Turning A Hobby Into a Business and YouTube Channel with Sgt Chad Draper

Stephen J: (00:12)
Welcome to behind the 10, a podcast that introduces you to the Heric men and women who wear the 10 while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things when their badges in their locker. I'm Steven, Jay, the good Lieutenant here with Justin, the civilian producer. What's going on today, sir? Hello Powell. Today, we got a guest. Uh, that's interesting. You started a media platform off a hobby, but before we get into that, let's meet our sponsors sponsor. Today is those guys print.com. Those guys for all your custom apparel needs. Visit those guys. print.com along with superior beer technologies for all your home brew or your business setups. Visit superior beer technology.com and our cocktail over conversation sponsor. Thank you to Brian R of Monte New York. We are today tasting from our good friends at the Hyde park brewery. The big, easy blonde Justin. Ah, that's my favorite one, a 5.5 ABB.

Stephen J: (01:11)
This, uh, big, easy blonde is brewed with Pilsner, malt, Flad, rice, and wheat. Uh, this drinks easy with big flavor. I love it. It, it, it always just goes down so nicely. It is absolutely delicious once again. So our guest today is Sergeant Chad Draper. He's a guy that in his law enforcement career has done a lot, but outside of law enforcement, which is what we always highlight, he took his hobby, had a business and now has turned it into a YouTube television. Yeah, not eBay. He's on some networks too. It's wild. He he's got something pretty cool going on. Yeah. Re reading this bio and getting to know Chad, uh, pretty interesting. I can't wait to talk to him. Yeah, let's dig into it. All right, Chad. Welcome to behind the 10 man. Hey, thanks for having me. So let, let's talk a little bit about, uh, who you are and, and what you do because that's where we start with everyone. Uh how'd you get started in law enforcement.

Chad: (02:09)
Yeah, it's pretty ironic. If you ask some of my teachers and some of the kids that grew up with me, they say, how the hell are you a cop? But, uh, to be honest, uh, up till about, uh, probably 21 years old, I was probably not living the lifestyle that I should have been. I was, uh, beer drink and wrestler that like to get myself in a lot of trouble, but, uh, 20 years old, my wife now, the, the one we call the crazy goat lady, uh, we got pregnant and, uh, at 21 I bought my house, turned my life around. And at 25 I was working for, uh, Wegmans in their warehouse. And, um, I enjoyed my Wegmans is a great company to work for, but I was driving home 30, 35 minutes every day. And I'm like, is this really at the end of my life?

Chad: (02:51)
What I really wanna say? I, I put everything into, so talked to a few friends and, um, to be honest, I got my pistol permit and I'm like, man, maybe I wasn't, uh, that bad of a kid cuz I might have spent a night or two in jail. And uh, thank God that, uh, everything was always dismissed. But you know, I was from 16 to probably 19. I was getting myself in quite a bit of trouble fighting. So anyway, we, we had my son Derek and um, you know, I, I, like I said before, really wanted to turn my life around. And I talked to a few friends and said, Hey, I got my pistol permit. I guess I wasn't that bad. Um, what do I need to do to look into a police academy or get a law law enforcement? Do I really have a chance?

Chad: (03:30)
And they knew me. They knew the, the knew me, the, the grown up Chad, the one that didn't, uh, didn't drink that much anymore. So, uh, basically I, I, as I worked at Wegmans, I, um, got my security license and then I, um, moved into security at Wegmans and put myself through a R PTI in 1997, a police academy while I worked full time, came, worked all night, came home, watched my kids during the day, tried to sleep a couple hours and went to the academy for nine, 10 months. And fortunately I was, was lucky enough to score number one on a civil service test. And, uh, the rest is kind of behind us now, 24, 25 years later.

Stephen J: (04:07)
So there's a point to your story. I mean, you are a wild kid. You, you know, you're certainly, uh, being easy on that. I'm sure. Cause you don't wanna divulge everything you did and got away with, but, but I'm but, but during your, your hiring process, I'm gonna venture to guess you are open and honest about that stuff.

Chad: (04:26)
A hundred percent. Yep. I mean the, the big thing with me was, um, my dad always told me don't start a flight, but I, I don't expect you to walk away from one if you've been provoked. And I, I always seem to put myself in a bad position, so never, uh, never walked away, but I never, uh, never swung on anybody first, never pushed 'em first. Never did anything first. I always let them push my button. And then, uh, yeah, you know, the background process, they had to pull me through a second time and say, you, you gotta divulge a little bit more on this one. And I told 'em the story just like it was the first time they asked and we moved through it. And, uh, sheriff work at the time told he was more concerned on whether or not I smoked weed as a kid or not.

