have that laser focus on what they want to do. And that's ok. Um, but I think it's just recently that we're kind of, we're kind of accepting that that's ok. These kids have lived a, it's just been a different world. Their childhood has been different than ours. Our kids were born post 911. They don't know our country at peace. They just know conflict and school has looked different.
They went to high school through COVID, like it's just a different world. Um, and so they don't know exactly what they want to do, but they're both getting educated. One's already graduated, the other one's a semester away. They have a general idea of where they want to go but who knows where they're going to land. Well, and I think it was different when we grew up, we could count on professions, still being professions when we were older. Whereas the career opportunities change so rapidly now for so many kids that, to commit to something today might not even look the same in 10 years.
So, for sure. Yeah. Interesting. So, let's talk about this nonprofit. I actually don't know much about it. So, you're gonna have to educate me a bunch on this. So, help me if you understand, how did it come about and what's it doing? Yeah. So, uh when I retired, Melody and I started a nonprofit where we pay for trauma therapy for police fire and ems and we just do it quietly. Um And it all kind of came out of my story. So the tail end of my career, I know that I, I knew that I needed some help.
Um And I elected to retire, uh basically at the stroke of midnight on my 20th year. Um and I rode off quietly and I, I went and got help and that's where my, my uh mental health journey began. And I realized very quickly I wasn't nearly as broken as I thought I was, I thought I was damaged goods. I didn't think my marriage was fixable. I didn't think my mental health was fixable and I found out super quickly that it totally was. Um And so that's really what started our nonprofit is advocating for these first responders and giving them a safe place to reach out where they don't have to go to their employer or a supervisor.
And what we thought was just gonna be a handful of local guys we'd be helping out, um, has just morphed and grown into something far greater than that. We help folks all over the country. Um, and I don't think we anticipated it would grow at this rate or that quickly, but it just tells you the, the, the problem. Um, and I also want to clarify too. I don't think that everybody that's a first responder needs help. I think plenty of them are fine, but there's a good chunk of them that do and they just don't know where to go um to reach out to.
And so that's, that's what we've created. It was created out of my story, um, that darkest place in my career when I needed help. I didn't know who to reach out to. I wasn't aware of a Compassion alliance or a nonprofit like that. And so I shouldered all of this and, and that's what we're trying to prevent. I want guys to get help now. Um, and prolong their career. Don't retire at the stroke of midnight on their 20th year. If you don't have to prolong that, how do they find out about this?
Is this now become a nationwide program well known or is it still kind of like? No, it's, it, is it nationwide? Yeah, we help, uh, men and women all over the country. Um But we run it right out of our medical practice here in Gilbert. Um So we run it out of the same building. A lot of the work we do is word of mouth. So we help guys, they realize we're a safe place. So they tell people they work with. Um And we see, we see it happen in different agencies.
So it'll start oftentimes with the fire department in a community and then they'll share it with the police department because they have close bonds and then they reach out. Um and you never know, you never know where it's gonna be or where the next request is gonna come. We get them from all over the place. It's very random. Uh but we also help out spouses, spouses and retirees, but I will tell you spouses are a special place in our heart. Like I, we want to do everything we can for these first responder marriages.
They're under a lot of stress and our divorce rates are higher than the general public. And so melody and I are really leaning into those spouses. Um And we do, we do a ton of marriage counseling. Um It makes sense, but I think when we launch this, neither one of us expected to be going down that road where we would do marriage counseling to the level that we do across the country. But we do a lot of it. I know um in learning about your nonprofit that you shared some statistics that I was really surprised by, um, in terms of, um, mental health within public safety.
And, um, would you be willing to share just a little bit about the problems that you're trying to solve? Yeah. Um, so, excuse me, our suicide rate for, uh, for our first responders, um, it's just high, it's high. So there's a higher likelihood that a police officer would take his own life than be killed in the line of duty. And though there's some pretty staggering statistics that a lot of the general public doesn't know. Um, and, and also with our divorce rates that we talked about, they're just higher, they're higher than the general public, they're higher because of the stress rate that's involved.
