EVOC Training and Leadership with Hugh Anderson

Why EVOC Training Matters

Announcement 0:01

Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice, and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

Travis Yates 0:12

Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today. And today we have a guest that I know is a listener on the show because he's mentioned that to me in the past, but he's a guest today that you've got to pay attention to. His name is Hugh Anderson, and he's an EVOC instructor at the Peel Regional Police Department. And that's really selling it shortly. He's been involved in emergency vehicle operations for 29 years, and he is the author of the book Emergency Vehicle Operation Instruction: Five Steps to Enhancing Your Evoc Training. This is a topic that is not talked about enough. And I believe we have probably the one of the worldwide experts on the show today to talk about it. And if you're not familiar with it, well, it's killing about half the cops around across the world. So we'll just start with that. It's very important. Hugh Anderson, how are you doing, sir?

Hugh Anderson 1:08

Oh Travis, I'm doing very well. Thanks for thanks for having me today. And um honored to be in your presence.

Travis Yates 1:16

Well, we've known each other for a very, very long time, way back when uh in my evoc days, and I did quite a bit. And I think it's important to talk about how you got started in this because I will say 29 years ago, Hugh, for America, that is cutting edge Evoch stuff. That's you know, that's about the time I got involved in it. And I was like the lone duck here in the United States. Like no one was talking about it. And you were there in Canada. Is that because it was ahead of the United States, which, you know, I mean, I guess I'll give you that possibly, or was it still early on there in your country?

Hugh Anderson 1:53

It it's still early on. I think the uh the approach is a little bit different uh north of the border, and I'm sure we'll get into some of those reasons. But but yeah, when uh you and I first crossed paths many years ago, I don't know, the early 2000s. Um, yeah, it was you were the groundbreaker. I remember reading your um I don't know, it was a monthly newsletter would come out and we'd talk about it at our place. This Captain Travis Yates and what he's saying about uh evoch training, and uh it resonated with us. So I forget what year, maybe you know, but we actually had you come up there and present at one of our uh seminars.

Canada And US Training Culture

Travis Yates 2:29

Yeah, you guys were doing conferences around Evoch that did not exist in the United States. I was up there early on for one of those. You brought me back to, I think, another one, and that was always very impressive. So why do you think that that trajectory was different in your country, the United States? Because it was a real problem in the United States. And I'm not saying it wasn't a problem in Canada, but you weren't losing the number of officers in driving that the United States was. So what was it about the culture there that you think uh, you know, didn't have the same issues our country did?

Hugh Anderson 3:01

Well, number one, we're about one-tenth the size. So really we're about the size of the population of uh California, I guess. So we're only one-tenth the size. So that the problems, when you just look at them, they seem separate that the US is having so many more problems. But reality, if you crack the numbers, get down, uh, we're also having the same issues up here in Canada, um, just at a smaller scale because of the sheer uh population and numbers.

Travis Yates 3:29

We talk about leadership here on the show a lot. And I know in those articles you were reading, you said Captain Travis Chase, that takes me back a ways. I talked about leadership a lot in those articles because without leadership at agencies, it's hard to do some of this stuff. Because I just for people to know, you guys were you may not give yourself credit here, but you were cutting edge. I mean, I could remember their appeal. You were doing training, I think out on the streets, like in the general, in general traffic, right? Showing your cops what to do. And I brought some of that back to the United States after seeing it. And I know over the UK they were doing that as well. And man, they thought I was nuts, but it only kind of makes sense because it's controlled. I mean, you're not you're not running license siren everywhere, you know. Uh, but but it makes sense because we take people to firearms training and they use real guns, right? I mean, I mean, so we ought to be using real cars, try to use real traffic as much as possible. So let's talk about the leadership there. Uh, have you always seen this support for that, or is that something that's more recent? What's your thoughts on that?