Chad: (05:03)
And I said, I, I did smoke weed as a kid sheriff. And he says, you know, what happens if you smoke weed? When you work for me? And I said, sheriff, I got a wife and two kids now I don't, I don't smoke weed. And he is like, I'll arrest you. I'll not only we be fired. I'll prosecute you to the fullest. And I'm like, I, I think we're okay, sheriff. He never once said anything about fighting or getting in trouble. And, uh, I think he, I think he liked that part about me because I was growing up and uh, knew how to handle myself. But, uh, he, I think he knew that I wasn't gonna go out there and cause problems for him. Yeah. I

Stephen J: (05:31)
Mean, we had Darryl HACA on, uh, before who was a, a polygraph examiner and the one thing he said about that polygraph during the hiring process, it's not really to see, uh, what you've done wrong, it's to see what your integrity is and that you'll tell the truth. So I think that really goes to, to some people out there. Um, I know a bunch of guys that were straight up hooligans before they became cops. Um, but have they calmed down, have they matured? And do they have that integrity that it takes? And, and to, to your point of here your history, you did cuz you made it through.

Chad: (06:03)
Yeah. And it, and it made me a better cop and it has made me, made me a better cop because we make some pretty, uh, poor decisions growing up. And that's part of the maturation process, if you will. And I had kids that, uh, had a little weed on 'em that I was gonna ruin their, uh, not that wasn't that I was going to, but it would definitely affect their, uh, financial aid and things like that. So of course, I, I always took it upon myself to use some discretion. Um, I, I know you experience, but after, uh, after my younger lifestyle, it always seemed true that the, uh, winter goes to jail and the, and the loser goes to the hospital, the doctor. So a lot of times when I dealt with fights with kids too, I knew where the problem really lied. So it really helped me make better decisions and, uh, not rush to just go arrest somebody cuz he, you know, punched somebody and do a thorough investigation and, and make sure that we made the right decision. And I, I feel like those are some of the better things that he did in my career that I, I think I impacted young kids, good age, and now they're 30, 40 year old business men in the community. And uh, they still remind me and thank me for, uh, the opportunity and chances and the break.

Stephen J: (07:06)
Yeah. I, I have a couple great examples of helping somebody out when they're youngsters of not bringing 'em to the courts, but maybe bringing 'em to mom and dad or taking care of the problem a little bit differently and creatively where now they're hugely successful and uh, and wherever they ended up and you remember those things and, and certainly life experience speaks volumes, uh, about the decisions that you make as a, as a law enforcement officer. So kudos man. So you get on the job and then you end up in the Sheriff's office eventually, right? Yeah, I

Chad: (07:35)
Did about, I did a few months with a small police department at Attica police department actually where the prison is. And then, um, I went to Mount Moores part-time and again, I was working full-time for Wagman's and part-time for them. And that's when I took the civil service test. So I had some experience in the community and I knew some of the, I was friends with some of the Sheriff's office members, but now I had a chance to work with them in the county and they, they liked my integrity. They liked my proactivity. Um, you know, which really, really, when I went through my academy, I knew I kinda had to prove that I was a changed man or at least I was a man now I was a kid being an idiot before, but so I did everything I could to be number one in all facets of the academy and the, uh, the undersheriff man being, he, he edged me out in the, uh, in the, you know, the educational part. I, I did all the physic and all that, but he, uh, he outsmarted me by about half a point in the final average. So he got me.

Stephen J: (08:24)
So what you you're saying is a half a point difference and you could be the undersheriff. I understand. Got it.

Chad: (08:29)
I have zero interest in politic none. I don't do meetings. I like to be out on the road. I, I I'm where I wanna be

Stephen J: (08:36)
For sure. So you get on the job, you're fulltime with the Sheriff's office. Now Wegmans is in, in the rear view mirror, which is great, you know, great company, but you're doing what you really wanted to do at this point. Yep, absolutely. And you, you get assigned to a special unit up there, uh, stop DWI, which, you know, really starts targeting something very specific. Yep. Yep.

Chad: (08:54)
I, um, ended up getting on the stop unit and I was, you know, very productive. I, I won the, uh, mad award the one year. I think I was somewhere in, you know, the 70 DWIs for a year and a whole bunch of tickets, but, uh, you know, I didn't do it for that, to be honest with you. The irony is, um, when I was 19, I got whacked by a drunk driver on my motorcycle in front of the TCA prison. And, uh, I had both my reconstructed and just a few years ago I had to have my neck fus and, um, it, it kinda, it meant a little bit more to do to the DWI. And it wasn't, I, I actually became friends with a guy forgave him, actually, I worked for Attica police department and he

Justin: (09:27)
Actually worked for the D P w in Attica. So, um, never had any hard feelings, he made a mistake and, um, but they had a gay be a little bit more purpose, like you said before about making a difference because I experienced the other end of it. Yeah. And I actually would do our victim impact panels too. And I would help out with those and do talk a little bit about my accident and, uh, you know, I'm obviously very fortunate to, um, stay physically fit and, and, and decent enough shape to do this, but I'm, I'm feeling it. I mean, I'm gonna be 50 in two years and you know, some of, some of the injuries are catching up to me a little bit. Yeah. It's just a unfortunately facts are getting old, right.

