Frontline Optics: Optics with A Purpose

In this episode, Mike Ettenberg, founder of Frontline Optics and former firefighter, shares his journey from the fire service to entrepreneurship. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining physical fitness and healthy habits to support overall well-being. Mike also discusses the impact of traumatic calls on first responders and the need for open conversations and support systems. He highlights the need for agencies to prioritize mental health and provide resources for their personnel. He also highlights the mission of Frontline Optics, which is to provide durable and affordable sunglasses for first responders while giving back to the community.

Takeaways

• Maintaining physical fitness and healthy habits is crucial for overall well-being as a first responder.
• Open conversations and support systems are essential for addressing the impact of traumatic calls on first responders.
• Agencies should prioritize mental health and provide resources to support their personnel.
• Managing various aspects of life as a first responder, such as finances, emotions, and critical incidents, is crucial for overall well-being.
• Self-care, including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, is vital for first responders to effectively support others.
• Open and honest communication with spouses or partners is key to maintaining healthy relationships and managing the challenges of the first responder profession.

Frontline Optics Website

IG:@frontlineoptics

Transcript

Critical Aspects Podcast (00:01.954)

All right, welcome back to Critical Aspects of Law Enforcement. I'm your host, Vernon Phillips. And today on the show, we've got a special guest. We've got Mike. I'm going turn it over to Mike. I'm going let him introduce himself. Just give us a little background on who he is, kind of what he's done and where he is now. And then we'll dive into some conversations. Mike.

Mike Ettenberg (00:22.243)

What's up, Yeah, so my name's Mike Ettenberg. I'm the founder of Frontline Optics. I spent a little over 10 years in fire and EMS during that time. I love really every minute of it. And I found myself, interestingly enough, starting to collect sunglasses while I was working, seeing as our uniforms pretty much got everything already picked out for us. The only real style items we can get is a wristwatch and some sunglasses. So I started to collect those.

And as you know, know, life, life code three, things happen, things happen fast. And I was just breaking, scratching, losing glasses left and right, 200 bucks a pop left and right. And so I started looking into developing manufacturing sunglasses myself. Took a couple of years for it really just kind of take off. And once it did, I realized I kind of had something and it was growing pretty fast and I had to make a choice as to whether or not I was going to stay in the fire service, which had been great to me, but was very challenging on the family or to kind of move into this new venture that had opened its door for me, which allowed me to spend more time with my wife, my kids, and, you know, ultimately a different kind of lifestyle balance. So I went full speed, frontline optics in October of 2022, and I haven't looked back since.

Critical Aspects Podcast (01:44.134)

That's awesome. So there's a lot there we want to jump into and cover, but before we kind of get into frontline optics, which is kind of obviously where you're at now, but let's kind of backtrack to your fire service. So how long were you in the fire service?

Mike Ettenberg (02:01.731)

So I started as a reserve firefighter in 2012 and then till till 2022.

Critical Aspects Podcast (02:10.15)

So yeah, good 10 years. so obviously over the 10 years, there's probably a lot of things that you had been exposed to yourself and also along with your fellow firefighters. So what is something that you did then, but also even now that you put in place to just maintain your overall physical, mental, emotional, spiritual wellbeing?

Mike Ettenberg (02:35.551)

fitness. I mean, you, you've got to, and you don't have to go crazy with it. You know, you don't have to be like some CrossFit guru guy, but as long as you're doing something every single day to get your body moving, get your mind right. I I've noticed a huge difference in my life since making, you know, a dedication to, to that, that side of things. Even now, you know, with fire service, it was a lot easier. We had designated time as long as a call didn't come in. So.

The whole crew was working out together at specific times of the day. Now, obviously setting my own schedule. If I miss a few days of exercise, I can like feel it in my mindset. Stress kind of hits a little bit harder. You you just don't handle things as well and literally just getting out, moving around, even if it's, you know, I'm not necessarily gonna say walk, cause I don't think walks are exercise, but maybe a fast one up a hill, you know, or a little jog around the block, just something to get your heart rate up.

It does leaps and bounds for everything and the other facets of your life.

Critical Aspects Podcast (03:37.67)

Yeah, think definitely getting out and getting moving and being physically active is important. I mean, I know you've got a family, I know you've got a little one, so I know that keeps you pretty active and running and gunning all the time. If it's anything like my household, it is constant chaos all the time. yeah. So it's just always something going on. Somebody's, you know.

Mike Ettenberg (03:57.813)

Accurate, very accurate.

Critical Aspects Podcast (04:05.094)

Messing with somebody else or terrorizing the dog. They're terrorizing the house there you get everything picked up and they come through and they dump everything out So I mean just just that keeps you physically active. But on top of that if you try to do anything at home, it's exercise related or being physically active then that also gets incorporated into because If your kids are anything like mine I mean if I'm out in the garage trying to get a workout in my boys Want to be out there with me?

They're four and two and they don't want to just be out there. They want to be in the mix. They want to be on the treadmill. They want to be lifting some dumbbells or something that I'm like, hey, you're going to smash your toe. Something's going to transpire there that you're end up with an emergency room visit. This is probably something that you've experienced too, but I was in there last week and I was trying to get a workout in and

So my four year old, I'll let him on the treadmill kind of just do a walk. It's at like half a mile, right? So he's just like slowly, and he gets frustrated because he wants to go faster. So he says, hey, I got an idea. So he goes over and he gets his little ride on tractor and he says, I'm going to put this on the treadmill. I'm like, no, that's a terrible idea. He's like, no, it's going to be good. He's like, it's going to make it go by itself. I'm like, that's not how it's going to work.