And oftentimes these guys come home and I keep saying guys, it's not all guys that we help out more male than female, but we help out plenty of female as well. Plenty of females. Um, the, there's, there's stats across the board, we could quite frankly spend the next hour talking about the stats that are impacted by this. They're, they're pretty scary when you start looking at it. Um, but we have to do more. I feel like the, the military is finally addressing the suicide rates. Um, can they do more?
Sure they can, but we're not doing enough yet, but we're having the conversations and that is a starting place. So I'm thankful for that. Um But it's a very real problem. Um And that's what we want the world to know that the stresses that these men and women are dealing with and handling sometimes the ultimate result is a suicide and that's what we're trying to prevent. What are some of the things that community members could do to um support the cause? Yeah. Well, there's a, there's a couple of ways you can do that.
Um When you say support the cause I, I think automatically financially um if we don't have money, we can't pay for this trauma therapy. So right from the get go, that's an aspect. But I think also find the first responders in your lives, your neighbors, your family members and acknowledge them, just have a quick conversation with them. Um It's just such a weird world where a lot of our police officers, you know, emotionally feel like there's a bull's eye on them just from the world that we live in.
So just take the time to have a real candid conversation and let them know that you see them and that you value their career path. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how that money is spent when people do donate to the so everything that we get um pours right back into the services that we offer. Um And I should also clarify too when I say trauma therapy services. That's not something that melody and I are supplying we're not in any position to do that. That's not in our wheelhouse.
We just facilitate the payments for that. So we vet therapists all across the country and then we connect them with the first responder and then we use our 501 C three funds to pay for those, those services. So this is, I'm assuming your first nonprofit you've ever ran and we won't run another one. It's a lot of work. So who's helping you figure all this stuff out? Because it's not like it just, there's a book that says, here's how you do that. Like where did you learn these things?
Who's mentoring you in this or is that happening? Yeah. You know, it's funny that you say that, but we are learning a lot as we go along. Um And quite frankly, if I knew what I knew now about a 501 C three and how to run it, I don't know that we would have done this um being fully transparent with you, but we're fully committed now and we are running it. Um And, you know, I've got an amazing board that we sit with and I often lean on them for some help and some guidance and I value their input uh greatly.
We also have um business associates and close friends that we trust and value in our small circle. Um And, and our faith comes into play and, and I couldn't in good conscience stand before you and pretend like it doesn't, it, it does. And that's a big part of how we do, what we do and why we do what we do. Well, and it's not the only thing you do. You're still, you're still dabbling in a little bit of, uh, um, public safety work as well. Yeah. So I, um, so I'm no longer doing any reserve work.
I did take that off the plate last year. So I'm officially no longer a certified, well, I guess I am still certified for three years, but I'm not working as a police officer right now and I, and I won't go back to that. Um So I teach for the National Criminal Justice Training Center. So N CJ TC, I teach uh child abduction response. Um and they fly us around the country and we teach to uh police departments all over the country. So I do that um as well as we own a medical practice here in town.
And so I do the business side of the practice. Melody is the medical director. Um the, the nonprofit and, well, quite frankly, all three of them consume all of my time. I don't have a whole lot of downtime, but I'm, I'm super intentional about what I commit to. Um We've been trying to get you here for a year. So, yeah, and, and I committed to it and I think this is important. I appreciate what you guys are doing. Um And, and I'm not gonna lie. I love the town that we live in.
Um We're blessed to work here to live here, to own a business here. Um And so I want to do anything I can to support this community and I appreciate what you guys are doing. I think it's important to come out and be a part of this. So thank you for that opportunity. All that to say, yeah, we're, we're pretty busy and I will also say you do squeeze in some dates with your daughter. I do see this. So I do. Yeah, I was just sharing. Uh I was teaching on the road, um teaching on the road.
It's always on the road. I'm constantly on the road. Um My s my single-handedly, my greatest parenting feat has been lunch with my daughter once a month since kindergarten and she's now a college graduate and there were times, you know, working in that homicide unit where I would leave a call and make lunch on the last day and super stressful times. Um And it's been a heck of a roller coaster, but it's single-handedly, the greatest thing I've done and it will never break on my streak. She can break it when she's ready.
