Critical Incidents, Purpose, and Blue Badge Coffee Co.

In this episode, we talk with Rick Lechleitner. Rick is an officer and the founder of Blue Badge Coffee Company. Please tune in to hear Rick talk about critical incidents, purpose, and the mission behind his coffee. If you enjoy authentic discussion and coffee, this episode is for you.

If you would like more information about Blue Badge Coffee Company, check out the information below:

Blue Badge Coffee Co.-Website
Blue Badge Coffee Co.-IG

Transcript

Critical Aspects Podcast (00:03.55)

Alright, welcome back to critical aspects of law enforcement. I'm your host Vernon Phillips and today we are joined with Rick Is a law enforcement officer, but he's also the founder and CEO of blue badge coffee company So Rick, I'm just gonna give it over to you. You can jump in you can just tell us about yourself You know a little bit about your history your background your hobbies and all that

Rick Lechleitner (00:26.371)

Awesome, cool. So I've been in law enforcement since 2017. I've been with the city of Pacifica PD since 2019 and I actually was born and raised and in Pacifica currently, so I'm fully encompassed in my community here. Let's see, I wanted to be a cop for a long time, but I kind of graduated from college, business school in Atherton over here on the peninsula, and kind of went into the business world. And so I did business for a long time for Firestone Brewery down on the coast down here, the Central Valley, Central Coast, and then ran my own business for like the last 10 years before I was a cop. I ran a U-Haul store, moving supply store in San Francisco. And then I got married, had kids, and decided that I wanted to have retirement and a steady income and future for my kids. So I finally got into law enforcement but I got in at 37, 37 years old. So I went into the academy against these like, you know, up against these 21, 22, 23 year olds. There was a couple, there was a couple older guys. There was a 41 year old in there, but I finished like mid, mid academy, like academically and physically, which was, which was good for me. You know, I was 37 years old battling those young guys and did pretty well, but worked for Daily City for a second and then ended up with Pacifica which was a blessing. I love working in my hometown. I'm obviously invested in the community here, being born and raised here, so the connection here is awesome. That would be weird, you know, like arresting people that I knew growing up and stuff like that. But since I started older in the profession, I didn't really have a problem with it.

Rick Lechleitner (02:41.458)

And just the maturity and stuff like that as an older cop. It didn't really hinder my job at all. What else? I have a wife of 11 years. We just hit 11 years. Married. Thank you. So almost seven of it's been in law enforcement. So it's been a majority of it in law enforcement. Yeah. Two kids, seven and eight years old.

Critical Aspects Podcast (02:56.27)

Congratulations.

Critical Aspects Podcast (03:03.99)

Congratulations again on that. Yep.

Rick Lechleitner (03:12.746)

Known me as a cop pretty much. And what else? My mom's still alive. She's doing well. She's great. She's my support. My dad passed away right before I got hired. So that sucked. And then I have two sisters and a brother. My brother's a firefighter in Pacifica. So and then my sister, one of my sisters, my older sister, she's a captain in Hayward just another city here in the Bay Area, and then I have uncles that are in the fire service. So I had a bunch of guys in the fire service. I was supposed to go in the fire service, but I decided to go business and then become a cop. So that was my path, but yeah, we have a lot.

Critical Aspects Podcast (03:55.55)

You actually want you actually wanted to work for a living?

Rick Lechleitner (03:58.282)

I actually wanted to work for a living. I wanted to put my degree to work, my $100,000 degree to work, but in the end I ended up doing the community service like the rest of my family, so pretty proud of that.

Critical Aspects Podcast (03:59.81)

Yeah. Hehehehe.

Critical Aspects Podcast (04:04.267)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (04:12.358)

Awesome. Yeah, man, well, I appreciate everything you do and the fact that you're working there in your hometown. I think that's pretty cool. I think it probably gets to the point now where you're older, you're more mature, and you talk about arresting people, you know you're probably like, well, by this time in your life, you should know better, right? You should have gotten out of all of that stuff. So if I'm arresting you, it's your own dang fault.

Rick Lechleitner (04:32.906)

Exactly.

Rick Lechleitner (04:38.726)

Exactly.

Critical Aspects Podcast (04:40.686)

Awesome. So, I mean, obviously, so you got a lot of things going on. I mean, you're doing the whole coffee company thing, your law enforcement, wife, kids, family. So with all that in mind, how do you maintain just your wellness? How do you maintain a healthy lifestyle, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? How do you with all that going on? How do you keep yourself in check?

Rick Lechleitner (05:05.87)

So, my dad had me in the gym at like 14 years old. So I was in the gym. I've played sports my whole life. So physically, that was kinda what I did. Now, after my dad died and I, you know, went through different challenges at work and family and stuff, I kinda fell off and I didn't do anything. And still athletic and still would go out and play adult sports and stuff like that, but just skipped out on the gym.

But recently I got back into working out and I started, I don't know if you heard of the program, 75 Hard. It's a cool mental strength program where you work out twice a day, drink a gallon of water, read 10 pages in a book, take a photograph for yourself and follow a diet for 75 days straight and it really transforms you mentally and physically. It's a really cool program.

Critical Aspects Podcast (05:41.396)

Uh, if not, no.

Critical Aspects Podcast (06:03.659)

And what was that called again?