So I didn't let him do that obviously because he was going to end up in the garage door. So I'm sure that you have some stories like that too with your kids probably trying to incorporate them into your workout somehow.

Mike Ettenberg (05:41.955)

100%, 100%. And sometimes, I mean, it's just one of those things that you gotta do, right? So if it means getting a workout in that's maybe not quite to the same level as you normally would, but keeps the kids involved, keeps them happy, it is what it is. Anytime I get down in the pushup position, all my kids jump down as well. And no, they're not pushups, right? What they're doing, but at least they're kinda going through the motions, trying to figure it out.

Critical Aspects Podcast (06:05.434)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (06:10.711)

You know, it's instilling that value in them, right? Like if you're fat and lazy, your kids are gonna be fat and lazy. If you take fitness as something that, you know, is a priority in life, it's gonna be a priority in life for them and that's gonna, you know, serve them well into the future. So incorporate them, incorporate them as best you can in everything.

Critical Aspects Podcast (06:25.67)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and it can be frustrating. mean, I'm sure you find it to be frustrating because I even find it frustrating sometimes because you're like you want to get out there you want to get a quick burner in. But with kids, it's never it's never quick. So it you got to kind of incorporate them somehow. So, yes, obviously, fitness is is a big important aspect to me to just kind of relieve stress, to kind of get that

Mike Ettenberg (06:46.327)

Yup. Yup.

Critical Aspects Podcast (06:55.334)

Just kind of defunk a little bit. So when you start looking back over your career, before we kind of get into the frontline optics portion of it, but when you look back over your career, if you're willing to share like, was one of the most significant calls that you kind of walked through and then how did you get yourself on the other side of that?

Mike Ettenberg (07:17.187)

So it's funny enough, one of the most significant calls, like guess mental trauma related that I'd ever gone through, I didn't realize how much it affected me until much later. So we went on a hanging and I was still pretty young at that point. I was an EMT, I wasn't yet a paramedic. And we saw the call come in and it was like, you know, I gotta get there first, right? So driving like crazy. Cause you're stupid when you're young, right? Like you wanna see all the the nasty stuff, right? You want to get in there and it's not until you see it and you realize kind of the damage that it can do long -term. So, you know, obviously we got there. We found out a lot of backstory on this person. You know, unfortunately, you know, he, he had offed himself hanging and left a note for his son not to go into the back room to just call 911 essentially. And so the kid of course went to the back room and was the one who found, found his dad there.

Critical Aspects Podcast (07:54.399)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (08:16.835)

And, you know, I got there and again, I was young. didn't really seem like that big a deal other than, you know, it was uncomfortable, I guess, to look at. But it wasn't until like five years later where I was trying to sleep and all of sudden that guy's face like popped up in, you know, and it was like, no, I don't want to go to the point of saying haunting me, but like the fact that this thing that I hadn't thought about in five years just randomly like came back. Right. And so,

You know, it's one of those things where you can focus on it or find a way to kind of heal from it. For me, I talk, you know, I'm a talker. I don't hold things back. So when that started to happen, you know, I talked to guys on the crew. I talked with my wife who thankfully she was an emergency room nurse. So at the time now she's labor and delivery, but she, she's seen her fair share of things as well. And it allows the two of us to be able to use each other as a coping mechanism to talk about the things that we saw because we both can comprehend it and digest it unlike the general public who is just much too much for them. that was really how I got through it. I never really had one where I walked into the call and then walking out, was like immediate baggage. It was calls that obviously came back later as I got a little further into my career, as I got a little more tired, I guess you could say and the burnout kind of started to set in. That was when you get like the, you know, the cracks in your armor and those little things start to like get in there and kind of loosen things up, I guess you can say from that compartmentalization that you do, you know, for the years prior. But yeah, talking, talking through it, digesting it, not hiding from it, just kind of getting out in front of it has always helped me to move on and move forward.

Critical Aspects Podcast (09:47.162)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (10:12.358)

Yeah, mean talking is important thing, but like you said, it's that cumulative build up over the years, right? So it might not be, you know, that first initial incident that you were on that kind of, you know, puts you over that point, but it's, you know, could be five years into your career. Like you were saying 10 years in 15 years in, and you know, you just walk in and it's the same, the same scene, same situation all over again. And then for whatever reason, right. It just kind of floods everything back. All the other ones that were just like that one, you know, now are there and you're dealing with everything at once because it's that cumulative buildup. It's not just, you know, that that one and done. It's not even just that. It's also even anything from your childhood that, you know, that now is being brought up into where you're at now because it's just that cumulative buildup to where you've just pushed everything down or, you know, stowed everything or kind of just, hey, tossed it back. But then

Everything comes up at once. So instead of dealing with it one at a time, right now you're left to deal with a whole myriad of them all at once. So I think it's vital and huge that you even say, you know, talking about it, because that is something that historically first responders are not good at, right? Is talking about, you know, the critical is talking about the trauma and talking about things that are bothering them. But

Mike Ettenberg (11:18.999)

All of it at once. Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (11:39.614)

