 Well, actually, I was born out of the country in San Fuegos, Cuba in 1957. My family immigrated to the United States via the Catholic Church Freedom Flights. In 1962, we arrived in Miami to try to escape the Fidel Castro's communist regime. So that was quite a family life-changing experience, as you can imagine. So it was my dad, my mom, and my older sister and younger sister that immigrated over into the country. It was at the time there weren't any services or there wasn't any help there. No one really spoke Spanish in Miami. We were there for about a month, and my dad went to the church sponsor and he says, Hey, are there any other opportunities across the United States? And he goes, Well, we've got a couple different places. We have a place called Denver and a place called Minnesota. Which one would you like to go to? And my dad, the comedian, says, Which plane leaves first? We ended up in Denver instead of Minnesota. I could have been a Minnesota Vikings fan instead of a Denver Bronco, Colorado Rockies fan, but we ended up here. So we ended up in Southeast Denver. I grew up in Southeast Denver, and I attended Denver Public Schools and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and then attended college at Carl State University. At that time, as you can imagine for new immigrants coming into a foreign country, the customs and the culture and the language that my parents' marriage didn't survive. So that was very difficult. They broke up, and so my dad left and left my mom with the kids and she had some medical issues. So that was kind of a tough time for us. We grew up real poor with some challenges. So I have a great appreciation for what it is to have to work in life and struggles that many of the people in the community that we serve face, because I actually lived that life. I became very interested in police work, and I always thought that the uniforms and the shiny badge were about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I was working, I started working at a fast food restaurant when I was 13 on South Broadway. And I remember this cop came and this training officer came in by the name of Don Rask. And Don unfortunately passed last year. But he was training a lieutenant that we have on the job now by the name of Steve Wilson. And Steve was a rookie, and he's working with Don. And they came in to Griff's Burger Bar to handle a shoplifting complaint, because we had a no pay that ran out with food. And I was the store manager at the time. Here I am 15, and here comes Don Rask. And I thought, wow, actually I was 16, because I had my driver's license. And I saw Don, I thought, wow, that's cool. And he talked to us, and he was very friendly to us. And then I ran into him at the old village in on South Carter Boulevard about a month later. And I said, you know, Officer Rask, I'd like to be a dinner policeman someday. What do I need to do? And he said, hey kid, keep your nose clean, stay in school, get your education, stay out of trouble. One day you can be one of the few, one of the proud, one of the Denver Police Department. And I thought, that's cool. I was working for the car department of corrections when I first got here as a counselor for people that were coming out of the penitentiary, people that were on parole, working in a halfway house, trying to talk to them about what good decisions, bad decisions were, and trying to keep them out of the system. And at the same time I was applying for the Darren Police Department. And I got the call, I actually also applied for the Adams, for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. And in February, I got a call from Jefferson County and said, hey, congratulations. We're going to hire on the Sheriff's Academy, you start March 15th. So I was ready to go become a Jeffco Sheriff. And then I got a call from Denver, and Denver was like, hey, congratulations. You made it to the first academy class, the 83-1 class. And I had to call Jeffco back and say, hey, it's been my dream to be a Denver cop my entire life. I'm going with Denver. So it was probably one of the single most enjoyable moments of my professional career is to swear, take the oath of office. Because you did it back then, you did it. The first day that you become a police officer in the academy, the first day it is, they'd load you on a bus. They drove you downtown, and you raised your right hand. You swore that you would uphold the law and protect the citizens of the City and County of Denver, and that was very exciting. My then-fiance, president, day wife came down and participated in that. And it was a very, other than the birth of my children, it was probably one of the most exciting times in my life. I've only really been in my command for less than two years. And as anyone will tell you in leadership, in a leadership role, it really takes you a couple of years to kind of fill your way around and figure out where your strengths and weaknesses lie, and also the staff and the resources you have. So the last 18, 19 months have been a transition period for me. I've been trying to wrap my head around all the needs of the community and all the demands, the constant demands that are placed on the officers under my command, the annual events, the New Year's Eve, the St. Patrick's, the 4th of July, the big First Amendment, almost daily events that we have now and all the other challenges. So it's really been an opportunity for me to kind of learn how to do the job. And I'm just getting to the point where I'm kind of understanding the job. I don't think I'm completely comfortable with the job because I think I still have a long way to go to really become the type of leader and the type of commander that I want to be for the citizens of the district and the community that I've been entrusted with protecting and serving and also for the officers, the men and women of our agency that I've been entrusted with leading. So I think I've got a long ways to go, but I'm very, very confident that I've got a very dedicated staff of officers, police officers, that will do what it takes to help improve the quality of life in our district. That will make it so that people will be able to enjoy living, playing, working in our district without the fear of the criminal element doing something nefarious or something inappropriate to them. So when I talk to my officers at Roll Call, I tell them, you know, folks, this is all about customer service. This is all about taking care of the people that work hard to pay their taxes to make sure that they, we deliver, we as city employees deliver nothing but the best available services. So I tell them, imagine that that is your grandmother, your grandfather, your husband, your wife, your kids that you're delivering services to. How would you want your family treated if they call the police officer? Make them comfortable. Help them in times of crisis. When they call us typically it's because some bad things happen or they really need our help. And unfortunately, we are one of the only 24-7, 365 operations out there and people call us at times with needs and with questions and with issues that are really not law enforcement related and we have to help them connect with services or other people that may be able to help them. But my message to my staff and to the people that I work with is that we do our utmost to deliver services professionally, appropriately, that we're courteous, that we're considerate and compassionate and we're taking care of business. So that's kind of our vision moving forward. Half of my command teams changed. I've gotten a third of my supervisors that have changed out. So now we are in a process of transition trying to bring the new team players on board, trying to explain to them what my expectations are of the team and how we work together in a team concept to deliver services. There's not a division between the morning shift and the day shift and the evening shift. We're all on the same team. We all share the workload. We all communicate information back and forth and we try to figure out how to make our district the best district to live in and the best district to work in for our staff.