The Primitive Podcast: Chief Floyd Mitchell
Posted by Buffy the Bison | March 1, 2021
The lure of comfort is enticing.
But it can almost certainly prevent you from necessary failures and lessons created to extend the reach of your capabilities.
Chief of police for the CIty of Lubbock, Chief Floyd Mitchell, knows this firsthand. He shares his thoughts on going from a dynamic change in scenery going from Kansas City, Missouri, to Lubbock, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
Connect with the folks behind the episode: Chief Floyd Mitchell and Kade Wilcox
Kade Wilcox: Hey, guys, Kade Wilcox here, host of The Primitive Podcast. Thank you for joining us for this week's episode. Today, we have Chief Mitchell who's the chief of police for the City of Lubbock. He's just an exceptional leader, and I have an opportunity to kind of watch his leadership by serving on our community board here in Lubbock. I really admire him and it's been really fun to watch his leadership and the impact he's having on our city. So enjoy today's episode.
Chief Mitchell: As a police leader, I think it's important to jump in the patrol car with the police officer and ride out with them for a night or a shift, so you can hear what's going on and observe how they are performing out there on the streets. Sometimes we get so busy sitting behind the desk with paperwork and administrative stuff, we lose sight of what's going on. Is the policy or procedure that we are implementing at the top of the organization delivering what we expected to deliver on the users' end?
Kade Wilcox: Chief Mitchell, thank you so much for joining The Primitive Podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I know you're very busy and have other things you could be doing. And so thank you. For those who don't know who Chief Mitchell is, tell us a bit about your background, where you come from, and a little bit about your career journey.
Chief Floyd Mitchell and His Journey to Lubbock, Texas
Chief Mitchell: I’m Floyd Mitchell. I am the chief of police of the Lubbock Police Department. I've been the chief here since November 11th of 2019. And I made my way here via Temple, Texas, via Kansas City, Missouri. I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. I went to high school there, joined the military service there, joined the Air Force, spent four years in the Air Force and spent a little time overseas. I was stationed in RAF Benwaters, England for two years and finished out my four year contract with the Air Force in Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire. When I was leaving the Air Force after my four years I went back to Kansas City and went through the Kansas City Missouri Police Academy. And just like most law enforcement agencies, you know, you go through the six month Academy, you go through break in and field training, and then you're off on the streets learning how to be a police officer, trying to use all the tools that they taught you in the police academy.
And then you experience different assignments as a police officer. Back in the 1990s (I'll date myself) you know, we did patrol, worked undercover for a couple of years, worked in our tactical response team, our SWAT team, for a few years, and then I started making my way up through the ranks to the rank of Sergeant and Captain, and then a Major or a division Commander. And I retired after 25 years at Kansas, Missouri as a Major, or a division Commander, to take on the role of Chief of Police of the Temple, Texas Police Department. So that's how I made my way to Texas as, you know, I'd retired from Kansas City after a little over 25 years and went down to Temple, Texas.
There, I really enjoyed that department. There was a department of just under 200 members, both law enforcement and civilian, and they had had a chief that had grown up in that organization who had been there for over 34 years. So they only knew one way to do things because the person who was the chief for several years had grown up in the organization. So, I will tell any organization, "After so many years, it is good to bring in fresh eyes to take a look at the organization because they'll look at an organization completely different." They don't look at it as this is how I was taught in this organization, this is how I learned to supervise this organization, or this is how I learned to lead in this organization. They will come in with the thoughts and ideas of how they learn from outside of that organization.
And they will quickly pick up on areas that need attention that may not have been, you know, very clear to the person who had grown up in the organization. And that's the only way they'd known how to do things. So there I also had a very willing police membership that wanted to change and be better. And I think that's key when you go into an organization: getting that buy-in and listening to their ideas and also sharing your ideas with them of, "Hey, this may be another way to do it." I think any leader will tell you that one of the worst things that you hear from organizations from their people is, "Oh, this is the way we've always done it." And sometimes it works that way, but also, you can bring in, you know, technology and other ideas to help change the way you view things.
So while I was at Temple, it was really fun because we got to do some things there to help that organization and make it better. We went through the accreditation process so they are accredited, recognized is the term they use here in Texas, through the Texas Police Chiefs Association. And that means you have to hit 164 or 174 benchmarks of best practices of how you do things, and you have to provide proof of you're doing this. You know, you're not doing it just that once, you're doing it all the time. And they come back every two years to recertify you. So I was very proud of the fact that we got to go through that process and get that done.