That's one of the reasons why I do this and we kind of go through the format that we do is because if others can hear other people talk about it and share their experiences and kind of how they've walked through it and how they've gotten on their side, then maybe it'll encourage them to then share and not hold all this stuff in to where at one point, it's all just going to come flooding out or that door is going to fly open or that lid is going to pop and then you're left with

larger situation than if you just kind of hey, let's process everything You know as it comes and take that emotional fuse out and deal with it and then move on So talking at yeah

Mike Ettenberg (12:19.275)

It's definitely the way, and it's exactly how you said it. always describe it as everyone's born with a bucket, right? Everyone's bucket is different size and everything that you see from childhood on is a drop into that bucket. Some people's bucket never overflows and I'm jealous of those people. They're able to handle anything that ever comes their way and they just move on with their life and it's fantastic. But for most of us, eventually, that bucket's going to fill up and it could be in one year, it could be in five years, could be in 10, 15, 20, you know, but like you said, as soon as that bucket does overflow, the floodgates are open at that point. And that's when we start dealing with people with suicides and all these other issues and substance abuse issues and just these things that kind of haunt our, you know, our community. And a lot of that does come from not managing that bucket and doing what you can to kind of limit your exposure.

Critical Aspects Podcast (13:19.44)

Yeah, mean, especially in the first responder realm, especially on the law enforcement side, mean, depending on what kind of call it is, if it's particularly interesting call or potentially hot call or whatever, everybody's going to come to that. But it doesn't mean just because you come to that doesn't mean you got to go and subject yourself to whatever it is, especially if it happens to be like a really bad suicide where you know, somebody's really just blown off top of their head and know, a bunch of other people show up and they're like, hey, you gotta come in here see this. You know, it's like, you don't need to go in and see it, right? You don't need to go in and subject yourself to that. You don't need to go in there and introduce that into your life when there's just not a need for it. mean, hey, if you're the first one on scene, you've, that's the card you drew and you gotta deal with it. You gotta...you handle that call and then but then you can process it afterwards but that's thing is processing it afterwards and talking about if it is kind of a stuck point for you but like you said a lot of times we just kind of continue on and you know we just let that bucket fill up and never take the time to stop and just kind of empty it out every once in a while and say hey let's you know let's just just kind of dump some of this out and get moving forward

Mike Ettenberg (14:45.027)

Well, you hit a good point there too. mean, I had a captain who was fantastic and we would have these calls, right? And you need to have a medic a lot of times go in and just officially pronounce that this person is gone. And it was obvious, PD was usually there first and they would let us know what it was. And the captain would just stop the whole crew at the door and just send the one guy, whoever was the unlucky one, you could say at that moment, who's gonna be the paramedic of record for that call to go in.

they'll deal with the trauma of it, they'll see it, they'll put their name on the paperwork to pronounce and go out and saves the other three members from the crew from having to be exposed to that one more drop in the bucket. So for all of you listening who are in leadership positions, keep that in mind. That's a huge thing you can do to protect your people.

Critical Aspects Podcast (15:24.539)

Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (15:33.498)

Yeah, no, that's a great point too. mean, you don't have to subject yourself to that or subject your people to that, then don't. They're gonna be subject to enough things already, so don't give them anything extra that they don't need to have, absolutely. So you touched on something real quick there when you said, you brought up the word suicide.

And we start looking at the first responder community, obviously, we know that suicide is an issue, It's kind of a hot button topic. It's kind of a, some people want to talk about, some people don't. Some people don't want to acknowledge the fact that for law enforcement, more law enforcement officers die as a result of suicide than any other means.

So I'm pretty sure it's like that in the fire world as well. And when we look at that and I see the numbers and the numbers stay pretty consistent every year. For me personally, I think there's two reasons for it. think, and I share this all the time is I think that it's because people get to the point where they just feel completely isolated. They feel like they're all alone and that nobody else is experiencing what they're going through.

And that also the devil's a liar right and he's gonna capitalize on that hopelessness and despair You know, he's gonna feed that that lie that they are by themselves and they are alone when the truth is they're not It may seem like that in the moment in that situation but there's a lot of of other first responders that are there willing to help willing to talk to anybody But it's like alright. So how do we get?

How do we bridge that gap? And I talked about this in one of the last episodes. Like, all right, so we've got all these resources. We've got all these people that want to talk to somebody who's in need, but how do we bridge that gap? Now, how do we get the individual who's in crisis, who's at that point to then make use of the resources and reach out and pick up the phone or, you know, or text somebody or just make use of that resource? So that's kind of where we're at now. I think as a first responder community is like, hey, how do we bridge this gap?

Critical Aspects Podcast (17:48.356)

Between the resources we have available and people making use of them.

Mike Ettenberg (17:54.595)

Yeah, I mean, the first thing is the stigma, which I feel like they're doing a better job now of identifying that mental health is a problem. It is something that we should focus on and kind of keep the idea that we're too macho, right, to have these feelings out of the picture, which, you know, 10 years ago, that wasn't the case, right? You would be told to tough it up, you know? Put your big boy pants on and get to work.