Chad: (10:02)
Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I did the DWI for a couple years and, um, the Sheriff's office decided to bring the, the canine unit back. And I was at the top of the list because of my proactivity and, uh, did the interview process with a couple other guys and ended up with my first canine partner Tyson in German shepherd from, uh, Holland. And, uh, he was an narcotics dog. And, um, did a, did a few more years on a stop unit. That was part of the deal that I would kind of integrate the DWI with, uh, drug interd with a dog and did that for a toll of probably between four and five years. And somewhere in the middle. There is when, uh, I actually probably, no, before I got the dog, I actually, um, was picked up on the SWAT team. So it was kind of a pretty, uh, opportunistic early on in my career to get those, um, availabilities, those positions to open up. So I was lucky.

Justin: (10:50)
How do you prepare yourself for the K nine unit? Is there like training for that or, I mean, you know, you said you were selected because you were P uh, but what, what does that look like once, once that position opens, you know, the program's coming back, uh I'm, I'm assuming you're a dog person. Maybe now you want to, you want to do that? How does that work?

Chad: (11:08)
So the, the process with us, with the dogs that were selected, uh, in order to get us through, we had two of our guys and two of, uh, Yates county guys and normally state, they want to mandate, I think it's a 16 to 17 week course. And that would be in your, your patrol, which includes handler protection, obedience, agility, apprehension, building searches, area searches tracking, and then your second or your dual purpose would be either narcotics or nitrates. So the state would mandate that somewhere around 16 weeks, but we kind of, uh, you know, if, if you say you're not working with a green dog, meaning that the dog has some training, you can consolidate that. So what we did was we had four, four guys in our school and we did six days a week, 12 hour plus days, and we cramed the hours in and we actually achieved it one because we had four teams and we had a lot of one-on-one time.

Chad: (11:59)
Um, we were able to get the, uh, patrol side of it done in four weeks. And then we came back and did the, our specialty in, uh, two weeks. And we were able to achieve the state certification. And to be honest with you, every team in that school is phenomenal because we had so much one on one time and we just repetition is really what matters when you're, when you're training those dogs, making sure you're rewarding them at the right time. And of course the, the negative, uh, reward, you know, taken away from the negative punishment at the right time, too. So, and when I say punishment, we never work on compulsion. We never, we never, you know, we're not hard handed or heavy handed with our dog. It's, it's all, uh, mostly voice inflection and, you know, a proper collar and a proper use of the collar.

Chad: (12:38)
But now, like if you take a green handler, which we really were in a green dog, which really they were, they, they bit a sleeve before. And they, so they, they are basically, our school said they're not green dogs. You're just green handlers. So the state would allow that. Um, but if you take a green dog and a green handler, you're gonna do probably 16 week basic school for your patrol and tracking side. And you're gonna do a minimum of four to eight weeks on the, uh, narcotics and nitrate side. Narcotics carries obviously a more of a constitutional liability. And then nitrates, obviously you run the higher risk of, uh, dog misses the bomb. We, we have a problem, so, right. There's, there's some issue is there. So, but it's, uh, it's pretty intense. Um, I'm in my third dog now timing is everything. I mean, that's the biggest thing when your dog's doing wrong, you gotta let 'em know when your communication's gotta be good.

Chad: (13:23)
It's gotta be quick and you gotta simplify it. Noah's no, no matter what the dog is doing is wrong. And then you correct it from there. And then you reward the good behavior. The hardest thing is to bring a handler up to speed with a quality dog. Right. And, and that, that a lot of times you go to a, if you go to a seminar, they'll say handler, great dog, because you got a lot to learn. And that's when you're dealing with the European, you know, the trainers that come over from Europe and you're like, great dog, handler . And, and

Justin: (13:49)
You, you bring the dogs home, right? So this is, is this a, like a 24, 7 job being with this

Chad: (13:55)
Dog? Yeah. If I brought him down here, he would be pastoring me. So I, I left them upstairs. We, we we've been pulling the 13 hour shifts going in at one end. The last three days, they got one more, one more tonight. So he's upstairs. But if I hadn't down here, he'd be pastoring me to play. , he's a, he's a Dutch shepherd. So he is what they call a reverse Bri he's black with a brown tiger strip. Wow,