Hugh Anderson 4:30

Well, it it's funny. Uh, I don't think you've seen you probably haven't seen the article, but I just wrote something um in the newsletter this week, and it was something along those lines about uh leadership and how it changes. And I I shared a story in there that um when I was hired by Peel Police, the gentleman that was my boss at the uh the academy or the police college, he sat me down and I said, I'm not really sure what to do. I have a couple of different options here, and you know, there's the private industry and then this advanced driving piece that I'm working on, and they want me there. And and then this Peel police has called, and and I'll never forget, he said to me, He goes, if it was any other police service than Peel, I would tell you to be very cautious. And I go, Why why is that? He says, Well, Peel has already has a culture of safety and driver training, and it's well established. He goes, but at most places, you're at your role, you'd be at the whim of any inspector, um, or that'd be like a captain, um, come in and they changed and said, you know, we're not doing evoc training, we're not doing driver training anymore. We're gonna cut the budget, we're gonna disband the staff. And interesting enough, um, I haven't encountered that, but there are other services up here in Canada where I know that has happened. They put together a unit, and three, four, five years later, somebody else came in and disbanded them. So, no, we don't need that. We're okay. They got basic academy training, that's enough.

Travis Yates 5:56

So you just just you just described 95% of every law enforcement agency here in the States. You described my agency for a considerable amount of my time because um our evoc was up and down because of that, right? I mean, depending on who was running the academy and who thought it was important, and it was never consistent. Right, right.

Leadership Support And Program Survival

Hugh Anderson 6:16

You know, interesting enough, so my organization as a whole is very supportive, but I sometimes think of myself, not that I'm a fighter by any means, but I sometimes think I'm Muhammad Ali, or sometimes I don't feel like I have the support. So I gotta lay back on the ropes and just take the shots and girl with the punches. And then when I get the support again, then I can move in and try to advance the programs and make things happen. And so I joke that that's a bit of a roller coaster that I've been on my 26 years there. But honestly, big picture organization has been supportive and allowed me to do a lot of things that um many other services wouldn't allow their people to do. So yeah.

Travis Yates 6:55

Yeah, I want to back up what you just said because we talk about that in courageous leadership a lot. Uh, this this we call it a courage curve. And I admittedly was very not good at this, but what you said is important. There's a time to fight, and there's a time not to fight. Uh, I said a cost from sheriff David Clark. Uh, if people don't know who he is, he's a guy with a big cowboy hat that's always on TV and stuff. But he was the he's now the retired sheriff at Milwaukee County. And I was having dinner with him one night, and we were having a discussion about a lot of things, and he actually put the idea of the courage curve in my mind because he goes, You can't fight so hard where it takes you out of the game, right? That's what you just described. Like, there's a time to fight for this, but if I fight for this at the wrong time, they could just cut my cut my throat, and I'm not getting to fight it at all ever again. And I admittedly was terrible at that throughout my career because I knew one thing, which was to fight. Uh, but there is a time and a place. When we talk about being courageous, you have to be smart about it, do you not?

Hugh Anderson 7:55

Uh absolutely. And that's the the thing. My predecessor, my boss, uh, he called me the Maverick. He goes, Ah, you're such a Maverick, Anderson. You're trying to make stuff happen. And I wasn't really sure how to take that at the time, but but over years and the matrization processes set in, I've recognized exactly what you said. That there's a time to go and there's a time to go slow and just kind of back off. And that's also something I think maybe I'll get into more. It's how to maybe help uh promote or encourage uh on-road uh driver training uh with law enforcement out in real traffic. I think that's the best, most realistic it can be. I know people are very um worried about lawsuits, et cetera. Um, but I could just speak from my experience. In 26 years, there's been no incidents uh out in the traffic with the John Q public, you know, that were driving around.

Travis Yates 8:48

Let's talk about that because I'm very familiar with that. We we did that, I implemented that at my agency. We actually called them check rides. It was based on a model that the uh UPS has done for many, many years, one of the safest driving records of private industry. And and let's talk about how you do it there in Canada and why it's so successful.

