 Well, I'm Joe Montoya, obviously, career resident of Denver, was born and raised in Southwest Denver, attended Lincoln High School, spent some time in college on the West Coast, and then returned to the Denver metro area to pursue a career in law enforcement started with North Glen Police Department, and then got hired by Denver in 1991. Well, you know, it's funny. I didn't start out to ever think about even pursuing a law enforcement career. I started out as an accounting major, but I quickly, you know, I knew that I really enjoyed people, and as I got into college and had the opportunity to meet people, I learned that my passion was for people, and I got the opportunity to meet a couple police officers out there in the West Coast, and they kind of steered me in a direction of maybe looking at law enforcement, and once I got a taste of it, I had a passion for it, but I decided to come back to familiar territory back home, and I pursued here, so that's how I ended up being a law enforcement officer. Denver's always been my home. I'm rooted here. My wife's rooted here. At the time, it was mainly because it was home. I was a young man, and I thought I felt more comfortable in this environment, but as time goes on, I've had the opportunity to be exposed to different places in this country, and I can tell you Denver is the top-notch place to be, and it's a great place to raise a family. I've been married to my wife going on 25 years, and I have two grown children, one in college and one graduate from college, and that is, I always tell everybody, your family is your retirement plan. You know, 401Ks are nice, but if the family isn't intact and healthy when you leave this job, then you really don't have a foundation to go to, so that is my retirement plan, and the rest of it comes along with it as far as financially, but Denver is a great place to be and raise a family and live. I love people. I love interaction with people. I truly care about people, and I felt that it was the most positive way I could affect lives as a law enforcement officer, because you do have the opportunity to do really awesome things and to really have a positive effect on people and help people, and I thought that was the best form for me to be able to do that, and yet, just enjoy the interaction, everyday interaction with people that you get to have on this job. Growing up, I was always a little nervous around officers, not because I was doing wrong. I respected authority, but yet, I wasn't ever brave enough to come up and talk to an officer or approach them, and having the opportunity to be in the city and maybe have an effect where I reach out to someone. If I see a young person walking down the street that I can go out and reach out to them and be friendly and break down that anxiety level that might be there with the community and the officers, and doing it back home is just a great feeling, especially being able to serve in different parts of the city in the southwest part of the city where I grew up, and I know a lot of the history there. Some of it has never changed, and there's a lot that has, so just doing it at home is a great feeling. You know, I have to say there's been more highs than lows for me. You know, coming in, I understood the things that sometimes can depress officers, and the shift work, and working through the holidays, and missing an event or two that your children might be involved in, but I came on understanding that, so I can't really count that as a low. The lows have to be when you see really a tragic event, and you see how it affects people and how devastating it is to lives that can sometimes pull you down a little, but the positives are the times where the things work out, and when you see families reunited, and you find a lost child, or a lost elderly person, you come to the aid of somebody that's in real need, and you help them through a situation. Being involved in some of these major events that we've had, and just being able to network and interact with people, it's just really positive, and you go home feeling good more often than not. I like to talk about morale-based leadership. I'm a people's commander, and people of the community, people in the station, I feel that I need to have a positive effect on inside the station and outside, because what you do inside affects the outside. So I'm a person that understands how people react to things. I like to say I have a high level of emotional intelligence. I know how my words are going to affect people before I say them, so I carefully choose my wording, and I have a lot of diversity in how I deal with individuals. One officer might respond to some sort of stimuli, and another one a different. So I try to gauge that, and I try to keep a very good, comfortable working atmosphere for the officer, so that they come to work more anxious to come out and serve the public. I treat them with dignity and respect, because in turn I expect them to go out and treat the community with dignity and respect, but if I don't model that to the officers, then it might not work out as well. So I want them to know that this is what I expect from you, but I'm in turn going to treat you the same way. I am responsive to their needs, and I'm responsive to the needs of the community. I listen to the community. No matter how minute their issue might be, it might be the most important thing happening in their lives. So we give it the same amount of detail and attention that I would a major problem, and just staying plugged in, letting the community know you're listening to them, and being responsive and accountable to them is huge, and I think that's why I've been able to have some level of success early on is because of that. That's that type of philosophy.