Um I did this with my son too. I wanna start, I want to point out that we started this in kindergarten and I told my kids all along you can tap out whenever and I kid, you not my kid. My son tapped out in second grade. Well, did you also say you can tap back in, like anytime you can tap back in and we do try and grab meals. It's not as regular as my daughter. But that's funny. Yeah. Second grade. He's like dad. That was awesome. Thanks.
I think I'm good. I got this. That's amazing. So, what if you could paint a picture of the next five years for the two of you? What does life look like? Well, if you think about the last five years, it's totally different. I have an answer, but I want to hear melody's answer. Well, I would love for our board to be bigger, for us to have some paid positions because that would mean that we have the funds to do this in our outreach and it's not just falling on our shoulders, specifically, Tony's shoulders to run this.
Um What started as a passion project is much bigger than we imagined. And so I, I would love to see it continue. Um You know, it's outside of Arizona. We'd never thought like as Tony had said, um and then we both have, I'll speak for myself. I have an incredible desire to make medicine better again to. And so my goal is for those who want to practice medicine, like I do to be able for me to be able to be an encouragement to them. Um maybe a mentor where they can see that, um, being a physician and being a healer is a positive thing and you don't have to stick to what the insurance companies or what the landscape looks like now.
Like, we have to make a, we have to pivot and change like our lives matter, our health matters. And I want to teach people to take that into their own hands and seek providers that want to educate, that, want to do medicine differently, that we don't want a sick environment. We don't want to wait till we're sick to, to lean on, you know, getting well, I want us to just grow old. Kicking. I say kicking and screaming, meaning being active. You know, I want to be in my nineties playing with my great grandchildren and them not pushing me around.
I'm actually running after them like that's what I want. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, and I appreciate that clarification about the nonprofit. I think we have different goals for different entities, but I, I should clarify for the nonprofit. We literally all of that money goes right to the services. So we're not collecting money, we're not making money. We have no employees. Um But my picture for our practice is I wanna get melody out of it more. I want, I want her to be freed up. We have an amazing practice.
We have amazing staff, amazing providers. My goal is that, that practice runs without us and that we travel more and that we're out more and she can start teaching and mentoring and doing stuff outside of the confines of our building and traveling and showing doctors. Melody is super unique. Like melody is a unicorn. I describe melody as when eastern medicine and western medicine collide melody falls out of the sky and just kind of dust herself off and gets to work. Yeah. Poof. There's melody. They just, those two worlds collided again.
I just wish you have a little bit more pride in your wife. I mean, truly, she is pretty incredible. You're not wrong. She's pretty awesome. And she can pick a husband. Let me tell you. Oh boy, here we go. She does have good taste. You know what he actually gave me like he's the one who said, hey, we can get married or we can move on. Like I'm not getting in your way. I want to be your husband. Like you can be a doctor too because a lot of men, they would be like, oh, you want to be a doctor?
How does that look? And he's like, go for it. I'm going to be behind you 100 and 10%. Like we'll figure this out. So I do actually find that interesting because I think even when I was growing up, like, so my dad was a physician and there was some sort of talk around the table, but it wasn't, I still even in that environment. Didn't always imagine women being physicians. Right. And so I'm just, to me, it's fascinating that now it's such a different conversation and pretty incredible that you're a part of that. Yeah.
And along the lines of women too, our entire staff is female. We have 20 employees now and five providers. Everybody's female. I'm literally the only guy down there. Um, and it, it's awesome. Um, but it's, it's, it's just different. Like, II, I feel like I'm a better leader. I'm a better communicator because of the impact of our team. Like II, I love it. I wouldn't change it. Um We even have a Girl Power Award in the office that gets paid forward when people go above and beyond. Have you won that one?
I have actually, I have, I have won the Girl Power Award and I proudly display that and wear it like a badge of honor. I love you. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Good. I've loved the opportunity just to visit with both of you and your incredible journeys, your contributions to our community, to first responders, to the work that you do to heal people, both of you. Um You're amazing and thank you for spending some time with us today. Yeah, this has been a great conversation. So thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity. I know everybody listening out there loves this conversation and they want to hear more of these and so subscribe to our tribe. You'll learn more get more in our inbox as we send those out. Thanks for listening today, guiding growth, conversations with community leaders. Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast? This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us.
So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you. Reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