Lessons Learned From Purposeful Transitions
Kade Wilcox: What are two or three things you learned? That sounds like they had a lot of continuity of leadership for a long time in that organization. And I think those listening to the podcast can assume, you know, like any organization you'd have, you know, rhythms you're used to, and just a way of doing things. So what are two or three things you learned in that transition of leadership that really stick out to you as having helped you. Either both, you know, positively or negatively helped you navigate the transitions and lead the organization forward.
Chief Mitchell: I'll tell you, it really would go back to the members there and, you know, trying to stay out of the weeds. It sounded like they were ready for a leadership change. And you know, they were part of the process to identify who the next chief of police was going to be there. So I would say, you know, one, just listening to the folks, especially if you're coming in from outside. And I came from a completely different state into Texas. So coming from outside, taking the time to listen to what's going on. As a police leader, I think it's important to, you know, jump in the patrol car with a police officer and ride out with them, you know, for a night or a shift. So you can hear what's going on and observe how they are performing out there on the streets.
Sometimes we get so busy sitting behind the desk with paperwork and administrative stuff that we lose sight of what's going on. Is the policy or procedure that we are implementing, are putting in place at the top of the organization, is it truly delivering what we expected to deliver on, on the users' end? So jumping in the car, and one of the things that I've done probably for the last 15 years is, I've always ridden out on New Year's Eve. In my first year here, I got here in November and I rode out on New Year's Eve. And we had a very tragic situation in the Depot District here. But, you know, just observing how the operations work. Every once in a while, it's good to go down on the operations floor and see how they're putting these widgets together, or how are we interacting with our public? How is the equipment that we're supplying them working? And then go back and make the adjustments that need to be done. But I think as a leader one of the key things to do is listen - listen to those around you and trust those around you in their input.
Kade Wilcox: That's really good. What appealed to you about making the transition from Temple to Lubbock? Like, what about the organization or the city or the opportunity? What appealed to you in terms of making that transition?
Kansas City to Lubbock & Female Leadership
Chief Mitchell: I'll tell you the biggest transition for me is making the transition from Kansas City to Temple. And I'll get to Lubbock. But the biggest transition is when you've been in an organization for so many years. I was in Kansas City for over 25 years. You made your way up through that rank. It is very difficult to leave those organizations because you're like, "Man, I know this." I could do it, you know, with my eyes closed. I know everything there. I know who all the contacts are and this, that, and the other. But I also knew that I had learned a lot. And I had been around some very innovative leaders who, for the most part, were female leaders in the law enforcement industries. Because they used their mind more than they used their strength because they're ladies.
And don't get me wrong. There are some very strong ladies out there, but I would see females be able to talk to people – mean bad guys– who are in handcuffs. And us as men, we immediately want to think, "Oh, you know, I got to buck up," and “He's got to know that, hey, I can take him down,” this, that, and the other. But watching how they talk to people, watching how they interact with people, watching how they lead, it is different. And you learn a lot from them doing that. But, when you spend 25 plus years at an organization and you have to sign the papers to say you are going to leave that organization, that's the difficult transition. But I felt like I was more than ready. So making that transition to Temple, just understanding that where they were in the organization and how they operated, one of the big things I had to do is, I had to slow down.
Because as a leader and division commander in Kansas City, your job was to walk in the room. And when you walked in that room, there were 50 plates spinning on the top. And your job was to keep all those plates spinning. You had to act fast and move and go. When I went to Temple the speed really slowed down quite a bit. So I kinda overwhelmed them. And that was one of the things that I was very cognizant of when I made this change from Temple to Lubbock: don't go faster than the capacity is able to handle. You want to make those changes and you want to communicate the changes that need to be made, but you also want to help the people around you get to where you're headed to.
Intentionally Slowing Down
But sometimes you can't put your foot on the gas and go a hundred miles an hour. And, you know, when I first got here, we had a very tragic situation, you know, a month and a half after I got here with the loss of two of our police officers. So then you have to look at okay, the mindset and the mental capacity of our officers that had to go through the tragedy of losing a police officer and a firefighter. And then the catastrophic injuries of another firefighter. So I really was cognizant of that and slowed down my efforts to make incremental changes to the department that needed to be made. So, we had to deal with the psychology of our department and what they were going through, cause they hadn't gone through it for almost 20 years.