Rick Lechleitner (06:05.214)

I urge your followers to look it up. It's 75 Hard. It's by a guy named Andy Frisella. He doesn't charge you anything for it. He puts all the information out there for you to go and do it and change your life. And for me, that was kind of like the beginning of actually my whole current story. But to get back to your question, the mental, the physical, like I try to, I'm really good as an older cop, separating the work with the home.

Critical Aspects Podcast (06:24.068)

Okay, cool.

Rick Lechleitner (06:35.074)

And I keep my work at work and when I'm home, like I'm doing my family thing, and I try to take as much family time as my department lets me. I coach, I do stuff with my kids. We're out going on walks, going on bike rides, traveling, doing stuff like that. So mentally, that's what I do. I do focus on my family. And then physically.

Like I just said, just trying to get as much as I can in. Coaching basketball, coaching soccer, coaching baseball, all that kind of stuff.

Critical Aspects Podcast (07:10.986)

Yeah, and all that's important, especially when you were talking about law enforcement is especially doing the coaching thing and is finding something else outside of the career, right? The profession that you can kind of invest into, right? That you can put purpose in because we might talk about this a little bit later, but you kind of brought it up, so we'll go ahead and jump on it now. But that's one of the biggest things is when somebody leaves a law enforcement profession, whether they retire or whatever it is, if they put all of their...

Rick Lechleitner (07:39.475)

it.

Critical Aspects Podcast (07:40.694)

Their effort into the career, and now their career's no longer there, right? They kind of lose this sense of purpose. So that's why it's really important to, you know, to find other things that you enjoy. So you like coaching, being a mentor, just investing in other things. So, and it's no surprise that it's doing something like coaching, because if you got into public service, right, you wanting to serve other people, and you wanting to mentor other people, and kind of bring people along. So, you know, that always kind of goes hand in hand.

Rick Lechleitner (08:09.487)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (08:11.022)

And especially making use of family time, that is absolutely vital. You have to carve out time to plug your family in and to make sure that you are giving them the attention and just the time that they deserve and that's warranted for them. I'm sure you've seen it. I've seen it where a hundred percent goes into the profession, right? A hundred percent goes into your career.

And that's where you start to see marriages fall apart. You start to see, you go and retire and then your kids want nothing to do with you because, oh, now you want to be in my life. So, man, that is, so to hear you say that kind of stuff is great to hear. It's encouraging to hear. And man, I just encourage you to keep doing that. Keep absolutely investing that time in your family and your marriage and all of that, because that's just all good stuff.

Rick Lechleitner (08:51.181)

Okay. No.

Rick Lechleitner (09:07.022)

Yeah, it is. It's important because I do. I see it every day. I see the guys that, I mean, and there's going to be guys that do both. There's going to be the guys that put in the overtime and work and work and work and work and then the guys that do their share of overtime but want to be with their families and I get it. But like, you got, I don't know, for me personally and at my age with my kids, my kid's age, like I want.

I want my family time. I do this. It's a job. I love the guys that I work with, as brothers and sisters, but it's a job that I'm there half of my life of, but it's a job. And then I have my family, that's number one.

Critical Aspects Podcast (09:47.946)

Yeah, and you said something that I want to kind of just pick your brain on. So you said that you try and really hard to leave work at work, right? And just when you're home, you're home. So, so what is it that you do to help you achieve that? Because, you know, with a lot of people, it doesn't really work that way, right? They, we kind of try to put them in separate categories, but they very much bleed into each other at times, right? Where you kind of bring work home and you bring.

Rick Lechleitner (09:57.406)

Mm-hmm.

Critical Aspects Podcast (10:18.134)

You know, home to work. And so what do you do actively to kind of help keep yourself, keep those two areas separated?

Rick Lechleitner (10:25.672)

I think it's just, I think the most important thing is being aware, you know, like, um, we know that our job is going to affect us. It's going to affect us. It affects us no matter what. But if you're aware of, you see something crazy for the day or a dead body or I arrested someone I know or an overdose or whatever.

Critical Aspects Podcast (10:36.178)

Oh yeah, absolutely, yep.

Rick Lechleitner (10:52.662)

Leave that at work, that's part of our job. That's what we sign up for. And then be aware of it. Don't just block out the feeling. Or do I have feelings at work when I see stuff? I almost get emotional sometimes. I'm just that kind of guy. When I come home, it's like I'm giving my attention and my love to my kids and my family. They deserve it. So you have to just be aware of that. And if something is going on and you can be aware of something going on in your mind or something, then get help for it, because that's important too.

Critical Aspects Podcast (11:23.358)

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you said that. I mean, because that's a lot of times, you know, you said also just be aware of, you know, not taking that home, but also just if something bothers you, right? Talk about it. Because a lot of times what we want to do is right. We want to numb that those negative emotions, those negative feelings surrounding whatever it could be. Particularly call like you're saying, you know, like it's a dead body or you rest somebody you know, or, but here's the thing when we when we numb, right? When we try to numb negative feelings, you can't distinguish between negative feelings and positive feelings, right? You can't numb one without numbing both.

Rick Lechleitner (11:56.856)

Mm-hmm.

Rick Lechleitner (12:01.118)

Part of it for me too is, sorry to interrupt you, is I have a wife that jumped into the profession with me both feet and so she read the Being Married to a Police Officer books and she gets it and she continues to educate herself on my job and the stuff that I experience. And so she'll play off of some of my emotions sometimes and be like, okay, what's going on?

Critical Aspects Podcast (12:04.672)

No, you're good.