Stephen J: (14:16)
Beautiful. Now, Chad, some of the things that we've seen recently in New York, especially with marijuana reform is a lot of dogs for the narcotics dogs were trained to detect marijuana. And that was giving you the probable cause to, to do the searches of the cars, the houses, what what's something that, uh, how you guys, you know, really compensate for that. Uh, did you not use the dog anymore? Did you retrain the dog? Can

Chad: (14:38)
You even do that? I'm in charge of the cane annual. So Mike Wade was, um, about a year before me with Honda when I got Hutch, my third dog here. So what we did was we just, when we heard that, that was coming down the pipeline and we heard all about the state police, we're gonna retire 40, 60 dogs, whatever, across the state. And a lot of 'em are a year too old. I mean they're or a year or two of the unit, I'm like, that's crazy. Yeah. So we stopped training with marijuana and that was acceptable by the state, but we did it in 2017, like hu. And I certified our first time together in 2017. So I would say by the end, it 17, maybe early 18, we stop. So we, we haven't worked with marijuana. So when we re-certified, every three years, you gotta re-certify in your specialties. We didn't, we didn't, um, we didn't work with marijuana at all. So, and then our latest hand, their Caleb cutting, he's a Sergeant with our agency. He, when he went through, they didn't even train with marijuana. So his dogs never been, uh, trained on marijuana.

Stephen J: (15:28)
So was that the norm, like a lot of these dogs that were trained in the asked were literally just retired on the spot.

Chad: (15:33)
Well, the good thing was the delay that they had in the passing of the laws, you know, up until this year. Cuz if you remember, a couple years ago, Cuomo was trying to push it through and it fell felt kind of on its face for a couple years. And it was, it was there, but they finally got it through. So I think a lot of the agencies did what we did and a lot of 'em um, were able to age out their dogs, get a couple more years out of them and, and retire. 'em, you know, when it was a little more timely, I didn't really see, I don't, I can't speak of seeing any of 'em do that. I think they all pretty much did what we did and we had time to say, that's no longer in 'em and you know, obviously, you know, through to the poison tree, if the marijuana gets you in the car, you run the risk of the things there after being suppressed.

Chad: (16:10)
So, um, day I got called for a search and one of the girls was in drug court and mom felt like she probably had something in her vehicle. And mom said called to, I was only drug dog. I, so I went and met with her and you know, I think she's got marijuana. And I said, well, I'm gonna tell you right now, we don't, we're not certified with marijuana. And if that's all you think she's got, she's like, no, I'm pretty sure she's got meth on her too. And so we cert and he, he indicated on two of her bags and one of 'em had a B in it and the other had some meth in it. So we didn't, uh, well actually, and the, the one with the bong in it had, uh, Oliver cleaning new tonsils for her cracking her, uh, meth pipes. So there you go. That's probably what he was in indicating on more than anything. But, um, you know, I told her mom, I said, if it's just marijuana, I'm just not going there because there's, I don't, there's nothing there anymore. You said to my dog, I don't wanna, I don't wanna reward him or give him a negative for it. If that's what we're looking for, then we're, we're done here.

Stephen J: (17:00)
So you're doing the canine thing since 2003 eventually become, uh, in charge of the whole unit as a Sergeant, which is incredible. I know there's a lot of responsibility making sure all the dogs are up on training, uh, selecting new dogs, selecting new handlers. you say don't wanna get in politics guarantee there's politics involved in that

Chad: (17:17)
oh yeah, there, there is a little bit, but I mean, uh, not at our level, like my chief chief deputy asso was a, a previous handler. Um, when he came into our agency, you know, a couple years ago we were getting a lot of guys busting chops that I got grandfathered in. Cuz we got, we had new standards, new physical standards, and I pretty much told Yaso I'm like, Hey, I'll do a standard too. He's like, man, you're too old. You've got injuries. And I'm like, dude, I can do it. So when we had this last selection process, actually two ago, I actually ran with everybody, did the agility course and actually smoked a lot of the younger guys. So, but you wanted to lead by example too, you know? And so that's why I did that. And I, I, not that I didn't have the respect to the guys, but for me to do that, Yael really didn't want me to do it.