Kade Wilcox: That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing. That's really good. I mean every organization goes through transition. Some really, really big and aggressive and some, you know, less aggressive. But just that insight, I think, is really helpful. How do you see your role as a leader? When you think of your organization, how would you define leadership for you and how would you see your role?
Casting a Clear Vision for the Future
Chief Mitchell: Well, I would say, you know, for most leaders, it's setting a clear path of where it should be. Setting the tone by not only your words, but your actions. But it's listening to those around you and developing stretch goals. I think you have to make sure that we are striving to be better in every facet of our organization. And how do we do that? How do we get from A to B?
We are currently in the process of finishing up a five-year strategic plan on where each of our bureaus – we have three bureaus – would like for those bureaus to be in that fifth year. And it's going to be a rolling strap plan. So every year we'll look at it and say, "Okay, we're going to tack a year on at the end and kind of go there." And anything that we didn't accomplish in 2021, it rolls over to the top of 2022, so we can continue to try to get that. But, you know, setting the expectations of your organization is probably key.
Kade Wilcox: That's good. So when you come into an organization, like you came into Lubbock's, how did you practically evaluate the current health? You talked about going slow when you make changes and understanding your people and getting to know them, and going out with them, which sounds like a really great move, and I'm sure increases trust. But how long did you take to really, kind of, evaluate the organization before determining like, okay, here are two or three things, or five things, or 10 things that we really want to improve on? Or did you see those things before you ever even got here?
Adaptability, Communication, and Mistakes
Chief Mitchell: Well, I asked for as much information as I could before I got here. When I was named the chief here I had about a month before I actually moved over and took over the job. So I made contact with my three assistant chiefs and asked them for different documents, so I could look at them and kind of get up to speed with what's going on. But I would say I took longer before I made my initial organizational changes in this department because of so many things that happened on the front end. But you know, one of the big shifts when you look at an organization is, is it structured properly? And, are the proper people, or units, reporting in the correct bureau and talking specifically about police information?
You know, when I got here, there was one of our bureau chiefs that had very little responsibility, very little span of control. But he was in an assistant chief's position that you know, ran a complete bureau. Then you had this other chief that had, you know, two thirds of the department under his responsibility, and even the duties of those responsibilities did not belong there. So you look at the organizational structure, you look at the capacity and leadership of those people that are in those positions, and you listen to those around you. Both those at the line level of the organization, and all the way up. And then at some point you just make a decision that I'm pulling the trigger, and this is what's going to happen. And you listen to them, "Well, you know, you may not want to do this because of this." And, "You may want me to do this because of that." Or "This person works well over here, and this person works well over here." But in a law enforcement organization, I could be, as a police officer, I could be assigned to do patrol one day, traffic the next, investigations, or whatever. They have to be well-rounded in each of those capacities. So one of the things that I really enjoyed about Kansas City is about every two and a half years, especially when you get to the command ring, you move to a different unit or element to learn about that element. You know, just taking over the homicide unit, I didn't know much about the homicide unit when I went there as the captain of the homicide unit. But you dig in and you learn what's going on. And that has helped me so much as, you know, as I elevated through the ranks.
But I think you listen to what's going on. You observe what's going on. You pay attention to what people are saying about the different leadership styles and personalities of those folks. And then you start moving them like you would a chess game. And you say, "Okay, this person needs this." You know, this person does well here, but they've always been in patrol and I'll use SWAT as one [example]. We have people that get into the SWAT, or the tactical side of law enforcement, and they don't come out of that column. This is what they want to do and everything else, and they make their way through the rank. And then, you know, there's another responsibility that you give them and they have no idea how to truly look at that organization or that unit.
So even though they may not like it then, and I'll use myself as an example, I got asked to be the administrative Sergeant in our chief's office as a relatively new Sergeant in Kansas City. And I just went to a tactical response and I was like, "I just got here. I hadn't gotten my boots yet." You know, I got measured for my boots and all my gear. And I was like, I haven't got my boots yet. But, you know, a commander's like, "No, you need this over here. I want you over here." So I actually ended up going to take that job, and I learned so much about the executive and administrative side of law enforcement and how the decisions that are made affect everyone else. And you actually learn the apolitical side of law enforcement. And you go to budget and you learn the money side of it.