Versus they're like, all right, let's like have a critical incident stress debriefing after this gnarly call. Does anyone need to go home for the shift and we can call someone else in? were so much more understanding, but even then we're still behind the eight ball, right? We're still trying to play catch up. There's a lot of resources out there. I know there's one that I've heard of. And so I don't want to like butcher it too much. Cause I don't know that all the details, but it's called I think Saddles for Service or Saddles and Service out here in San Diego and they take first responders out and basically teach them to maintain horses and then ride horses. And it's this opportunity to just do something so significantly different while caring for another animal. And it kind of takes the ability to take out whatever it is that you've got inside you and now care for this other like beautiful animal essentially from like all aspects of it and then go for a ride. So,

Critical Aspects Podcast (19:13.467)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (19:17.795)

You know, there's a lot of kind of third party resources now that are popping up and kind of helping to bridge that gap. And, you know, I'm hopeful that, you know, in the next 10 years that we'll, finally be ahead of that eight ball and start to, you know, fix these problems before they really arise.

Critical Aspects Podcast (19:36.752)

Yeah, and you said something there that I thought was very interesting because I think that it's something that some agencies do really well at and some don't. But you said, after a particular, you know, critical answer, whatever, saying, hey, look, do we need to circle up and kind of talk about this or does anybody kind of need to, you know, go home for the rest of this shift? A lot of times that doesn't happen. That's not an option, right? Where somebody

They're involved in a particularly, let's say it's a bad critical incident. And then after that, they go right back to shift, right? Or maybe they've got to come right back in the next day because they've got to finish out their tour. And I think that there's some agencies that are getting better at that, know, with depending on the situation, depending on the incident and just how significant it is. But then I think a lot of times it's just call after call after call after call.

And it's just like I said, like we talked about earlier, it's just that cumulative buildup and you never get that opportunity just to stop and kind of go, okay, let's kind of walk that last one back. It's just a lot of times you don't get that opportunity. It's just all the, you're just going, going, going all the time.

Mike Ettenberg (20:50.317)

Yeah, I was definitely fortunate enough to work for an agency that was very progressive in that sense. And so through the majority of my career, I had those resources available. And when we did have those calls, that team would either be spun up or it would be, if it was like a borderline call, it would be posed as an option. Does anyone feel like they need this? And at least in our group, there was no ego when those types of situations did happen. If one person on the crew felt like they needed it.

It would come for everybody, Chaplain and the whole bit. So it's nice to see. hope that more agencies can get behind it. It's an investment in your people.

Critical Aspects Podcast (21:31.13)

Yeah, and that's good. And that's what it is. It's investing in your people, you know, just so that they are the best that they can be. You know, that's what you want. You want them to be going out there and serving the community and be at, you know, at that optimal peak performance for them to go out and do that job effectively and efficiently. And if they're just weighed down, whether it's, you know, whether it's physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, if they've got something that they're dealing with and there's a lot of baggage there, then they're not going to be at the optimal peak performance to perform their duties and to be effective not only for the community, but for their coworkers, right? Their peers that are there with them, that are side by side working through these calls with them. So I think that's huge. so as we, I want to kind of transition out of that until like, know, kind of try to lighten up a little bit. So what is, as you look back on your career, what is one of the most awkward or funniest calls for service that you'd that you dealt with. I'm sure you've got a couple.

Mike Ettenberg (22:32.227)

Yeah, know, anytime that like a dildo or something like that comes out on a call is always pretty entertaining for everybody. I once, had, was right after marijuana was legalized in California and we had a bunch of doctors and we didn't know what was wrong. We came in, there was this one guy as pale as a ghost on the ground. Everyone was like very like talkative, trying to be helpful, but you couldn't really understand what anyone was trying to tell you. But they were all trying to act smart. You know, it was a bunch of doctors. This guy's like soaking wet on the ground. We assumed like completely diaphoretic, like he's, you know, just sweating. Find out later that the guy was just, just high out of his mind. And they thought to like make him feel better to have him lay down on the floor and they would dump water on top of him before calling 911.

So I don't know, that one always was just like, it was pretty entertaining. if you're a medic, any medics or even EMTs here that are listening have idea of like cardiac monitors. One of the doctors, as we kept on coming out, was telling us that his friend was sinus tach at the radial site. And sinus tach is like a rhythm that you see on a monitor. It's not something that you feel. So just the fact that this guy was like, again, trying to be like a doctor and trying to sound smart, but was so out of his element, that he was just throwing these words out there. It was pretty entertaining once we figured out what was going on.

Critical Aspects Podcast (23:57.702)

That is pretty funny. So what is some advice you'd give to those who just coming into the career?

Mike Ettenberg (24:08.259)

So maintain healthy habits early. So what you eat, get good sleep, get a good exercise routine in, basically invest in your body so that your body can serve you into the future. that would be, you know, number one, number two is, know, you're, you're going to hear from everybody how, awesome these jobs are. Right. they're not that awesome. Do I love the job? Absolutely. But.

I wish that I had been a little bit more prepared for the negatives that came along with it. So our families take a huge hit because we want to have these jobs, right? These service jobs. Well, we serve a community and that means that that's time away from our own families. And when you're young, especially, you know, a lot of us getting involved in this right out of high school, you know, or fresh out of college, we don't have a concept of family yet, you know?

And so no one tells you, or when they do tell you, I should say, that you're gonna miss weddings, you're gonna miss birthdays, you're like, whatever, you know, like I'll stack my days and then I'll get a bunch of days off and I'll just make up for it on the back end. Well, that works when it's just like you and a spouse potentially, you know, if your spouse works a flexible schedule. I mean, it's really challenging and creates a lot of issues at home. Child care becomes a huge issue.

