Chapter 13: Professional Work

I had a problem with the academy in Athens related to graduation. Specifically, I would graduate with my doctorate mid-May, but the current Basic Law Enforcement class ran from the end of March through mid-July. I couldn’t stay in my apartment after graduating and we couldn’t justify my moving to a new apartment for just a month. I had been keeping Rich caught up with my schedule and plans over at UGA, but as May moved along, it was obvious my time in Athens was ending. Some of my lectures were rescheduled and when I graduated, I quit at the Athens police academy. Kelly and I brought her minivan and my father’s pickup truck over and spent a day packing everything up and driving it back to Matucket. My books we put in my study, my academy uniforms we packed up and stored in the shed, and the furniture we stored over at my grandparents’ apartment. Seamus asked when he could move into the apartment and my grandfather said something about Hell freezing over, which was seconded by Kelly.

Bobbie Joe and Joanne had another boy a week after graduation. Mom and Kelly flew up to help, leaving Dad a bachelor, and me with two kids. I offered to bring them over and camp in my old bedroom and he offered to change the locks. It was only a long weekend and we struggled through, surviving on pizza and Chinese. Kelly wasn’t impressed. It didn’t matter much. The womenfolk decided that our vacation that year was going to be in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The week before school started, we would drive to Philly to see my brother and his family. Then, after a few days in Philadelphia, we would all drive to Atlantic City, which was about two hours from their home. We would kennel Boxie for the week. Kelly and Joanne were going to figure out hotel rooms and reservations.

In the meantime, I needed to get Reaper Security Consulting back on track. Now that I had finished with my doctorate, I could focus on actually finding some clients. I sat down with Kelly one night and we did a massive edit on my website and LinkedIn pages. For several years I had kept both in caretaker status, with a cover page specifying I was on hiatus while working on my doctorate. Now we needed to edit my academic qualifications and highlight the types of work I was interested in. I also needed to do some networking. I called Mike Crowley and Terry Hollister and let them know I was back in business, and I spent some time talking to the adjuncts in the criminal justice departments at M-Triple-C and Matucket State. Most adjuncts were off-duty police officers and sheriff’s deputies picking up some extra money on the side. Every cop ever born needed extra cash for vacations and holidays.

I also began advertising. There were several police magazines such asPolice Chief Magazine, Police Magazine, and Law and Order. These were all national magazines, but it was possible to buy ads that targeted editions published in the southeast. All these magazines had websites that could be advertised on as well. More importantly, I began to advertise on Google; you could pay to have your website appear at the top of the first page if somebody in a geographic area you selected typed in some key words like ‘police consultant’ or ‘law enforcement consulting.’

One interesting idea I received was to write articles for some of the magazines. I could write ‘how to’ articles or articles on current relevant topics in law enforcement. The point was made that it was important to get your name in front of the police chiefs and sheriffs who could hire you and cut checks. If you were writing as an ‘expert’ then some of those readers might think that you knew what you were talking about and decide to hire you to help them out. Kelly pointed out I should keep my writing general enough that people would need to contact me to find out more. I had to scratch my head at that, but she bluntly told me that I had already proved I could write stuff; all the seminars and colloquia and papers and dissertations had shown I could come up with words on demand. I started laughing when she told me that.

Would the advertising work? That wasn’t as clear. I heard from several friends who had their own businesses that half of the money spent on advertising was wasted, but nobody knew which half, and that included the advertising companies! The important thing was to get my name out there and get them calling or emailing. Most wouldn’t amount to anything, but sooner or later somebody would hire me.

Doctor Munson called me in early July to let me know that he had heard from somebody at Simon & Schuster, and he had given them my name and a copy of my dissertation. I could expect a call at some point. Maybe they would be interested in a version for publication? I got that phone call while sitting on the beach in Atlantic City, which was a bizarre location to be discussing a book. One of their editors said while my dissertation was completely unsuitable for publication, a more general version might be possible. I rolled my eyes at that, since no dissertation is suitable for normal people; they are written by academics, for academics, and get buried the day after graduation. I gave him my email address and asked that he send me his thoughts and I would get back to him after we got back home. Then I hung up and helped Bobbie Joe, Riley, and Seamus bury Joanne in the sand.