You go to patrol and you learn that side of it. So it's really looking at what's best for the organization. And also what's best for that person. Because you're trying to develop those leaders to take over your position. Any Chief of Police who is not doing that, or any leader who is not developing those underneath them in order to take over the organization, is failing that organization. And I, as recently as two weeks ago, I was telling my three assistant chiefs, "If I fall off the earth today, any one of you should be able to step in here and take over this organization." And it could, because you never know what's going to happen. I think this last year has been very interesting to see what's going on, not in law enforcement, but all over the world with top leaders coming out of their organizations. And that second in command has to be ready to take over.
Rushing Leadership
Kade Wilcox: That's really good. One interesting thing that I'm observing about your career path is, you've been doing it a long time. And you went through these multiple departments, you were at one organization for 20 years, and it's just like, you're building these building blocks for leadership, you know, along the entire journey. And it's what has prepared you. And it seems like a lot of young leaders just want to immediately be leaders, you know what I mean? It's like, "No, I could do that. And I want to be the leader." You know? And you've taken the long path, but it seems like that's been the best path to equip you for this collective knowledge that you now have. I mean, have you thought much about that?
Chief Mitchell: Oh yeah. I can tell you as a, probably as a three-year police officer, you know, every three-year police officer, every three-year employee thinks, "I could probably do this a lot better than that guy." But you learn as you go through these positions and, even here, when you put people in different assignments. I've got one of my commanders doing grants, and when I moved him to a different assignment, he was like, "Well, do I get rid of the grants?" And I was like, "No, you don't." Because you need to learn how to be a grant administrator. You need to learn how to communicate with these other folks. I think it's important to experience those different things. Because another saying that I use toward my folks now is, "If you come to me, come to me with information, with the thought path or the thought knowledge of, I may have done that job before in the past."
So you're not going to be able to pull the wool over my eyes. I think experience plays a lot because you've seen it before, so you know how to respond to these different things because you've seen it before. So I think, yes, while we all want to be immediately supervisors and immediate chiefs of police, take the time to learn. And, that same commander was like, "I don't know if I'm ready for that, yet. Maybe a couple more years." But you have to kind of push them towards it sometimes.
Kade Wilcox: That's really good. How have you treated failure? When you think about your career and the mistakes you've made, or the mistakes or failures of an organization you've been a part of, how have you approached and learned from failure?
Chief Mitchell: Oh, I don't think you grow without failing. And one of the things that is really important in our profession is I tell my folks, "I am going to mess up. I am going to make a mistake." And you sit back and you think, man, that was a mistake. I probably won't do that again. You know, you learn from the best leaders. You learn from other people's mistakes, really. But you know, you learn from them. I tell folks, you know, fess up. Fess up as fast as you can that, “Hey, this was a mistake. I've learned from it. I won't do it again.” But I think the best thing is one, learn from your mistakes, (Better to learn from other people's mistakes.) But when you do make a mistake, don't try to cover it up. Just, you know, fess up to it, fix it and move on. Because people will trust you and trust that when you make a mistake or when they make a mistake, you're going to look at it through the same lens that you looked at yourself through. And then I think that's important.
Kade Wilcox: We live in a pretty ruthless society. In particular, public officials. They don't seem to have a lot of space for making mistakes, you know what I mean? And so how do you handle that within your department? Because, you know, it's not the same publicly if one of my teammates at a marketing agency makes a mistake versus someone who's a public figure, or particularly in today's climate and culture, if a police officer makes a mistake. So how do you talk about that? Or how do you encourage, you know, your team to handle that when we are at a time where it just seems like society, in general, is really graceless.
“After actions”, “In the fire”, and “Hotwash”
Chief Mitchell: Yeah. And again, when we look at stuff coming from a tactical background, we do "after actions" or "in the fire." In the fire profession, they call them "hotwash." You know, you get together after the incident and you look at it and you say, "Okay, where could we improve?" And you don't wait two or three weeks to do this. The hot washes are right after you put the fire out. The "after action" is right after the event occurs. You get everyone that was there and you go over: where could I improve? And everyone in that room goes over their position and their responsibility. And they talk about: this is what we saw, this was what works well, and this is what didn't. After this weather storm event, the city, we do a “hotwash.”