Courage Curve For Safety Change

Hugh Anderson 9:08

Well, we we do it right out of the um the college. So once they graduate from the Ontario Police College, the officers go to their home uh service, and then for us it's peel. And then one of the things we do is we will take the officers for three days, and all they do is um driver training or evoc training, and we do a mixture of some track work, we do skid control, skid pan, all that stuff, a little bit of cone courses for maneuvering, but we get them right in the traffic and just do basic exercise, just some your basic driving has to be good before we can start layering all the other tasks of an emergency response officer. But we really spend the time of just what are their habits like now? How can we improve them? And then we start layering in some different opportunities to maybe do some catch-up drills and traffic at reasonable speeds. We we've got an instructor sitting beside who's highly trained. Um, a little cheat sheet we have that many don't have. We actually put a brake pedal over on the right-hand side. So that's that's nice to have that. Um, but we have we haven't had incidents and we get them out in the traffic and we actually run a dash cam for a lot of it, and we'll actually back in the office, we'll break down the game film a little bit, and I find that very beneficial. Uh, we see that in simulators too, but I I do find the the real road and get traffic to respond to that police vehicle. That's a big part of the learning curve. And I don't think coach officers or field training officers have the time or they take the time to allow the rookie to get used to how just the other general public, how they interact with the marked police car.

Travis Yates 10:42

Yeah, I'm in the process of uh training my third and last boy on how to drive. Um, he's 15. And uh you would think I was crazy if I said, well, we just take him to the parking lot, Hugh, and we drive around some cones. No, we take him out in real traffic and we train them that way, right?

Hugh Anderson 11:03

Exactly. Yeah, and that's the same thing I would say for police officers and the driving in schools that go out there and put the roof sign on their car and drive around. It's already happening out there. So I don't really see the big risk uh at putting the uh the officers out in a training vehicle out on the traffic and let them see how it um how it really feels and how people react to you because there's a big difference to what a simulator does and what real traffic will do.

Travis Yates 11:30

So we talked about the culture and and endorsing uh emergency vehicle operation training. And we already set the stage how important it is. It is still killing cops across the world today. Um, but what about the culture when it comes to after the basic training? Uh, because you know we continually train in a lot of areas in law enforcement, but I know we find in the states that you go to a two or three-day class in the academy and drive it, and we say you're good, right? Uh, but no, that's actually far from the truth. The regular ongoing training in-service training in this topic is vital. Uh, where what's your thoughts on that? And if you had the support there at your department.

Hugh Anderson 12:08

Well, we really have, but um, it's it started off with just every two years. Let's qualify the officers on um pursuit training. Actually, we like to think about pursuit prevention. What can we do to avoid getting the pursuit in the first place? That's the number one goal. Officers have to come back every two years for that training. But in that eight-hour course, it's not just about the tactics and how to prevent the pursuit and all the theories and what the the uh regulation says. It also we also put in there just some of the basic driving stuff, uh, emergency response. Um, we do commentary driving, how to talk through traffic. And then we put them through scenarios. We have um scenarios and we have we play the dispatcher and send them to different calls and hoping they're gonna apply those techniques. But every two years uh we have officers come back for that uh requalification training.

On Road Training In Real Traffic

Travis Yates 13:03

I just want to impress on people uh how unique uh Peel Police is. I mean, not only does your leadership endorse the training coming in, endorse a unit that you've stood up and has never given up. Uh you endorse regular training, but you they endorse EVOC conferences. I mean, someone paid for my travel to come over there, right? And I would assume it was your agency. It's just literally unheard of, Hugh. And um, I got to give them a lot of credit for that because any department could do that. And and I know there are leaders listening to this that don't understand the importance of this, but they do understand the importance of, I don't know, firearms training and defensive tactics and this old pesky de-escalation. They do all this stuff all the time. And I think it's a I think we avoid this because driving is a daily thing that we do and we don't think it's a big deal, but all you have to do is look at the data. It is so it is one of the lowest hanging fruit if you want to make your officers safer when it comes to not only training, but also the policies that come around it. How do your policies mesh with the training you're doing? Because they have they have to coexist.