I got the email from Simon & Schuster when we got back from vacation. The editor was interested in a cut-down and rewritten version focusing on the general history of policing in America. I needed to dial way back on anything involving slavery and Reconstruction. That was quite possible. I could bring that down to a chapter or two and add back some of the stuff I had researched but never included. An advance was quoted of ten grand with a ten percent royalty rate. The important thing was that if the project worked, Simon & Schuster would put their impressive marketing might to push the book. That meant a book tour and interviews on television. Fifty thousand copies at thirty bucks a copy at ten percent meant one-fifty-kay. Doing it on my own meant five-kay if I was supremely lucky. I promised to start writing and editing before the week was out.

Kelly and I sat down when we got home and reviewed our finances. We had been holding our own for the last few years. Kelly’s salary hadn’t changed much, other than some raises based on inflation. She was a full professor and department head at Matucket State. The same was true of her stipends and paychecks from DARPA and the NSA; they had risen somewhat but not by huge amounts. She also had some consulting work and a few bucks coming in from a few startups she was involved in. She was making a bit under $125k a year, which was certainly an above average income. She made more than me and always had, and probably always would.

My income was made up of bits and pieces, and again, always had and probably always would. My final year on the MPD as a sergeant I had earned roughly $60k including overtime. That was now reduced to $15k as a 25% disability pension, which was non-taxable. My other pensions weren’t changed. The pension money from the Medal was $16k a year and I had a partial hearing disability from the VA which was only a few percent and was about $1k a year. My doctoral degree hadn’t cost me much, since it was mostly paid for by my GI Bill benefits, including a stipend for the apartment.

I also made some money off my cut of Hold The Line. Mostly based on Tolley Hunter’s involvement, the book sold a million copies at $29.95 each. We had a ten percent royalty rate, which meant royalties of just under $3 mill. We were splitting it three ways, with Tolley donating her cut to charity. Another third went to Chris Balvin, though his advance was deducted first. The last third went to Bob, Jose, and me, which was split three ways. Figure $300k for each of us, which was a major haul for a bunch of nitwits like us. Jose told me he and Juanita had socked it away for college for their kids; Bob used his money for a house. My cut made up for the lost income from the three years it took to earn my doctorate and was stuck in the college fund. My accountant had us put a big chunk into some Certificates of Deposit to hold for taxes.

If Tolley hadn’t been involved and I had written the book, I might have been lucky to earn $10k. I had to be honest; what sold the book was the name of one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. She might have said that I was paying her back by helping write it, but I was the one owing her, not the other way around.

Based on Kelly’s income, we were well into the upper-middle class; my income kept us comfortable. One of our standing jokes was based on the common television and movie plotline where a wife puts her husband through college and then he divorces her. In our case, she just kept reminding me that computer science doctorates paid more than history doctorates. True. Hurtful, but true.

Still, it looked like I needed to make about $45k a year to replace the income I had lost when I took the disability pension from the MPD. Was that possible? I sure hoped so! There was no way I was going to go work someplace at minimum wage, not with a PhD. At the least I could get a job at M-Triple-C or Matucket State. I had made $11k in 2018 on the two consulting jobs, so if I could get enough jobs in a year, I could certainly make up what I had lost as a sergeant, and probably more. On the other hand, I had zero interest in doing another third-party audit. That was nothing but grunt work for a clerk, the police consultant equivalent of minimum wage. The other job, though, the one helping set up the Bethel County department had been very interesting. That was the sort of job I could really enjoy.

I answered a bunch of phone calls and wrote several articles for some magazines (for about zero bucks) and got a job with a sheriff’s department down near Albany mid-September. The sheriff was being pressured to create a SWAT department and needed some help. I put my consultant suit on and drove down. Sheriff Conway had a small office that served a mostly rural county, and he had an interesting problem. The county council president was watching television one night and thought that the latest SWAT TV show was really cool, and wouldn’t it be just as cool if they had a SWAT team, too! Worse, the idiot posted something on the county Facebook page and Sheriff Conway was bombarded with proposals from various equipment manufacturers pushing equipment that would be needed by a SWAT team. This was the sort of meddling that any sheriff or police chief dreaded.