And yet my wife, she's a shift worker. She works 7 a to 7 p at the hospital. There's not daycare that's open from 7 a to 7 p So managing that, having babysitters come early who can then drive your kid over to daycare and then pick them up from daycare and stay at the house until 8 p when you come home and you see them for like five minutes before, and all while your husband, me, in this situation is gone for 48.

Critical Aspects Podcast (25:53.755)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (25:58.499)

To 96 hours just completely. That's hard. It's hard on the family. It's hard on the kids. They don't understand. So I wish that somebody maybe put a little more time and energy and effort into kind of really laying the foundation of what it is that the sacrifice that you will be having as things go on instead of just hearing like greatest job in the world, which it is, right? It is, but not without a significant amount of baggage. And I left, right?

Critical Aspects Podcast (26:27.45)

Yeah, yeah, no, and we're gonna get to that, but I think you're right. think that there is, it is, being a first responder is a call, right? It's a call to go and serve your community. And there's a lot of really nice shiny things about it. And that's what gets promoted, right? The nice shiny things, kind of like the old dangling dollar bill.

And it's like, hey, come do this job. It's the greatest job in the world. And that may be true, but even the greatest job in the world comes with the really bad days. And when you have a really bad day in the first responder community, it's a really bad day. not just, you go to work and the copier machine is down and now you can't print whatever it is. when you're first responder and it's a bad day,

Yeah, it's generally a pretty bad day. So and that's what we don't. I think that that's I think we're getting better, right? With the onboarding of people and saying, hey, look, yeah, this this is all the shiny parts about it. But then here's some of the stuff you don't get to see and you don't hear about in how it's going to impact you and how that hey, if you don't put things in place early on, like you said, like, hey, put good, healthy strategies in place early on.

Five years from now, statistically, you're not going to be the same person you were when you started. And that's with your family, your friends, your coworkers, the job is going to change you. But it's up to you how much you allow that to change you based on the things you set up and put in place early on to keep you from getting to that place where you're burned out or to keep you from just that cumulative build up to where

One day you just say, you know, you just implode or you just say F it and here we go. So that's, that's where, you know, I think we're getting a little bit better. think we could do better. So.

Mike Ettenberg (28:31.339)

Be interesting if they could put like a class in, you know, like in, whether it be an Academy or, know, nowadays a lot of people go through a fire science program, which also includes an Academy. So fire world, right? I'm not law enforcement. So I don't necessarily know, you know, your guys side of the house, but you know, a second responders over here. we've got a little bit more of a, an educational process and in that educational process, if they could interject a class that was like a consequences class, right? Where you go in and you hear about,

All those things and maybe that with those things come tools as to how you can correct them, but how you can better manage your house, right? How you can better manage your finances, how you can better manage the emotional toll that a critical incident like all of these things so that at least for like a good few hours out of your education, you are truly hit with the take the dangling carrot away and let's look at, you know, the stuff that will change you, right? The stuff that will make

Critical Aspects Podcast (29:08.443)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (29:31.551)

Mike Ettenberg be different than Mike Ettenberg was yesterday? Yeah, that would be amazing if it could happen.

Critical Aspects Podcast (29:38.992)

Yeah, and I'm pretty fortunate because I'm able to kind of do that with, through our regular in -service training, and I talk a lot about this and I call it critical aspects. And that's kind of the whole idea behind critical aspects of law enforcement and critical aspects, the nonprofit is like, hey, we're going to talk about the critical aspects of the profession. The things that impact you, the things that change who you are.

Right? you know, change you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The critical aspects, the critical components of the profession that really take a toll on you as an individual. So, you know, that's what we talk about. We talk about, hey, you know, stress, how that affects you and how critical incidents affect you and how trauma affects you and just, you know, how that may develop into PTSD, depression, anxiety, right? And how oftentimes in the first responder community, how do we deal with the trauma that we're going through or we're struggling with or how do we deal with our demons? Well, most of the time it's alcohol, right? And is it a coping strategy? Yeah, it's not a very healthy one. So I think we're getting better, but hopefully it just continues to progress as we go along. So obviously, you've shifted from you know, the first responder world into the business world. And that was a very strategic move for you, I'm sure. There's probably a lot of time spent in that, you know, a lot of decisions, a lot of, you know, just conversations between you and your wife and just say, what's the pros and cons, the benefits to this? So you kind of hit on it a little bit when we did the intro. So let's kind of jump into that a little bit more in detail transition from you know the fire world into frontline optics and Just your your whole mission behind that

Mike Ettenberg (31:44.245)

Yeah, absolutely. So, again, launched the brand. had no intention when launching the brand to leave the fire service. It was always just going to be something I did on the side and tried to grow it up slowly, I guess you could say. We're in the height of COVID during this time. So staffing was a nightmare. We're in California. We dealt with a couple of individuals in a small department, I should say, a two -station department. But we had a couple of guys leave the state.

We had a couple of people retired. We had somebody go out on a long -term mental health type situation. And so the staffing levels were dropped, but just because the levels dropped didn't mean that we couldn't not have people on the fire engine. So we just picked up. Yep. Yeah, exactly.