Hugh Anderson 14:12

Well, it's actually interesting enough. It's it's it's threefold. It has to be the the policies or the directives that we have. Um, it's it's the training, of course. And then here's the piece where um that roller coaster I talked about. Uh some people get it and understand the supervision piece. They're gonna step in and have those conversations. And this is the the thing that I'm really I don't know where I am in my career, but I think it's very important. And I'm standing the rooftops and say everybody, I don't know, there's no um there's no halo above my head. I make mistakes. But every once in a while, I don't care who you are, we all need a kick in the pants. And I think if we just ignore certain behaviors, especially when it comes to driving, um, it will just continue to build and build and build, and then we'll have the big incidents of okay, why did that happen? Driving is a perishable skill and it needs to be looked at and reassessed. And sometimes it's not the training, and sometimes it's not the policy, sometimes it's the supervision or the leadership. Um I sit on uh a committee and have for five or six years, uh I am the ultimate Monday morning quarterback. I am part of the review committee for collisions and pursuits. Um, there's four to five members on the committee. We decide fault and all that sort of stuff. And as you sit there, you you find there's some definite uh trends where the supervision should have stepped in sooner and they could have um counseled that officer, but they just allowed them to get into these incidents time after time. And that's the courageous conversations I know I hear you talk about, but it's something that we need to talk about more. And even at my organization, which does have an overall strong driving and be safe theme, sometimes the noble cause principle uh gets in there. I don't know if you've heard that term, but it's just basically the ends justify the means. Hey, you know, we we got some we got some drugs out of that car, we we got some weapons out of that car. You know, I I don't care that you almost killed somebody going through that red light trying to catch up to them. Um they're saying, hey, whatever happens at the end that justifies anything in the rear view mirror. And I think that's rather short-sighted view when it comes to leadership.

Travis Yates 16:30

It is, and um it's a it's a huge hole, I think, in a lot of leadership, right? We we look at the end result, uh, you know, the whole I can I can't even tell you how many crazy pursuits with cars flying everywhere and things are going, you know, it's you know, driving crazy, and no one gets hurt, there's no wrecks, and we're giving high fives at the end of the pursuit. But the point A to B to that endpoint was a disaster. But very few people want to talk about it. That's in anything, whether it's a use of force incident or anything. As long as it's the end is fine, you don't want to talk about it. But I think it's behoove all leaders to talk about it. And the reason we're having Hugh on today is the most important job of any leader in any profession is the safety of your personnel. And I could expand it to law enforcement. Your most important role is the safety of your personnel and the safety of the citizens. And driving has played a huge component in that. I don't think that the media goes after us that much on driving or or politicians. It's not a it's not a topic, it's not top of mind, so we don't think it's serious, but we've done but it is very serious, Hugh. And uh, you know, it's a little bit surreal for me to sit here and talk to you because as you know, 25 years ago, I was I was talking about this stuff every day. Uh, you said that you used to read the stuff I wrote, and now I turn around and I think you're probably one of the leading advocates in the world on this here. You wrote the book. Let's talk about the book a little bit. The name of the book is Emergency Vehicle Operation Instruction: Five Steps to Enhancing Your Evoch Training. Boy, I wish I had that when I started because I had nothing when I started. That's why I started writing things because nobody else really had anything either. Why'd you write the book and tell us about some of the feedback on it?

Hugh Anderson 18:13

Well, you know, interesting. Uh, over the years, every once in a while, I would say something the office. Um, I'm in an office, uh, what is there? Eight to ten evoch instructors at any given time, full time at my organization. So, yes, we get a lot of uh support there. Uh, but the guys said, you know, you should write a book on this. Like, like, because the stuff would just come out of me. I'm not even thinking about it, it just comes out. But I've been doing it a long time. I mean, before I got at the police college, I was teaching corporate clients um on advanced skid pans and that sort of thing.

Policies Training And Supervision

Travis Yates 18:48

All the uh I would like to know if anybody's listening, do you know anybody that has done law enforcement emergency vehicle operations training full-time for 29 years, about to be 30? Um, because most American agencies, it's a part-time job, it's not a full-time job. And then if it is a full-time job, I mean, we've had some legends here in America. I'm thinking of uh Dave Holiday, Doc Holiday there at Michigan State Police. I'm sure you know him, but he wasn't there 30 years in that unit. He was flying helicopters and crazy stuff before that. So a doc's a good, good guy. But that's why I you're you're positioned, Hugh, in a way that you can really make an impact. And I'll just shut up and let you continue about the book because I kind of cut you off there. Sorry about that.