Rick Lechleitner (12:30.294)

And we'll talk about some stuff. And it's not anything too serious, but it's good that she could recognize that and we can have conversations and talk it out or if she knows that I need a couple minutes of couch time when I get home and not to bother me, then she'll let me do that. So having a significant other or a spouse that's also aware is key too.

Critical Aspects Podcast (12:55.446)

Yeah, and I'm glad you said it so, you know, if she's aware that you need some couch time or you just need to, hey, look, you know, I'm coming home, it's been a rough day. I just need 10 minutes. I just need, you know, 15 minutes just to kind of wrap my head around today, kind of decompress a little bit and then fully engage with family and family activities. But that's awesome that your wife's also invested too and that she's aware and she knows what, you know, kind of just a little bit of ins and outs of the profession. So that's a good thing. So that's awesome. So as we kind of start talking about the profession, right, and how much stuff you see and how it impacts you, you know, as you kind of look back over the last, you know, seven years that you've been in law enforcement, and that's, I believe that's what you said, correct me if I'm wrong, right? You said the last seven years. So when you look back, like what has been one of the most significant calls that's like really kind of settled, you know,

Rick Lechleitner (13:26.398)

Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (13:44.923)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (13:52.398)

Settled on you that they kind of made you step back and they're like, oh man

Rick Lechleitner (13:58.018)

So just to preface that, like I'm big into community policing, relationship building, peer support with my peers, but helping the community, being there with the kids at the high schools. We don't have an SRO, but like I do as much as I can with the kids to show them that like we're good people. We're not just bad people that come and arrest the guy, come and help. We-

Critical Aspects Podcast (14:25.791)

Mm-hmm.

Rick Lechleitner (14:27.634)

Interact so I do a lot of that kind of stuff. So I have a lot of those kind of calls that touched me but there's this one that I was thinking about. It was a... We got a report of a missing person. This is a couple years ago. I think it was two or three years ago. And it was a girl about my age. She was like 45, something like that. I think she grew up around town too. So...

I didn't know her, but I heard her name. Anyway, she was missing, and our guys were looking for her the night before. We couldn't find her. So the next day we get in there, me and one of my corporals at the time is the sergeant now. And we got tasked to go and look where her phone ping left up on this ridge in Pacifica. And so we're walking, we can get our hiking boots on, and we're going and walking up this ridge and stuff. And we don't see anything. We're looking over like the clip. We live...

on the coast. So we're looking over the cliffs like by the water just in case because she was suicidal. She'd sent some text messages that were pretty sad. So we're looking, we don't find anything. Then on our way back down the hill after looking all along the coast side, coast side there, we come down and I see like a backpack.

Bible, some clothing. I looked down like down a little bit of the hill here and I see like a water bottle. We see her cell phone sitting there too by the way and so I'm like oh my god this is it. So we couldn't find her though. So my corporal at the time he walks I think he's talking to our dispatch and like our sergeant our watch commander and he's staying up on the top.

I climbed down, so there was a cliff on the ocean side and a cliff on the other side into an old rock quarry that we have in Pacifica. So I climb all the way down there and I get down there and I see her down there, obviously deceased. But it was just terrible because you could see this stuck in my head that she fell down this ravine. I don't know if this is too-

Rick Lechleitner (16:41.23)

Too much detail for your audience, but she felt honest for being. She survived the fall, but she had taken, after we had investigated, she had taken pills and drank. That water bottle was full of vodka. So you know how you make a snow angel in the snow? She was struggling down there all night in the cold rain, rainy, cold weather. She had taken off her jacket somehow, and she made.

Critical Aspects Podcast (16:43.754)

Now, go ahead, man, don't worry about it.

Rick Lechleitner (17:09.91)

So she was kicking and moving her arms around so much that she made like an angel in the mud down there.

Rick Lechleitner (17:18.279)

So it was pretty brutal. And then her family was looking for her, walking the trails too because they knew that's where she had last said she was. I had found her and then we had to rope off the scene and they were kind of walking, like have you found her? And we're like, we couldn't really tell them much. So we had to kind of shoo them away even though she was 50 feet away from them and a frickin' on the ground down there. It was pretty sad.

Critical Aspects Podcast (17:45.291)

Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (17:47.426)

So that's one that I remember, because like I said, I'm really invested in the peer support, the emotional, like the critical incidents, helping people with mental illness, that kind of stuff. That's kind of like my thing.

Critical Aspects Podcast (18:06.286)

So with that, so what did you do? And I appreciate you sharing that because it's always one of those questions where you're kind of, you get a mixed response, right? Where some people are like, man, I hate that question. And some people are like, yeah, you know what? Let's talk about it. Like, you know, I'm more than willing to share. But kind of like for our audience here, I mean, it's to encourage other people like, man, if there's something that you're not sharing, right? That's causing, you know,

disruption in your life because you're not willing to talk about it, you're not willing to share it. Obviously all of these things that we deal with in the law enforcement profession, no matter where you serve in that profession, the things that you see, the critical or traumatic events, they're gonna impact you some way or another. So either you can talk about it and you can address them and you can work through that stuff or you can take it and you can push it down until it manifests into something else later on down the road, because it will eventually come out.

So I'm glad you brought that up. So what did you do to kind of help yourself process that incident?

Rick Lechleitner (19:16.163)

I just, I, you know, writing the report and

and talking to the significant other and the child who is like, I think 18 or 19, the daughter, the lady's son.

Rick Lechleitner (19:31.836)

Just taking it all in and trying to help them as much as possible.