Critical Aspects Podcast (32:25.594)

Yeah, mean, calls for service stayed the same, So now your short staff, but calls of service are still there. So yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (32:33.187)

Yep, so we're working five, six, seven days in a row, get one, maybe two days off, work another five, six, seven days in a row. The longest stint that I did was 11 days in a row. It was crazy, right? So with all of that, I'm suffering severe burnout. The business is starting to grow. And now I'm finally seeing this crossroads for the first time where it's, okay, if I were to be able to give the business the energy that it needs, it could really go somewhere and could better myself financially than what I'm doing right now. Allow me more time with my kids, which I'm completely missing them growing up. Allow more time with my wife, because the two of us, you know, it was like, you know, we would never see each other. And when we did, I was so tired. It was, I wanted to go and sleep and then wake up to get ready to go to work again. So it was, it wasn't very healthy. So it kind of helped almost to make that transition possible in my mind and it hit a point. I was told that I was gonna be going to work for 11 days in a row and it was like this kind of like snapping moment for me where I'd already been kind of toying with the idea and I said, you know what? I'm done. I went into the chief's office. I'd already talked to him a few months or a month or so prior that I was thinking about leaving and his first thing he said to me is, before you say anything,

Critical Aspects Podcast (33:44.859)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (33:56.035)

look at all these guys that we're about to hire. And I was like, well, you know, the group's really going to like that. You should probably add one more person in that list. cause it's going to be my two week notice. And, and that was it. And October of 2022, I ended up walking away focusing on, on frontline full time. And then, I teach now as well. So I'm teaching EMT and paramedic. So I'm helping to bring up the next generation, kind of teach them the things that I've learned kind of past the torch. You could say, well, I, you know, move on to.

Critical Aspects Podcast (33:58.0)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (34:25.729)

You know, other other ventures.

Critical Aspects Podcast (34:29.21)

Yeah, that's good because if you're teaching, you can be a mentor to those coming in. So how has this changed? How has this changed, just kind of like family dynamics and home life switching from the fire service world into business world with frontline optics?

Mike Ettenberg (34:48.163)

So it was hard at first, being home so much when you're used to being away and kind of self pacing your day and then going into, you know, stay at home dad basically for a bit is a bit of a transition. Sleep was challenging at first, cause I was so used to getting woken up in the middle of the night that if I heard the baby crying, I would like, would wake up and it was like, I was immediately adrenaline shot, right, firing on all cylinders, because that's what used to happen as I was going going to work, right. And so learning how to adapt to that was was definitely a challenge. But but as I have now, I mean, I've got a nice routine. I'm in my house right now, right in my home office, I can work from here, I can go down and have lunch with the kids, I can go out and take them for a walk and

Critical Aspects Podcast (35:18.565)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (35:40.269)

I don't miss baseball games and jujitsu and any of that stuff, right? I get to be a very present dad. And we go on a ton of vacations, a ton of camping, because again, if I got my laptop with me, I can work. So I can work from pretty much anywhere. And it gives us the opportunity to really take advantage of working around the kids' schedules and giving them the most experience we possibly can and just being the most present father that I can to make up for the years that I wasn't really around.

Critical Aspects Podcast (36:06.79)

Yeah, and think that that's a huge thing. why is it so important for you? And this is kind of a curveball question, but why is it so important for you to be a present father? Because that might be a term in the first responder community that maybe can kind of touch a nerve with some people or kind of hits home.

Mike Ettenberg (36:34.539)

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm sorry if I struck a nerve, right? But reality is reality. So let's face it, kids whose parents aren't around get into trouble. They tend to lash out. They tend to have some like anger problems. tend to, you know, they just don't have a male role model in the home to show them how to act, how to be, right? And then...

Critical Aspects Podcast (36:41.005)

It is,

Mike Ettenberg (37:02.645)

In addition to that, with a spouse that also works, a lot of times they're not with either of their parents and it's not the greatest dynamic for emotional growth, I would say. It's the nature of the beast and by being there and being present and showing them, know, when something happens that makes you uncomfortable, how do you handle it? Do you get upset and yell and scream or do you, you know, take a deep breath and problem solve?

And they're learning that just like they're learning to go into the gym. Like we talked about earlier, right? That we take care of our bodies and we go and work out. That's what dad does, right? Well, they're seeing that same stuff and how we handle problems, how we deal with different situations that come up. They're learning from us at all times, even when you don't think they are, you know, their, their ears are always on. They're always watching you. They mimic you. And for anyone who's a parent, I'm sure they've seen it where their kid makes some, you know, sidebar comment about something that's like totally inappropriate, but what you do all the time and you're like, like I know exactly where they got that from. It's this guy right here, you know, so it's, it's the same stuff. You can be a positive role model. You could be a negative role model. I want to be a positive one. I want my kids to want me to be around and want me to be involved in their lives. And there's a few people that I work with who have very strained relationships with their children, some of which that they don't even talk to.

Critical Aspects Podcast (37:58.382)

Mm -hmm.

Critical Aspects Podcast (38:07.291)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (38:26.153)

And I don't ever want that. I've always wanted to be a father. I've wanted to raise children. And the worst thing that could possibly happen is if they didn't want me to be involved in their life.

Critical Aspects Podcast (38:38.928)

Yeah, and I think that when you start talking about it, mean, for you, it just happened to be just the timing with frontline optics and just kind of where you were in your career. even if you're still in your career, I think there is a valuable point to just because you are in the first responder realm, whether you're in fire, whether you're in law enforcement, doesn't mean you can't be present, right? You just have to make that be a priority. You have to be intentional about that. When you're home, be home.