Chad: (17:56)
He's like, what if you get hurt? I'm like, can I get hurt? What if I get hurt on patrol? Sure. So, you know, I still show up to work every day. So yeah. I mean there's a lot of responsibility, but there's a high risk high reward. I mean, it is definitely a late in my career. There's nothing. I, I, if I didn't do canine, I think there'd be a lot of regrets. That's definitely, I took a little break for about a year and a half. Um, that's when I started my archery shop, but I only did it for one reason, Monday through Friday holidays and weekends off. And I could run my archery shop and run a successful business, but then I got so busy that I kind of needed a break. And so I went back to the other hours and I catered my archery shop schedule around my work hours and it worked out great. So

Stephen J: (18:35)
We just talked with Eric Lindmark uh, who's, who's a guy that, uh, does, uh, equine therapy for law enforcement. And one of the things that was mentioned is having that outlet outside of work to really keep your mental stability, um, uh, just to, to really drive, um, normal senior life. And you mentioned your archery shop. So obviously there's no bow hunting going on while you're working. I hope

Chad: (18:59)
Right.

Stephen J: (19:00)
There's no bow, there's no bow team at the Sheriff's office, but so this is something you had a passion outside of work that you said, Hey, uh, this is my town. I really like it. How, how did you start with opening the shop

Chad: (19:13)
Pre Sheriff's office? Probably 1997, um, is when I went through my academy. So I would say probably 95 was probably, I was shooting competitive archery, 3d targets. There's there're three dimensional animals, foam animals. You've probably seen 'em there's deer, there's bear there's elk caribou will, you know, you name it, then you basically go through the woods and it's, you know, it's a break, it's a getaway, like you said before, walk through, you have to estimate your yardage. That was part of your skillset. But then when you estimate your yardage, you gotta use your correct pin or set your site to a, um, the correct setting for the yardage you estimate. And obviously if you're off by a yard or two, and it's a 50 yard target, well, that's a big, you know, it's a big, big, uh, difference in your scoring. So I did pretty good at that.

Chad: (19:53)
And then I started finding out that if you tune your own bows and you build your own arrows and you build your own custom bow strings, that you actually have a little bit more control in, um, your equipment. And I stopped relying on archery shops to work on my equipment. And I built my own little shop in the basement. Next thing you know, I'm working on other people's stuff. And the sheriff York kinda me off and with, uh, a canine issue and told me, I probably wasn't gonna get another canine back then. So that's when I pretty much will screw you, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that civil position and you guys can find another, uh, Sergeant and I'll, uh, work in there and I'm gonna open an archery shop. And, uh, I took a hobby that I really enjoyed. And the first year it was successful the second year, um, the Bo companies were calling me saying, Hey, we're here.

Chad: (20:35)
You're doing making really good numbers. Your people are super satisfied with your customer service, your expertise. And pretty much I had to pick of any Bo company that I wanted. And I started doing that. And then, uh, a couple years later I added on yeah, 25 by 40 foot room. That was, uh, I coached youth wrestling and I had a team that we traveled all over the place in, uh, Northeast and we'd compete in wrestling. All the kids were in high school now, so they didn't need me anymore. So I converted that wrestling room into the archery shop and it was easy transformation. It was a newer steel building, really easy to do. I built some room act shelves. And then when I added on it a couple years ago, I put in an indoor archery range and that's when things just got out control 2016, I decided to sell the shop to a friend of mine. And, um, he still runs a shop. I help him out, but he's actually one of our sponsors for the show that we're gonna, we're gonna get into. Yeah.

Stephen J: (21:23)
But you're keeping busy doing something you like, you're keeping your sanity, right? You listen to, you're a guy that's obviously likes to be busy. You're rambunctious. You're a rambunctious youth. You know, you gotta, you gotta drive that energy somewhere. And if you weren't driving it into the boat shop, you'd probably be doing something

Chad: (21:37)
Silly. One of my buddies now cleed Spooner. Who's on, uh, on the pursuit channel he's on, um, Strutton buck is a big show. It's really, really high numbers, million millions of viewers. And, uh, he came in there before where he did that and he was doing his own thing called crossroads TV. And he heard that my son had gotten into archery and I was filming my son. I mean, I was taking it. I just wanted to, to, you know, really share those memories and, and have them, um, with my son and we were filming and we, I didn't know what we were ever gonna do with the stuff, but, and I never planned on editing. I, and so CLE came to me and asked me if I'd be interested. And we did the show for a year and a half with him, but it was hard.

Chad: (22:11)
We didn't have, we had high drive people like myself and cleed, and, but some of the other team members just weren't and it just kind of fell apart. Kinda like you said. I, I felt when I sold the archery shop, I didn't feel like I had enough. I had a void, I wasn't doing anything. So like, you know what, I'm gonna teach myself to add it and I'm gonna start my own, uh, show. And, you know, right now we we're on, um, pride, outdoor net, excuse me, pride outdoor network, which is just a streaming channel. But our YouTube numbers are decent. Like I have two and a half years till I reach my 25 and I can retire. And I'm really not selling out to this a hundred percent because once you really do to your sponsors and stuff, I, I have to do more with social media and with my stuff.