Rick Lechleitner (19:38.89)

And I don't know, just learn from it. Like, man, I try to tell people, I try to tell people like from that incident, like if you are going through something, talk to somebody, call us, call your family, call your friends. You know, people wanna help you. And obviously like it's a split decision that these people make, but you can't help but think, God, did she regret it when she was fricking rolling down the cliff and she's on the bottom like struggling to survive?

You know, and so that's it. I mean, I, like I said, I take like the scene of the dead bodies and that kind of thing pretty well. I try not to let it phase me as bad. I mean, obviously it's terrible to see, right, when it happens, but you know, time goes on, you kind of process it and I try to learn from it and try to teach or teach it to other people or just use it in other incidents with 5150s or.

Critical Aspects Podcast (20:25.527)

Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (20:38.454)

You know, you know, people who are kids are running away, stuff like that. I'm like, you know, I try to teach them a lesson from what I've learned.

Critical Aspects Podcast (20:47.51)

Well, and you also said, I mean, you said that you're a big fan of, you know, debriefings and peer support and talking about stuff. So, um, a lot of that goes a long way. So, um, just taking the time to step back and be like, man, that freaking sucked. Um, because it doesn't matter who you are. I mean, you could be, you know, 30 years into the career and. You may put on the facade, right? That, oh, this, this doesn't bother me. I'm hardened and you may be hardened to a degree, but.

Rick Lechleitner (21:01.422)

Mm-hmm.

Critical Aspects Podcast (21:17.182)

Somewhere deep down inside, you're still looking at a situation like that, and you're like, man, this freaking sucks, right? Another body, another person taking their life, another parent beating their kid, another husband beating his wife, you're like, man, this just sucks. But here it's...

Rick Lechleitner (21:22.492)

Ah, totally.

Rick Lechleitner (21:37.998)

But like you just said, it's talking to your peers about it too. Like I don't, I'm not scared to show my feelings or talk to my corporal that was with me or the sergeant like after and go, man, that fucking sucked. Like man, she was down there, she made a mud angel, she was struggling, seeing that was terrible. I'll talk to people about that. I don't care.

Critical Aspects Podcast (21:41.121)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (21:58.346)

Yeah, and that's a big thing and that's a huge thing because I mean, you probably see it and I see it all the time where people are just like, no, I'm good, I'm fine. And they just go on and they just take it and they push it down and they push it down and they push it down. But eventually all that's gonna come to the surface at some point or another in your life. So I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm glad to know that you're kind of one of those guys that are out there kind of pushing that, kind of one of the champions. I'm like, hey, look, we need to talk about the stuff that we see. Because if we don't.

Rick Lechleitner (22:05.902)

Mm-hmm.

Rick Lechleitner (22:26.689)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (22:29.174)

It's only going to affect us. And if we don't deal with it, man, we got to, it's going to come back. But I appreciate, I mean, I appreciate you sharing that. So as you look back over, you know, over the last several years, what are three of the most significant things that you've learned in the law enforcement profession?

Rick Lechleitner (22:36.142)

Exactly.

Rick Lechleitner (22:49.221)

Um...

I grouped this in a few different things. The first thing I said was empathy and patience. Like you said, people can get hardened by this career, jaded, pissed off about a bunch of shit. I've learned to realize that people still piss me off and people still do dumb shit, but to have empathy for people who are going through so going through something, running through a stop sign, doing whatever, traffic violations or even to the point where they're spanking their kid and they get CPS called on, whatever it is, trying to figure out the whole situation before you start judging people and being hard about it. And also having patience with people who are involved in different situations who can't explain the certain thing right away or whatever.

That's one is empathy and patience. Let's see, what else did I say here?

I said, you know, I grew up here in Pacifica my whole life. I went away for college and stuff, but when I became a cop here, I had no clue the shit they want on in Pacifica. I grew up with a Marine Corps dad. I played sports my whole life. I wasn't involved in shit. I didn't drink until I was in college. But when I got to college, I made up for it.

Rick Lechleitner (24:30.823)

Those are different stories for a different time. But I had no clue what was going on in Pacifica. So what I learned is that as a cop being in the trenches, man, you see some crazy stuff and you realize what's really going on in these towns. People in the community, they don't get it. They're like, oh, Pacifica's a small town. It's quiet, right? You're not busy. Now what? You get a couple of autoburgs. couple of DVs and this and I'm like, yeah, no clue. This place is full of fentanyl and meth. Like crazy. So that's one thing. And then the last thing I put that this profession has a lot of stuff that's satisfying and rewarding. Helping people-wise, teaching people lessons, saving people's lives, bringing bad people to jail. But there's also a lot that can be detrimental and damaging to your family and your friends and your relationships outside of work.

That's not something they talk about too much in the Academy.

Critical Aspects Podcast (25:41.226)

Yeah, so with that, knowing that the job is very demanding, knowing that you're gonna see some of the worst of humanity, but you also get to see some of the best of humanity too. So I don't wanna just say that when you get into law enforcement and you only see the crap, because you do, you see a whole bunch of crap, but there's also, you see some of the good too. Just knowing the profession, knowing the things that you're gonna get involved in, knowing the things you're gonna see, do you think that...

Rick Lechleitner (25:54.045)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (26:10.666)

We prepare people coming into the career well enough? Do you think we do a good enough job kind of setting them up for success when they first are starting out?

Rick Lechleitner (26:21.002)

I mean, you know, you learn a lot in the academy. I'm sure people look into the profession before they get into it.