Hugh Anderson 19:33

No, it's uh it it's the the book is one thing. Um, and then we're gonna circle back around to to to my role. I want to come back to my role, and I know it's unique. I definitely I am unique. Um, but the the book itself, someone said, hey, you know, you should you should write a book, should write a book. And then this crazy thing called uh pandemic kind of hit, and things were a little bit different and funky. And I thought, hey, you know what, now's the time, as good as any. Let's start putting some stuff together. And that's what I did. And it really is just some key concepts, and it's it's not necessary for the the brand new academy instructor who's just gonna start it's somebody who maybe wants to evolve the way of thinking. Um, because my thinking has changed so much over the years. Some things we've already talked about. I started off just as hey, I'm the ex-race car guy that wants to go fast and you know get people to drive like me and all that sort of stuff to to then well, I want my people to do very well. And now I've I'm I'm at this thing where I'm the Monday morning quarterback and I'm I'm trying to I'm helping some policies and and things like that, and it's risk management. And I go, oh my God, if I could see myself 25 years ago and now I'm like the risk guy, um, there's no way. That's just crazy. So that's kind of where the the book came out. Um there's some key concepts in there. I talk about on-road training, I talk about uh the commentary driving, I'm very big on that, and and just some of the psychological the way we learn. And and it's really that's what my career has been about. And I'll circle back to what you mentioned. That's one thing that I think um inhibits evoc instructors, is they're always moving off to do something else. They they they don't get to stay in a role for a long period of time. I'm fortunate I came at it from a different uh viewpoint. I came at it from a little bit of racing and a lot of training and got sucked into this vortex called uh policing, uh, right at a crazy time when the uh pursuit regulations were being changed uh up here in our province. And uh I'm sitting in this room with all these lawmakers and lawyers and PVO instructors, eBock instructors been around for years. And I was just a sponge, just soaking it all in, and very fortunate at that time. And then that's just allowed me to continue my career while I've been at 26 years in Peel. Looking after the driver training, we call it police vehicle operations. Um, but basically I look after content and instructor development. That's my my key roles. But nobody else gets to do what I get to do. And I think that's why I'm still doing it. I'm still trying to fight that fight, but I'm finding that I I feel for some other guys they want to stay in Evoc, but they get moved on or shipped off or budget's cut, etc. So I am unique. I'm the first one to admit I'm fortunate to stay in that same basic role for my entire career.

The Book And How To Connect

Travis Yates 22:36

Well, I think the opportunity is pretty incredible. I'm excited that you're still in that row, Hugh. I'm excited about the book. I'm excited about you can help others because believe it or not, there are still many, many agencies that need help with this. You would think after 30 years of blood, sweat, and tears of you and I talking about this, we've put that to bed. But we still see it every week. I see tragedy because of cars that doesn't need to happen. I'm sure you do as well. Where can people find the book at and Hugh? And how can they contact you?

Hugh Anderson 23:07

Uh the book can be found on Amazon. You can find that easiest way to get it. And then the best way to get a hold of me is through LinkedIn. Uh, I'm on LinkedIn at Hugh Anderson. I've got a newsletter in there as well, um, called the Evoc Insider. Relatively new. Um, I don't know if anybody reads it. Um, but we'll read it. That's something I want to try to. We've talked about some themes without even talking about ahead of time that I've just written about recently, about the leadership piece. And um, yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. And again, trying to support other services, other evoc instructors that maybe just haven't had been fortunate to be left alone in an area like I have. And hopefully I can share some of my wisdom and create a bit of a community.

Travis Yates 23:53

When we talk about leadership and legacy here on the show, this is the legacy you're probably not going to read on the front page of the newspaper, but there's a legacy that Hugh Anderson's left behind that is going to help officers for the next generation. So, Hugh Anderson, thanks so much for what you've done. Thanks for all your courage and your leadership throughout the years. Um we're fully behind you, and our audience is behind you, and I'm sure you'll be getting reached out to. So thank you so much for being here.

Hugh Anderson 24:20

Awesome. Travis, thank you very much for having me on and um continued success with everything you're doing. I'm um I'm honored to know you and happy to watch you.

Travis Yates 24:30

With that said, thank you for listening. We'll see you next time, but just remember lead on and stay courageous.

Announcement 24:38

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