Chad: (22:49)
So if I can't fulfill the obligation, I'm not gonna do it until I have the time to do it. So I haven't really gone balls deep, if you will. We did our first season and it turned out pretty good and we've kinda shrunk the team a little bit. And, um, one of my buddies, JT Bouchard, he does his editing and his brother's editing, which gives me a little more sanity to do mine and my family, cuz I have my, my wife, my daughter and my, my son who are all part of the show. And then he does his editing and his brother. So that helps. It was, uh, cuz it was getting to the point again where it was too much for me. Um, so we do our editing in the winter when we're done hunting and kind of produce a weekly episode. And you know, I think we kicked out like 16 episodes this year. What what's name of the show? Uh, redneck rising. And, and where do people find that, um, you can, you can go on YouTube, redneck rising TV, um, you know, we're on Instagram, obviously redneck rising and then the, uh, pride outdoor network is a streaming, uh, service that, uh, does a lot of outdoor shows, but you could find, you could

Stephen J: (23:45)
Find redneck rising TV on YouTube. I watched a bunch of episodes and what I found really. Oh yeah. What I found interesting is you've almost invited the viewer to be like, uh, an extra, um, participant the way you talk and, and what you're doing, you're explaining things and you're, it's almost like you got another son or daughter there. What's a interesting is you, you, you capture the person. Right. And, and whether it's a person that's really avid into hunting and I looked at the comments and it's a lot of like, oh, I love seeing, you know, Western New York stuff. I love seeing net hunt. Um, but you also captured the parents, the fathers, uh, to show that, yeah, I can bring out my son or daughter and, and explain things and, and they can enjoy my passion as well. So I found that very, very cool.

Chad: (24:27)
Yeah. My, my wife and daughter actually, cuz I had the archery shop, uh, and I was off on the weekends at the time. Um, they started, I started competing again, but just for fun, cause I didn't really have time to put the effort in, but the, my wife and daughter started shooting with me and neither one of 'em hunted. Um, I can't do that. I wouldn't be able to kill an animal. And um, my, my, and got his first girlfriend. So there was, uh, he kind of disappeared from the show. If you will see, there you go. Uh, and so my wife felt bad and she didn't want me to yell at my son anymore for, Hey, you gotta get your butt out in the tree, stand with me. So she says, I'll come film you. She says, I think I can do this. And she's a good shot.

Chad: (25:01)
Like Mari's a really good shot women. You know, this are pro usually better shots than men. They just have the more of personality. We're all type a and um, we, you know, we frazzle ourselves. So she said, I think I can do this. So the first year she hunted, we were doing the crossroads TV and she put a heck of a shot, like a 35 yard shot on a big buck and perfect shot, you know? And you know, she, she fell in love with it. And then my daughter is ultra competitive with mom. Like not so much with me with mom and brother she's, ultra-competitive like almost unhealthy. Like, she'll be like, you better not shoot my fricking dear mom. I can't make it out in the woods tonight. If my deer walks by in front of you, you better not shoot it. Of course, mom, like if that big buck walks by me, I'm shooting it. And uh, they get into it pretty good. And, and Mari's not joking. Well,

Stephen J: (25:44)
I mean your, your wife's now shooting Boes at this point, but you're still calling her the crazy goat lady.

Chad: (25:49)
She's the crazy goat lady. Yeah. Getting away with that here next.

Stephen J: (25:53)
I dunno if I could get away with that one.

Chad: (25:55)
Did you, uh, you're gonna have to look, I don't know where they're at, but there's a couple clips, uh, probably minute long clips of me, not on, not on her redneck rising, but somewhere on our social media, doing some, uh, crazy go lady harassment that, uh, they've gotten quite a bit local attention that people love. And they say the same thing you'd do though that like, I can't believe she hasn't killed you in you're sweet yet. , we've, we've gotten, um, opportunities to go on a lot of free hunts. Um, you know, I, I went to Newfoundland and, uh, which I, I, I'm not a traveler. Like I'm kind of a, a homeboy when it comes. I'd rather be on my acreage here and just, I, I like the loss by myself and I like to be alone a lot. Me kind of taking that step in and, uh, traveling a little bit was big, but Newfoundland was amazing.