Rick Lechleitner (26:32.61)

The, some of the realities that you see once you get into your individual department too, you know, the demand of the job, the hours, the different shifts, the staffing issues, especially nowadays. And even to the point where like, I got into the job to help people and this and that, and I'm in my hometown and all that, but to know the reality of like, you know, there's no quotas, but people are looking at your stats. So all these different things, like, you know, when you're in the academy, you're learning a DV call, a bird call, all this, a that, a CPS call, you're doing all these things and you're learning how to shoot and you're getting physically in shape and you're learning the whole LBs and all your different chapters, but some of that stuff, you get it when you finally get to your own, you know specific department.

Critical Aspects Podcast (27:34.701)

Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (27:35.443)

I think maybe they could talk about it a little bit more, but I mean, it's really based on your department, and your different issues that you have when you start working somewhere.

Critical Aspects Podcast (27:45.078)

Yeah, I mean, obviously in the academies, you learn a lot of the fundamentals, right? There are a lot of the basics, but they prepare you the best they can for a lot of the situations you're going to encounter. But kind of like you're saying, it's also going to be really specific to kind of where you end up and what department agency you end up with because you could end up in some podoc town in the middle of nowhere and there's the total police department's got five people. And the biggest thing you might ever have to work is...

Rick Lechleitner (28:10.114)

Mm-hmm.

Critical Aspects Podcast (28:14.806)

Somebody ran over somebody's cat or something stupid like that. Um, or you can end up, you know, in a big city. I mean, you end up going to like NYPD or LAPD and it's like. Just freaking call after call after call. And it's just one thing after another. So yeah, I would agree that definitely, I think individual departments, you know, need to kind of showcase based off of where they're at as far as, you know, their, their level of involvement. But I think that, you know,

Rick Lechleitner (28:43.991)

Thank you.

Critical Aspects Podcast (28:44.574)

I think it's gotten better in the academies, but I think just kind of teaching more on that mental and emotional impact that it does have. You know, kind of just giving that like, hey, look, this is the job. This is the things you're going to see. This house is going to affect you. Like, you know, if you don't take care of yourself, like, man, in the first five years, you are going to be a different person. Like even with taking care of yourself, statistically, you're still going to be a different person. Right? I mean, five years from when you first start out.

Rick Lechleitner (28:48.91)

Thank you.

Rick Lechleitner (28:53.378)

Okay!

Critical Aspects Podcast (29:13.866)

You're not going to be the same person that when you first hit the street. That's absolutely for sure. So based off of that, what are, you know, what is some advice that you'd give to some of the new, um, you know, the, the new recruits getting into the profession? You know, some of the people like looking, Hey, I want to get into law enforcement. Uh, you know, what is some advice that you give them?

Rick Lechleitner (29:34.882)

So yeah, I mean, the younger you start, the better. Cause nowadays with the way retirements are and stuff, like for us, we're in 2.7 years every year. And it's like, I don't know how it's gonna be when these new guys are starting 2.5, 2.2, I don't know. So starting young and getting in and learning is probably good, but learning your cities, like wherever you're looking at going, kind of looking at the departments, seeing the staffing issues, stuff like that, that I didn't even look at, which all around the country right now, it's kind of brutal, there's staffing issues pretty much everywhere, everywhere that I see. But look into that kind of stuff, look, kind of plan out your career, what do you wanna do? Like in my department?

If I wanted to go be a canine or something like that, I mean, we just had one retire and pass away and then we did hire another canine, but that's like once every seven or eight years. You know, so like, do you wanna be a motor? Cause we only have one motor and that's not probably gonna ever happen here in Paso Vigo. Do you wanna be a canine? Maybe in a few years you could, but like, so there's departments that have those kinds of things. So plan out your career, figure out where you wanna go looks best for your family if you have that, if it's just you at that point. Just go do what you wanna do and have fun. And go to a place that's gonna be fun, flexible, whatever your morals and stuff are. When I came to Pacifica, the guys, I said, hey, I coach baseball, I coach whatever, soccer and stuff. My kids go to school here, and they go, you know what? Perfect, if you never need to pick up your kids, boom, you can go do that, you can go do that. In reality,

Now being short staff, it's not really real. But that's one of the things that I do like about working in my hometown is I'm close to my kids. If there's ever anything that happens at the school, I'm freaking there. Or I practice or something like that. Even on duty, I am there within two minutes. That's what I would say. Just dig into your different departments. Start early. And really f***.

Critical Aspects Podcast (31:36.066)

Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (32:00.382)

really know that if you're going to love, pick this career if you're going to love doing

Critical Aspects Podcast (32:06.942)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially the whole thing about starting early because I mean, you get somebody who starts off at 21, 22, and they put in 25 years, they're looking at retirement kind of where we're at right now in our age, right? And I don't know kind of where you're at, but I look at myself and I'm like, man, I'm probably not gonna retire for another 20 years. I don't know. It's just.

Rick Lechleitner (32:24.618)

Yeah, exactly.

Rick Lechleitner (32:33.986)

I mean, I look at myself and I go, I don't know if I could do that physically for the family. I'm 43 right now. I don't know how many more years I can go past 50. And so, I started at 37, that only puts me at 13 years. It drops down, I'm at 2.7% for 13 years, that's like 20, 30% of my salary. So it's just, it sucks because if you do want to hit those higher numbers in retirement and get a good pension, like you're going to have to work till you're 60, 65, 70 years old. Who the hell wants to do that? Because we all know, we all know the statistics about how long cops live after retirement. I mean, they told us that in the academy and it's not good. So like staying healthy, but that brings us back to all this stuff. Stay healthy mentally.