And you know on your days off Make sure that that's the time you're spending with your family right because that is your social support network That's that's your first level first line social support network is is your family but oftentimes that's the first group we isolate and we distance ourselves from because You know Historically, we haven't been taught how to manage

Right? Our emotions and the stress of the profession, you know, mixed with the stress of home and just everything else. you know, figuring out a way to say, okay, hey, I'm going home, but I want to be present, but at same time, it's been a really rough day. So, you know, maybe you need to call home or text, you know, before you get there and be like, hey, it's been a really rough shift. There've been a lot of things, you know, that transpired. You know, as soon as I get home, I just want to, you know, kind of collect my thoughts. I just kind of need to decompress.

Before I kind of really engage and kind of get jump, you know jump right into To home life and if you have to do that if you have to schedule that in it and then do that so that when you do get there You know your present right you can be it you you can go in there. You can be active you can be engaged and You're not hit at the front door with with something going on at the house because then that gives you know Your spouse or whoever's there time to say, okay. Hey look has been been a rough day. Yeah, maybe I've had a rough day too, but

Mike Ettenberg (40:18.988)

Exactly.

Critical Aspects Podcast (40:35.418)

That's kind of meat in the middle and let me kind of clean some things up here so that when they come home, right, they can just take their time just to decompress. Then we can come together and we can be present together, right? But a lot of times, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. No, go ahead, Mike.

Mike Ettenberg (40:49.347)

I want, and I just want to, sorry, So I just want to kind of jump in on that. So, again, being a, being present doesn't mean that you have to be there 24 seven, right? If you are trying to give 24 seven or even just your off days, 100 % to your family and your kids, and you're not investing in yourself, then you are not giving the best version of yourself to your family. So like you said right there, you have to put yourself first a little bit so that you can be that better version of yourself to be present for your kids. So that means on the way home from work, instead of going right to work, you go to the gym, right? You go and do something, or maybe you meet up with a friend for some coffee, or you go and play basketball, whatever it may be, right? Pickleball is the big thing these days, I guess. It's taken over, it's taken over. Pickleball, man, I don't understand it. I play and I'm like drenching sweat and then.

Critical Aspects Podcast (41:35.095)

Yeah, it is pickleball is Yeah, it is you know

Mike Ettenberg (41:45.987)

I play with these guys that are like 60 years old and they haven't a drop of sweat and they're just like wiping the floor to me. regardless, back to the point, it's just if you invest in yourself and you give yourself the ability to put your best foot forward for your family, that will in turn create for a much better dynamic between you and your kids and everyone in between.

Critical Aspects Podcast (42:10.608)

Yeah, because if you are not investing yourself, and it sounds really selfish, right? When you start talking about the idea of self -care and we start talking about self -care, we're not talking about getting into some really hippie, weird stuff and let's all take our shoes off and ground ourselves with mother nature and all that. You're just taking care of yourself. You're taking that time to make sure that you are healthy in all those areas.

I talk about the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, right? Because that kind of, I feel that those are the building blocks of any individual person. So when you are investing into yourself in that way and you're practicing self care to make sure that you're healthy, to make sure that you're emotionally and mentally stable and spiritually balanced and all of that, then it gives you the ability to then invest into other people. if you are an absolute walking chaos because you have not taking care of yourself and you're not managing the things that are going on, then you can't invest into somebody else, right? You can't effectively invest into the relationship with your kids, the relationship with your spouse. It's gonna be strained because you're giving them what's left. And they know the difference between giving them your best and giving them what's left. So it's a huge thing. And the other thing is talk to your spouse.

If you've had a rough day, then tell them it's been a rough day. You don't have to go into details and then dump all of your trauma on them, right? Because they want to know what's going on, but they don't need to know all the details of what transpired. But they want to know what's going on with you, so talk to them. Right? When you stonewall, that's just another defense mechanism that goes up. That's just another bridge that you put in between you and your spouse.

That's one of the biggest things is communication, right? And a lot of complications, a lot of fights, a lot of disagreements come out of not communicating well with each other because somebody's probably not really talking. And it's probably you because you don't know how to express that. You don't know how to express the bad day, but just let them know like, today really sucked. Before I come in, I just need to kind of

Critical Aspects Podcast (44:38.118)

Clear my head and then once again we can talk about it. I'm not gonna tell you everything that happened. I'm not gonna go into detail but you know it just it was just really it was really rough.

Mike Ettenberg (44:49.283)

Yeah, that's huge. That's huge. mean, you made a commitment to your spouse, right? We need to make sure that we can nurture that as much as possible. And the job definitely has its way of getting in between there. And communication, like you said, is key to ensuring. Not too much communication, you know, unless you've got somebody who's also in law enforcement or in fire, EMS, who really understands it and you can share those details. If you don't have it, you need to at least give them just like...

Critical Aspects Podcast (45:02.222)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (45:18.901)

You know, the high level, I had a bad day, this kind of thing happened, give me a minute and that'll go tenfold.

Critical Aspects Podcast (45:28.156)

Yeah. I mean, you spend so much time in the first responder world, essentially coming in and fixing other people's problems, right? And you'll be the first one to invest and make sure that you can kind of help somebody. And you'll talk to somebody to, you're blue in the face to get them to kind of reason with them, to get them to kind of deescalate or whatever to help them through whatever they're going through.

But you get home and it's like you got nothing left and you just go straight into, all hey, we're gonna fight, let's go. And it's like, so you'll spend all this time trying to invest in a stranger, but you won't do it at your home, right? So it's sad, but it's true. And so maybe they kind of need to, I don't want to say reverse that,

Mike Ettenberg (46:13.901)

Cheers!