Chad: (26:39)
I mean the, like they call 'em the glacier lakes and the, you know, everything that's melted away and, uh, it's, it's not Tundra. It's Tiga it's right below that. Yep. So it's was beautiful. We seen, I mean, when you walk through there, they're just wild blue bear. You're walking through wild blueberries that are only a couple feet tall because the, the bears and the, um, the moose and the caribou and everything just walked through there and browse it all down. But that was amazing. And then I got to be really good friends with boomer or not who, uh, he passed away this past year at, uh, big booms, Northern main adventures. And, uh, if, um, boomer didn't pass, I would be going there this year. Marisa shot her first bear there with boom last year. And, um, he passed away, you know, probably about six months ago.

Chad: (27:15)
So no travel in this year. I'm gonna JTS on our show and his brother Richard. And, uh, so we are gonna go down to Oklahoma, um, sometime in either October early, uh, November and do a, you know, a six, seven day hunt down in Oklahoma for, for Whitetail deer. But yeah, so I've had opportunities to hunt, um, places I go there and I give them the social media exposure that they're looking for. Yep. Put 'em on a show, put, you know, promote 'em on social media. So it's, you know, kind of one hand washes the other. And, uh, that's worked out really well. Like I've, I got invited back to Newfoundland this year, cuz Canada just opened their, uh, borders back up and opened hunting. Right. But I just, I burned so much personal time last year. Cause come usually about October 22nd, I save all my vacation time and I disappear until mid to mid-December. I don't go back to work. So, um, it gives me a lot of time to, if I tag out in New York, then it gives me some time to travel. But so

Stephen J: (28:09)
Sarge, let's talk just real quick about how you assemble a team, what the YouTube channel like atmosphere is because you basically created a television show for lack of a better terms. Right. So, you know, it's easy to film somebody, you know, know we run around now, especially with our cell phones and we take little videos of each other and you know, all, all the different medias that, that do that. But what was, I guess, what was the challenges or what did you not know about how did you go about it, uh, starting the, your, your, your show?

Chad: (28:42)
Well, the big thing, and I learned a lot from cleed cuz uh, CLEs, he's the guy that knows all the ins and outs of the cameras and um, the big, I think probably one of the biggest things and, and you've probably seen that is we, we try to tell the story through the lens. If we didn't talk, you would still be able to figure out what was going on. You'd still be able to figure out that we were scouting or we were hanging tree stands or, you know, we're walking in, we're sneaking in, we're trying to get to a set. Um, so you try to do, as we try to do as much as you can, um, you know, minimize the amount of talk. Like I don't like doing the talking head. There's a ton of TV shows that'll break away and the guy stops and starts narrating.

Chad: (29:16)
What's going on. We try to do our narrating when we're actually in the tree stand and things are going on, um, who knows how we'll evolve if we do. I mean, it's really not that hard to go on to the pursuit channel. Let's just say anything else. You pay them, whatever it is. And you either recover your money back through your sponsors. If you got the numbers, your sponsors are gonna pile on and, and pay you what you want, you know, for title sponsorship and different things. But, um, I kinda wanna be know that I've kind of mastered my art. I've definitely gotten pretty good with that eating. Um, you could, if you watch season one to season three, you know, you can see the evolution of being a little more creative. Sure. I don't find myself to be a creative person. Um, but I challenge myself to do more every year to try, try and find another little way to do things a little different.

Chad: (30:00)
You know, we all have drones, we have a couple drones. Um, but the B roll is one of the biggest things. You know, you, you, you need to get that stopped. There's never enough yep. Stopping never enough video things on your way in make sure you video stuff. When you're in the tree stand, when nothing's going on, there should always be something going on with the camera. Cuz like you just said, there's never enough. And you're like, oh, I, I just had this. Would've been perfect. So every, every time you, uh, edit another episode, you realize, man, this would've been even better if I would've done this and JTS been a, a godsend as far as that goes, cuz there's things that I'm like, yeah, I know better. I should have done that. I should have done that. And he's, he's really good at getting a lot of B roll and, and um, you know, we, we get together a couple times a year cause he's a, he's about two hours away and we do some stuff together. But um, yeah.

Stephen J: (30:44)
So Chad, if you could go back to a guy who wants to maybe start a YouTube channel, uh, maybe they have something that they want to introduce, uh, or a guy who wants to get on the job. What would you tell 21 year old, Chad, that's still out

Chad: (30:56)
There, you didn't screw up that bad, you know, get your head outta your butt, which I did. But you, you didn't, you, you know, and I I'd be retired right now. Cause if I would've started a little sooner, I really thought that I did enough damage to my, uh, uh, reputation, integrity from just drinking beer and it in fights, um, being a knucklehead, uh, would've been nice to tell myself at 21 when I could have became a cop that I'd be retired now and not putting up with all this nonsense with a defund, the police and everything else. But uh, yeah, I think that was the biggest thing. And I tell kids that a lot right now too, you know, let's Hey, it's, you know, 16, 17 year olds and it's too late, you know, I'm done. I'm like, no, it's not. And I'd have no problem telling kids all my mistakes and um, no problem whatsoever. So yeah, I think it, uh, I, if I would've set myself up a little sooner, I'd be, uh, I'd be full time hunting and fulltime redneck rising already.