Critical Aspects Podcast (33:16.99)

Yeah. Well, but...

Oh yeah!

Rick Lechleitner (33:32.202)

Mentally fit, physically fit, and kind of figuring out your, planning out your career and your life because it is just a career and you have your life and so you got to see what's important.

Critical Aspects Podcast (33:45.398)

Yeah, I mean the average lifespan is, I want to say somewhere right around 59 years of age. You know, compared to, you know, the average citizen, which I think is right around 78, 79. So, you know, you look at that, but also that's very conducive to the profession, right, to the environment. So, with that, that's, is that, so tell us a little bit about the coffee company. Tell us a little bit about.

Blue Badge Coffee Company and kind of how that came about and the idea behind that and the purpose of that and what your mission is and what your goal is with the coffee company.

Rick Lechleitner (34:28.022)

Yeah, for sure. So, it all kind of works back into the beginning here. I was doing 75 hard and I was also going to a bunch of peer support stuff for the police department. I was going to peer support classes. I got nominated as our peer support officer by my peers, which is pretty nice. So, someone that they thought they could talk to at work. At the same time, my kids are saying certain things about, you know, maybe not being shot at work or if I wasn't coming home on time, if I was being held over, working overtime, whatever it was, you know, my daughter would wake up in the middle of the night and be like,

Critical Aspects Podcast (35:22.862)

But they're getting to that age, right? They're getting to the age where they're really starting to realize what you really do for a career. What your job really entails. I mean, when they're younger, it's all cool. You know, oh, you know, dad, mom, they work for a police department, they work for a sheriff's office. They do this, but when they start really realizing like, oh man, this is what they do. So yeah, that's a big thing, man.

Rick Lechleitner (35:30.335)

Exactly.

Rick Lechleitner (35:38.85)

Thank you.

Rick Lechleitner (35:50.37)

Totally, so that was going on and I'm like, I need to have some type of backup plan here, you know? So I was talking to people at work during coffee. We'd go out to coffee and we'd talk about different things and life goals and future profession goals and that kind of thing. And I'm like, it's right in front of my face. I'm doing peer support.

I love coffee, I'm drinking coffee with all these guys. And so I'm like, this is a cool thing for me to do. So I started researching and I looked up, you know, different police coffee companies around the country and I saw that there was like different ones that benefited fallen officers or families of fallen officers and stuff like that. And there's regional ones also that are all over the country, smaller regional ones but the big ones had either sold to police specifically and that was their clientele or they had a benefit to a fallen officer or something like that. But no one was doing anything for the officer that was active, the active duty police officer that needed help. No one was pushing for that. And I'm in the peer support thing and I'm doing physical wellness and doing all this stuff. I'm going through this program where I'm mentally strong, I'm confident, and I'm like, I could do this. I'm going to do this business.

So one morning I told my wife, I just made a logo with my cousin, and I go, I'm gonna go Instagram official, see what happens. And so I put the logo out on Instagram, coming soon on the bottom, and I got all this support. Boom, everyone just, where can I support you? How can I help you? Blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, oh my God, I'm just starting. It says coming soon, hold on one second. So then I started just getting on the horse and doing research.

uh... partnering finding partners you know i found a roaster in san francisco that was a blessing uh... she was the only one who really answered my call uh... and met up she's she dedicated a whole day to show me what she does and her product and really sold me and i sold her and i'm like listen i'm not i'm not just trying to be a little bit cheeky you know coffee guy he's trying to sell like a hundred

Rick Lechleitner (38:17.838)

I'm trying to be like one of the biggest coffee companies in the country like in the next 10 years. So you're going to jump on board and ride this wave with me or what? She's like, oh, I'm down. So she jumped on board and then I started. I hired a guy to build my website. I went down to Coffee Fest down in Anaheim and spent a couple grand down there learning coffee and did all that kind of stuff and started meeting peer support people and this and that and it just all started coming together. Pretty cool.

Critical Aspects Podcast (38:26.275)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (38:49.347)

Alright, so if somebody wants to support, somebody wants to buy coffee, how do they do that? How does that work?

Rick Lechleitner (38:55.791)

So right now I'm direct to consumer, which for me, as far as, because what I'm doing is, so I didn't even finish. So my niche is basically, I talked about how the other ones weren't doing it for peer support, so I am. So a portion of all my sales, whether it be coffee or merch, is going towards peer support and wellness for police officers. And by that I don't mean like, I'm not picking a certain foundation or this and that.

Critical Aspects Podcast (39:03.192)

Sorry.

Rick Lechleitner (39:24.234)

I'm slowly making my sales, collecting money, putting a portion of it away. What I eventually want to do is I want to have a fund to where agencies can contact me. They know. I ask for a grant basically. If they go through an OIS or if they're going through some stuff with their police officers or their cops are going through some family issues or suicidal thoughts or whatever it may be, they can call me and I can go, here's...$5,000 or $10,000 here. Let's help your police department. Let's help them with your peer support program. Let's get some wellness stuff going on in your police department. Let's do this. Let's talk to some therapists. Let's do that. Let's bring it all together. So my goal in the first three years is to donate a million dollars to agencies around the country once I get out here nationwide, around the country to help with their officers' peer support and wellness programs, physical and mental. Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (40:08.578)

Yeah, that's awesome.