Critical Aspects Podcast (46:24.603)

We don't need to a bunch of internal affairs investigations here, but you need to figure out a way to communicate. You need to figure out a way to say, just before I come in, need to kind of just decompress. So kind of back to frontline optics. So what is your mission with frontline optics? What is the whole mission behind the product that you are offering?

Mike Ettenberg (46:50.881)

Yeah, so we want to provide a product by first responders for first responders that support first responders. So that's pretty much us in a nutshell. So I set out to make sunglasses that were durable, affordable. A lot of them are ANSI Z87 rated, so they're functional, right? Functional fashion. For the most part, they comply with uniform policies. Some don't allow for the mirrored finishes on the lenses, but we have plenty of those styles that don't have the mirrored finish.

We kind of have something for just about everybody and they're durable. So they may take a hit, whether you get, you know, a fight with someone, you know, trying to arrest somebody or, you know, they get thrown around the back of a fire engine or, you know, tossed around the back of an ambulance that they're going to hold up. And when they do break, we have a no questions asked replacement program. So lose them, break them. Anything happens to them, we'll replace it one time. No questions asked. There's a small service fee that has to be taken care of prior to shipping out the new ones to help cover the fulfillment costs.

But ultimately we want to help to support first responders with a high quality pair of sunglasses at a price point significantly lower than your designer brands that are out there. And then we give 5 % back to the First Responders Children's Foundation. yeah, and that's 5 % top line revenue. That's not 5 % of profit. before we take anything for ourselves, we make sure that that 5 % goes out so we can make an impact within our own community.

Critical Aspects Podcast (48:05.616)

All right, yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (48:19.054)

Absolutely, so what is your goal for Frontline Optics moving forward? Where do you hope to see the company in the next five years?

Mike Ettenberg (48:26.889)

In the five years, I'd like to see it at a point in which we start to have some brick and mortar stores. I really want the brand to resonate with people. So we were constantly involved in charity outreach type events. And we want to be seen as a brand for our people by our people. And so it's more than just a dollars and cents thing that we're up to here. It really is something that I want the name to resonate within the entire first responder community. Where when you hear it, there's no what's that.

You know, it's, you know, what style, you know, what style did you get, right? What are you wearing? So, you know, that's our goal. It's a, it's obviously a steep mountain to climb, but we've gotten where we're at already, which is leaps and bounds ahead of where most people in my circle thought it was going to go when I first started it. And, I just feel like we're just getting started.

Critical Aspects Podcast (48:59.578)

Yeah. Yeah.

Critical Aspects Podcast (49:18.362)

Yeah, so if there's somebody who's listening that does not know about frontline optics, where can they go to learn more about the product and see some of the products?

Mike Ettenberg (49:26.539)

Yeah, so head over to our website, frontline -optics .com. We've got our whole story there, a little bit about me, about our replacement program, about the charitable components, and you can see all of our sunglasses. And then we're very prevalent on Instagram. So you can find us at at frontline optics. And from there, you'll see, you know, a bunch of different styles, a bunch of people wearing them throughout the country. You can look at the comments sections and see that the people are pretty much, they're digging them, right?

People like them and we also have a full verified review section on the website as well so you can read on there and see what people say about them. We do offer free shipping, free returns, so you can always try them. know buying sunglasses off the internet is not the easiest thing, especially everyone's got a different face shape. So a different shaped face is what I was trying to say.

Critical Aspects Podcast (50:15.771)

Yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (50:16.547)

But yeah, so you can try and get them to your house, make sure they're a fit for you before 100 % committing. There's no restocking fee or anything like that. So we want you to be 100 % satisfied.

Critical Aspects Podcast (50:28.11)

Awesome, and I'll plug that into show notes to where they can just link right over to the website. But yeah, if they want to reach out to you, they can find that on the website and then also through Instagram. All right. So, and before we wrap up, because I mean, it's been a good conversation. I appreciate you coming on. But when you look back through your fire career and where you're at now with Frontline Optics, how much has your faith played a role in that and where you're at today?

Mike Ettenberg (50:40.685)

Correct. Correct.

Mike Ettenberg (50:58.499)

Faith is important thing. It's one of those things where there are opportunities where you don't know what's going on and you got to rely on something. So you rely on your faith and it'll always kind of steer you in the right direction. that was getting into the fire service to begin with, especially at the time that I went in was like a very challenging task ahead. And I was in kind of corporate America when I made the change. that took to faith.

Critical Aspects Podcast (51:16.596)

yeah.

Mike Ettenberg (51:28.225)

And then being on the job and knowing I was going to stay protected and be able to make it home on the other end. And now at this point, you know, putting my faith in the business and, you know, knowing that this door is open for a reason, right. I'm supposed to walk through this door and not to fight it. Just, you know, keep moving forward.

Trust. Have trust.

Critical Aspects Podcast (51:50.35)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Mike, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate what you're doing with Frontline Optics and sharing some of your stories and experiences and also just being a mentor to those who are coming into the career and the profession. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate you coming on and taking the time.

Mike Ettenberg (52:10.689)

Yeah, thanks for having me. was a blast.

Critical Aspects Podcast (52:12.697)

Absolutely. All right, sir. Thank you.

Mike Ettenberg (52:14.689)

All right, take care.