We all go out to the emergency operations center, and every element sits and talks. Whether it's public works, parks, police, fire, EMS, we all sit there and we talk about, hey, this is what we saw; this is what works. And people from outside the organization that assisted the Texas Department of Transportation, they will be there. The airport will be there. We all sit down and hotwash. So from a law enforcement standpoint, I'll send emails out to make sure all of our police officers take a look at this.
The bombing that occurred a few weeks ago. You know, you looked at those officers and how they were walking around the van and this, that, and the other. "Hey, pay attention. Look at these things." You share that information. Again, you learn from other people's mistakes. And those officers did a great job down there, but, you know, they were walking in close proximity to that van. So I think you "hotwash" or you "after action" all of your things that happen, so people learn from that. And then you send that document out to your organization, so they can say, "Okay, look at this. This is what we've learned from this past experience."
Do You Love What You Do?
Kade Wilcox: That's good. Thank you. How do you approach your own personal growth? You know, how many people would be in the department in Lubbock? You said Temple is around 200?
Chief Mitchell: Yeah, Lubbock's authorized 465 law enforcement officers. We are not completely full. We are recruiting and yes, this is a plug. If you want to be a Lubbock police officer, we're testing on March 27th. So please come and test – great job, great career. But we have 465 authorized positions as law enforcement and 120 or 125 civilian positions. So, right at 570.
Kade Wilcox: So you and your team are leading a fairly large organization. I mean, most people listening to this podcast, aren't leading an organization of 400 plus people. And so how do you focus on your own growth, right? So that you're your best self for the people you're leading? What's your approach?
Chief Mitchell: Well, I think probably the first thing is you really have to love what you do. And if you don't, every day is miserable for you. You know, getting up and going in, I love what I do. I like being a police officer. I like being a Chief of Police. Because I get to shape the direction of the organization. But if you love what you do, it makes it a little easier to cope with the ups and downs of what's going on in the organization. But you learn how to disconnect, and that takes time to learn how to do that. But I have a good support system with my wife and my family. And I have some, you know, extra curricular activities - golf and fish[ing].
But I'd say find an outlet. And one of the things that I learned early on, especially in a law enforcement setting is, you have to have relationships and friends outside of your organization. Because at the end of that 25 years or 30 years, when you disconnect, you're, you're disconnecting from that family that you've been a part of for that time. And if you don't have a support system outside of that, it could be detrimental to you. So I would say, you know, don't let all of your friends be friends that you work with. Have friends outside of your organization. Have friends outside of that tribe that you interact with that will interact with you. Not on a law enforcement basis or not on a police basis, but on a recreational basis.
Recruitment Hurdles and Challenges
Kade Wilcox: Makes a lot of sense. How do you recruit? (I mean it feels like the City of Lubbock [does] and that's really my only experience because I see signs all the time.) How do you recruit to the organization and what are the challenges around that and why is it so challenging?
Chief Mitchell: You know, recruiting and getting full, or at least in the 97 percentile, has been the biggest struggle for our law enforcement agency from an administrative standpoint. And I've looked at this really hard over the last 15 months because it is something that I haven't experienced. Law enforcement in general has had a tough go of it this last three years. And with what happened last year with George Floyd and everything else that's going on, it makes it even harder. But Lubbock is very interesting because we're a large city out in the middle of, kind of, nowhere. And we just graduated a group two weeks ago, and one of our guys that went through our Academy that we paid for him to go through, you know, quit and went to the metroplex.
So one of the things that we have to do is one, make sure that we communicate to our people how great of an organization this is. There's some room for improvement in regards to our paying benefits. And we're going to look at those. But, you know, last year was a COVID year. So it was one of those situations where no one in the city organization got a pay increase. So that's one of those things we have to look at. But you want to let them know that they're part of this family and you want to show that you have a family that cooperates with each other. And this is a great environment. There's opportunity for them to grow in this organization. Whether it's training or through promotion or through assignment. So you want to be able to share that with them and let them know that, you know, their family is welcome to come in and enjoy, you know, being a part of this larger organization.
But recruiting is tough for us right now. Last year we carried 56, either true vacancies or vacancies and people within our training pipeline. And that is something that we are working hard to address when going out and recruiting. Because there's so much more that we could do as an organization. And this is what I tell my folks. If we had 56 more officers on the street, right now, there's so much more that we could do as an organization, whether it be through assignments, special assignments, special events. But our tough part is getting those folks, identifying those folks, bringing them into our Academy and getting them to stay in our department.