Critical Aspects Podcast (40:21.942)

Dude, that's awesome. That's awesome. So, and I know that, yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (40:25.602)

So anyway, yeah, so you can buy my product. We're direct to consumer. I felt like that was the best way for me to go to maximize profit, to be able to donate as much as possible to these agencies and programs. Rather than buying shelf space and grocery stores and stuff as I'm growing organically on Instagram and organically through word of mouth, through family and friends and podcasts and stuff like that. And just getting my name and my product out there and my cause.

And so it's directing consumer, it's bluebatchcoffee.com. You go on there, you see my coffee, my merch, and like I said, I'm slowly adding more coffee, adding more merch, and just trying to get my logo and my brand out there as we speak.

Critical Aspects Podcast (41:09.806)

Okay, and so on Instagram, how can they reach you on Instagram? What's that? And I'll put all this in the show notes too, so they can just click and go to it. But if they wanna find you on Instagram, what do they go to?

Rick Lechleitner (41:17.451)

Yeah, for sure.

So on Instagram it's Blue Badge Coffee Company, at Blue Badge Coffee Company, and then on the website it's just bluebadgecoffee.com.

Critical Aspects Podcast (41:28.15)

Okay, and so what types of different coffee do you offer right now? Like you just offer just a handful or is there a couple different, you know?

Rick Lechleitner (41:36.515)

Yeah, so right now I offer a light roast, a medium roast, a dark roast, and then I did a specialty blend. It's a proprietary blend that I made. I did a tasting with some close friends when I was first starting. Selected a bunch of different variations of blends that I thought might taste good. We tasted them at my house and we came up with one that they gave me all these tasting notes and stuff. It was pretty cool. And they selected one that they liked and then I went on Instagram and I kind of reached out to my followers and said, what name should I do? And I kind of threw a few names out there on a survey and the rookie was the name that people liked. So my first blend is called the rookie and it's a good little blend. Ethiopia, Guatemala and Italian roast. And then I have a Costa Rica right now, which is my light roast.

Critical Aspects Podcast (42:15.16)

Okay.

Rick Lechleitner (42:30.326)

I have a Mexico bean, which is my medium roast. And then I have a, what I call France, it's the name of the coffee, it's a French roast. So those are my four that I have right now, light, medium, dark, and then the special.

Critical Aspects Podcast (42:45.79)

Okay, and do your light, medium, and dark, do they have any specific names, or is that just pretty much what it is? Just like a light?

Rick Lechleitner (42:53.826)

So actually it's funny that you say that. So I also went online on Instagram and kind of talked about, what should I name my light, medium and dark roasts? So my light roasts are in a category called day shift. My medium roasts are in a category called swing shift. And my dark roast is called graveyard. So I kind of did that with all the police profession, obviously. But yeah, no, my Costa Rica, the Costa Rica bean that I have is called Costa Rica and that's my light roast.

Critical Aspects Podcast (43:12.075)

Okay.

Critical Aspects Podcast (43:23.499)

Okay.

Rick Lechleitner (43:23.766)

The Mexican bean that I got is called Mexico, and that's my medium roast, and then the French roast is my dark. And they're all on there right now. I will be releasing four more soon here within the next couple weeks, right in time for the holidays and stuff. So we'll have eight coffees out there, which would be nice to choose from.

Critical Aspects Podcast (43:30.923)

Okay.

Critical Aspects Podcast (43:42.526)

Okay, and what, so what's kind of the going price right now if somebody wants to buy your coffee? I mean, they can jump online, they can see, but just kind of give them a quick little overview.

Rick Lechleitner (43:54.602)

Yeah, for sure. So I was kind of, what I'm doing is I'm going with organic beans, fair trade, chemical free, you know, premium stuff. So I'm not priced on the lower end, but I'm not priced on the super high end either. You can find coffee for $6.99 a pound or you can find coffee for, shoot, nowadays with

Rick Lechleitner (44:24.418)

The majority of them are between $6.99 and $25. Since I'm a premium brand with the organic, the fair trade, the no chemicals, all that kind of stuff, I'm right at $20. I priced myself at $20 a pound. That's all my coffees together. I averaged out the cost between all the different beans and just did a flat $20 per pound for my beans.

Critical Aspects Podcast (44:39.638)

Okay.

Critical Aspects Podcast (44:50.143)

But it's coffee, like you said, it's coffee with a purpose, right?

Rick Lechleitner (44:53.182)

And that's another thing is it's coffee with a purpose. So you're getting a premium brand coffee, but you're also knowing that a portion of every single bag that you buy is going to a pretty good cause, especially if you support police and their families. Peer support and wellness, whether it be, like I said, mental or physical, getting out there and getting these guys mentally and physically fit and keeping them that way is super important, not just for us and our families but for our communities, having a well-rounded, mentally fit and physically fit cop on the streets is good for our communities, right? So it's gonna be, it's good for everybody. If you can't get behind that, man, I don't know what to tell ya.

Critical Aspects Podcast (45:30.943)

Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (45:39.154)

then we could say all kinds of things but we'll refrain right? I haven't got canceled yet so let's not get there. No man I appreciate it sounds awesome what you're doing and I'm gonna have to jump on there and kind of you get so I love coffee myself so I'm definitely gonna pick up some of your coffee and as far as your merch what do you guys got t-shirts hats things like that

Rick Lechleitner (45:41.898)

Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (45:47.391)

Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (46:03.25)

Yeah, so I just got these shirts. I'm about to put them on my website today or tomorrow. I do have hats on there. I don't know if you guys... So I did the shirts through Bella and Canvas and also through American Apparel, another company that's America First. My hats are branded Bills. I don't know if you've heard of them. They do a lot of the American flag hats and stuff. So I went through them for the hats and I actually just ordered beanies for the winner. I have...