Stephen J: (31:47)
I think it's, I think it's coming soon enough for you. My friend, last question we ask everybody, Sarge is, uh, what do you define a hero as

Chad: (31:54)
I, I, I guess I'm gonna define a hero and you probably get this a lot, but I would probably, um, define my hero as my dad because there's a guy that, uh, was in Vietnam, 19 67, 68 and the me con Delta. And he was seeing some bad stuff and uh, never once skipped the beat. The guy is the most selfless guy. He has no excuses. He's 75 years old, still, still drag racing, you know, running a car that runs six high sixes in the quarter mile 200 miles an hour, never made an excuse for himself. Just went to the doctor for the first time in 45 years. But uh, 33 years worked at, uh, general motors and every day come home and rent on cars. And um, growing up, I watched my dad help. So many people didn't charge them, worked on their cards because they didn't have, you couldn't rub two nickels together.

Chad: (32:43)
And um, I think, I think, uh, uh, you know, if I just got off my dad a little bit, I think someone that does things that's, uh, for the right reasons, it's, it's not to, uh, exploit themselves or promote themselves, but be, be selfless, um, you know, do things for our others and don't look for reward. Um, I, I, I think that it's rewarding enough. So growing up, watching my dad, um, and I'm sure you could tell he was getting a little choked up talking about him, but uh, yeah. You know, no excuses and uh, he, he, everything he did, he never, he never, ever did. Has my dad ever watched him say, man, I guy just did that for himself. Everything he does in life. He, you, I did for other people. And I think that made me a better father. I think it makes me a better cop. And uh, I think if we, uh, if we got back to that here in, uh, in this nation, I think, uh, we'd be in a whole lot better place.

Stephen J: (33:31)
Well, I think your father did an outstanding job, raising a man who took responsibilities for his mistakes, owned up to him and then turned that around to becoming hero for a lot of other P people, you know, serving your community and, and answering the call no matter who's calling you and, and what their straight is, uh, you you're going and helping. So that's a hero to me, Chad, and you're one of them. So I appreciate what you're doing, man, what you continue to do. Thanks for coming on and giving people the little bit of knowledge of, of the YouTube channel and the redneck rising TV. I think we're gonna have a lot of people go check that out and, and meet you on there. So my man, thank you so much.

Chad: (34:03)
Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Yeah,

Justin: (34:05)
It was great meeting you and thank you so much for your service. It's uh, really

Chad: (34:07)
Appreciated you too. Thank you very much.

Stephen J: (34:13)
I love his openness about how his past, you know, he wasn't, you know what the ideal candidate for plea officer might

Justin: (34:21)
Be, right? A theme that has recurred on this, uh, this podcast a few times,

Stephen J: (34:25)
But matured owned. It took an opportunity and ran with it. Now, you know, he's a supervisor for his agency. And again, he took this hobby that he enjoyed, including his family. And we got redneck rising TV. They're on the YouTube channel.

Justin: (34:40)
Yeah. So, so cool. And it, I love whenever someone can take a hobby that they have and all of a sudden what they are doing for fun suddenly becomes something that's turned into a business. It

Stephen J: (34:53)
Is pretty neat. And it's pretty entertaining. You know, when he's talking to the camera during, uh, his hunts. Yeah. It's almost like you're there

Justin: (34:59)
And it's cool because he, he gets to involve of his whole family in it. A lot of times when you're busy with a business, you, you end up getting pulled away from your family. So the idea that he can do this hobby with his family and make it a business is just, it's really cool all around. Still

Stephen J: (35:13)
Can't get a, uh, get away from, uh, him calling his wife, the crazy goat lady, crazy goat lady. That's something else. Well, again, thank you for listening to behind the tin hearing about how our heroes are heroes with the 10 on and off, please be sure to follow, like, share and subscribe to us@behindtheten.com. Please do. If you know somebody that should be on our show, reach out to us behind the 10, uh, gmail.com. Send us the email. If you wanna be a sponsor, same me email address behind the 10 gmail.com. If you wanna buy the crew around or just, just in the producer, the civilian producer drink, you can go to our Facebook page, click the links, and we always appreciate a nice, nice cold that I will sincerely appreciate that guys. Remember, look out for one another and stay safe.