Kade Wilcox: Are most of the Lubbock police officers local or from the outside, or a combination of both? What does that look like?
Chief Mitchell: A large portion of them are local, and actually they're born and raised in this general area, whether it be Lubbock proper or the surrounding cities. We get those folks that come here to go to Texas Tech and they graduate and they end up wanting to stay here. They either find a spouse and they want to stay here, or they just love the area and they get an apartment. But you also have those that, you know, come here, go to school and like, "Uh, you know, no, I don't want to stay here. I can't wait to get away from here." It's a mixture, but a large portion of our department is from the area.
George Floyd and the Community
Kade Wilcox: Has Lubbock been really supportive of our police department? You talked about how the last three years have been really hard, you know, across the country. I would hope that Lubbock has been a little different in that way, in the amount of support that we show, not just leaders like yourself, but everyone down to the first year police officer. So has that been different in Lubbock? Or has it also been uniquely challenging organizationally? I mean, surely it's not the same in Lubbock as it would in a Minneapolis or a major metro area. So has that helped the culture?
Chief Mitchell: I think it has. Our citizens here have truly been supportive of us, especially considering everything that had happened last year. But I think it goes way beyond me getting here. I think they had laid the foundation to have true connection with their community, and we've just built upon that. So when the event happened last year, when George Floyd got killed, one of the first things I did was reach out to some of those organizations that are here. Because when I first got here, I'd been here, you know, seven or eight months at that point in time. I think it's important for police or law enforcement to extend that olive branch first. So when I first got here, I reached out to all those organizations and said, "Hey, I'm here. Here's my number. If you need to talk to me, this is a direct line to me. Feel free to call me and we'll talk about these things."
So, when that happened, you know, whether it's contacting the 100 Black Men of West Texas or the NAACP organization, or LULAC, you know, I think Bill Stubblefield was the impetus behind this, but he grabbed all those people, and they showed up in a couple of hours notice, and it was over 500 people. And we walked from the police department just to Citizen's Tower. So it's building those relationships. And again, that started before I was here, but I just was able to continue that. So the support we've had from our citizens here and the business leaders, you know, just has been great.
Kade Wilcox: That's encouraging. I had hoped that would be the case, but you know, you live in it every day. I'd be really disappointed and embarrassed, you know, because y'all deserve it. I mean, for all the obvious reasons. So thanks for sharing that. If you could speak to your younger self, you know, if you could go back to right when you were either going into the Air Force, or at right out of the Air Force, beginning your career over the last 30 years and speak to your younger self – what advice would you give yourself then knowing what you know now?
Advice Chief Mitchell Would Give to His Younger Self
Chief Mitchell: Oh, I would say, and I actually tried to tell this to my two boys. One, grow where you're planted. So wherever you are in life, grow from that spot and really enjoy and soak in those moments when they're happening. I think one of the mistakes, and I don't necessarily know that it'd be mistakes or regret, but I had a vision and a path of where I wanted to be. And I focused on that. And sometimes I missed out on some other things. Or I wouldn't say missed out, but I didn't completely absorb where I was at that particular time. So one of the things I've tried to do over the last five, 10 years is try to absorb and enjoy where I'm at. If I'm on vacation, I'm trying to absorb and enjoy exactly where I'm at right then and there. Or if I'm in a meeting, a podcast, I try to absorb these people and understand what they're doing and just enjoy that particular moment. Because there's things that, you know, those are all you're going to have. When you're finished with your work career and you're sitting, you know, on your back porch, or in your yard, on your farm, or whatever, you just look back and think, "Man, I should have enjoyed that more than what I did."
Kade Wilcox: That's really good. Yeah. That one really hurts because I like living in the future.
Chief Mitchell: And it's tough. It's tough to say, “Okay, let me enjoy where we are.”
Kade Wilcox: Yeah. Which I'm terrible at. So that's really good. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for serving our country. I did not know you were in the Air Force, so that was fun to learn. So thank you for serving our country in that way, but then serving our country in the way you do now and for serving Lubbock in the way you do. We're really fortunate to have you and have really appreciated and admired watching the leadership this last year that you've been here. So thanks for your time today. And thanks for serving the City of Lubbock.