Critical Aspects Podcast (46:23.746)

Yep.

Rick Lechleitner (46:33.338)

These tumblers, 16, 12, and 12 ounce tumblers, they're through a company called Welly out of Pennsylvania and super hard to find a made in America tumbler these days. I don't know if you know, but like China has all the technology for these type of tumblers. So even Yeti, the famous Yeti that we all love for our coolers, their tumblers are made in China. So this company.

Right now they're made in China, but they are breaking ground on an American manufacturing plant starting in 2024. So I'm super excited to pump them up and eventually have tumblers made in America too. So yeah, right now hats and tumblers in my coffee. I have mugs, ceramic mugs that are made in America here in Washington. I'm going to get the shirts on there, sweatshirts, beanies. So we're going to, we're going to, we're going to.

Critical Aspects Podcast (47:08.45)

Good, awesome.

Rick Lechleitner (47:28.718)

We're doing a bunch of cool stuff.

Critical Aspects Podcast (47:30.234)

Awesome. That sounds great. So hey, if you want to support law enforcement, you want to support Blue Batch Coffee Company and for it to go to a good cause, you get on there and buy some coffee, right? Buy some merch. Because if you don't, obviously if you don't, you don't love cops and you don't love America, right? That's what we want, right? We want to support law enforcement. We want to promote law enforcement. And obviously we want to support and promote America because that's a

Rick Lechleitner (47:43.527)

Yeah

Critical Aspects Podcast (47:59.438)

That's a cool thing to do.

Rick Lechleitner (48:00.974)

Support law enforcement, support local business, small business, yes, and support America, America first, and that's what I'm all about for sure.

Critical Aspects Podcast (48:10.054)

Awesome. So I've got, as we kind of come to a close, I got two more questions. One of them is gonna be kind of just a tag in there, but if there's somebody right now who's just dealing with a lot of stuff and they're kind of at that point where they're just, they're done, right? Maybe they're just, they're ready to call it. Maybe they're suicidal. What would you say to them?

Rick Lechleitner (48:14.319)

Okay. Yes.

Rick Lechleitner (48:34.638)

Call somebody, call a friend, just talk to somebody, because sitting there in your thoughts alone is not the place to be. A lot of people call, a lot of people aren't there, and they're calling because they want the attention or whatever, but there are the people that are actually serious, and they're about to do something like that.

But you make that one call and that one call can make a difference in your life. Another thing is, and this is a company that I work with, with my company. They're a cop in Daly City actually started this company. It's called the Overwatch Collective. And they work with veterans, cops, firefighters, first responders, but they have paid for however many thousands of dollars in therapy sessions for police officers, firefighters, first responders, out of their company, that's what they do. So it's a great partner of mine. And so there's companies like that though, all over the country that are there to help you. And so I just say, please reach out because man, we don't need another lost officer, law enforcement officer or first responder. It's not a good staff.

Critical Aspects Podcast (49:35.15)

And it's awesome.

Critical Aspects Podcast (49:55.426)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you, you know, there's a lot of people out there that, you know, they're dealing with a lot of things, they're struggling. You know, I think the biggest thing is, is letting them know they're not alone, right? They're not alone, like, you are not alone in this, and there's our people that are wanting to help you. There's people, there's resources that are available, and just make use of them. Yeah.

Rick Lechleitner (50:17.378)

There is, like not all of us have family, like family outside of our departments or our agencies, but we do have family inside our agencies. And you might not think like that, but there are people that love you inside our agencies, outside our agencies, wherever, our friends. So just please reach out. You're not alone, like I said, for sure.

Critical Aspects Podcast (50:42.018)

Yeah, yep. So reach out and then lastly, man, before we close, so as you kind of look back at, you know, Blue Badge Coffee Company, your career, and just where you're at right now, how much has your faith played into that?

Rick Lechleitner (50:57.318)

For sure, a lot. God has a plan for us. I'm here for a reason. I've gone through so many ups and downs in my life, whether it be family, work, relationships, whatever it may be, financially. But he put me in those situations because he knew I can get through. I have. I've worked my ass off to do a lot of good things.

I put a lot of good time into my police department and my community to change. But now that I'm here, I went through this program and I'm here building this company, this is a way for me to make not just a change in my local community here in Pacifica, which I love and I cherish, but when I get this thing going to where I want it to be, I'm going to make a difference in this country for police departments everywhere and he put me here for a reason. So it's going to happen. It's going to be good.

Critical Aspects Podcast (51:53.73)

Awesome. Well, Rick, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate what you're doing through Blue Bash Coffee Company. Man, continue pushing forward, continue helping people out, and man, I love what you're doing.

Rick Lechleitner (52:06.474)

I appreciate you in critical aspects and having me on the podcast just to give me a platform. You're doing great things too and I really, really appreciate it. It was an awesome time.

Critical Aspects Podcast (52:15.406)

Thanks man, I appreciate it. We'll talk to you later.

Rick Lechleitner (52:17.458)

Okay, have a good one.

Critical Aspects Podcast (52:19.362)

See ya.