The Overwatch Collective Podcast

Enjoy Greg's voice this entire episode as you get a debrief of Statistic Updates, 2023, and 2024 events. 2024 is going to be a great year for T.O.C. as we have a big event on 2/19 with Travis Gribble, Greg is traveling to Louisiana in March, our 3 year anniversary meet up, and our 4th Annual Fundraiser.  Listen to this episode for the most updated therapy statistics and podcast statistics.  T...

Joining T.O.C. Podcast from Bendigo Australia via zoom is Jamie Ward. Jamie retired as a Police Officer in Australia with a Chronic PSTD diagnosis and shares his lengthy journey in his treatment process. Jamie offers a great comparison between Australia and the United States of America in regards to the stigma and culture amongst our first responder community. Throughout Jamie's 21 year caree...

Joining in the studio is Donna, T.O.C. Board of Directors Chair of the Board, who discusses the challenges of being married to an LEO and U.S. Service Member and having two children who are first responders.  We talked about challenges of attending holidays and weddings alone while your loved one is on shift or deployed overseas, which Donna has experienced on several occasions. In addition, Donna...

Joining from Ventura, CA is Maggie Hernandez, a T.O.C. contracted therapist, who is half way through the process of becoming a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California.  Maggie is married to Erik, who has been a Fire Fighter for the City of Pasadena for 10 years and a mother of two. Maggie and Erik are both on the Board of Directors for a Non-Profit Organization called 809 Fight For Aw...

Joining from Central California via zoom is Lacey Hayes, daughter of Chuck Strange from SZN 4 EP 13. Lacey discusses some of the challenges that come along with growing up with her Father being a Police Officer, which is a topic not often discussed in our first responder and military community. We discussed the challenges of your parent being in harms way, the knock at the door, being "on cal...

Enjoy a great podcast recorded at Ocean View Stables with Zach and Tony just south of San Francisco, CA. We had an amazing venue as this podcast was recorded in the barn area of Ocean View Stables with horses in the background.  Zach and Tony break down the process of purchasing Ocean View Stables in Summer of 2023, the remodel currently taking place, and the future of what the venue will look lik...

Deborah, a Retired Police Dispatcher after 28 years and Retired U.S. Army National Guard, shares her worse call for service while dispatching as Deputy Brian Ishmael was shot and killed in the line of duty on October 23, 2019.  Deborah also discussed the common challenges our dispatcher community faces that is not talked about nearly enough amongst our community. Also, Deborah talked about life as...

Thank you to Yoga For First Responders (YFFR) President, Eric, for educating our community on their mission at YFFR! Eric was a fire fighter in Iowa for 13 years.  In this episode, we discussed how YFFR was founded and how many departments they have trained since 2019. They have worked with several agencies such as Chicago PD, Pasadena FD,  and the U.S. Marshalls.  Enjoy this episode and learn abo...

Listen in on a fantastic podcast with Kurt, who was in the United States Army for 19 years in the Special Operations Community. Kurt was deployed to several locations overseas such as Iraq, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates , Jordan, Israel, Tajikistan. Kurt is a Purple Heart Recipient after sustaining injuries from an Improvised Explosive Device during a convoy, which led to his first major fire...

Welcome Brian Sims, Founder and National Director of Project Rebirth. Greg and Brian shared were both in the Infantry, but Brian was in the Army and Greg was in the Marine Corps, which built a great relationship right away.  Brian is doing some amazing work as a certified peer support specialist for our first responder and veteran community, which we desperately need. Brian travels along the East...

A great episode with Kelsey, T.O.C. Secretary/Event Planner, who sat down with Whitney Allen via zoom, who shared her life story about how her boring and nice life took a tragic turn unexpectedly after her husband, Ryan, passed away.  October 12, 2021 was their 8 year wedding anniversary. Two days later, Ryan was admitted in the ICU following an allergic reaction to a bee sting and ultimately went...

Get excited as we hear a new voice hosting the podcast with Jen Lewis via zoom. Kelsey, our Secretary/Event Planner hosts her first podcast while Greg and Jesse are deployed overseas.  Listen to a great episode with Jen Lewis, who is a prior dispatcher, which ultimately led to experiencing burnout. Currently, her mission now is to help the helpers. During COVID, Jen became a wellness and meditatio...

Enjoy a great conversation with Kelly and Brittney, who are both married to Fire Fighters in Oregon. After sending voice memos back and forth for months talking about the challenges of being married to a first responder, they decided to start a podcast. In February of 2023, they started Wives On Fire podcast to talk about the good and bad of being married to fire fighters. They are two amazing peo...

Hailey is one of T.O.C.'s newest contracted therapist and is currently married to a police officer. Hailey is close to reaching her 3,000 hours in order to take the test to become a licensed therapist in California.  Hailey discussed postpartum support she provides, aspirations to help local departments with mental health and retention, and overall mental health amongst the first responder co...

Joining via zoom from CA is Drake, a current Fire Fighter Paramedic, who's whole family is fire fighters or in the first responder community. Drake began doing fire ride alongs at 12 years old, become a fire explorer shortly after, and started with Cal Fire at 18 years old.  Drake shared a dark time in his life following a line of duty death during a tragic fire in Northern CA, which resulted...

Joining us from Las Vegas is Margo Smith, a prior high school teacher who's  been a realtor for the past 6 years. Margo is a huge support of our first responder and veteran community and has volunteered to sign a contract with T.O.C. and get our community into homes and donate a percentage of her commission to our non-profit to fund therapy sessions.  Margo broke down the entire VA home loan...

Joining via zoom from San Diego is Chelsea, who has been a licensed professional clinician counselor for 2 years and went through 3 years of training. Chelsea has worked with first responders and their significant others/spouses and understands our community.  Chelsea discussed EMDR, running critical incident debriefs, and some healthy coping mechanisms which would help our first responders and se...

Welcome Erin who is joining via zoom from Boston. Erin was raised in Australia and was a copper for 9 years and left as a Detective. After marrying a fire fighter, she moved to Boston where she worked for a suicide prevention hotline.  Erin has been a qualified master certified life coach for 2 years and is available for all of you on TOC's website under "coaches". Erin broke down t...

Enjoy a short podcast, which was recorded via our cell phones as we were on a boat during our deployment overseas conducting "operations".... joking, snorkeling.  This is not the best audio whatsoever, but we asked some of our friends some important questions about preparing for a deployment, considerations while being deployed, challenges of being away from loved ones, and what they mis...

Welcome Nik, joining via zoom from Canada as he explained all about First Response Mental Health (FRMH) and Peer Support. FRMH was created by people who work in the first responder industry for people amongst our community to have resources available for them.  Peer Connect is a pro-active peer support platform with real life learning, evidence based feedback, regular check ins after every trauma...

Kicking off Season 5 with Travis from the hills of Montana. Travis is medically retired from law enforcement after 24 years of service which consisted of Deputy, Sergeant, SWAT commander&TL. Travis founded My Arena, who's mission is to help the first responder community find peace, healing, and strength as they navigate the mental health challenges during their careers. Travis is actively...

Coming to you via zoom form Tennessee is Matt Donnelly, who Greg, Jesse, and Kelsey met while conducting some live fire training in late 2021 in California.  Matt was  in the United States Navy for 10 years with multiple deployments, which we discussed. He is currently in grad school in order to become an associate marriage and family therapist and ultimately become a licensed therapist after gett...

Welcome to The Overwatch Collective Pawdcast Dave and Dana with two beautiful service dogs. We discussed how Ubran Paws came to life, the application/training process for service dogs, and the benefits of service doggies in our community! Dave also discussed his PTSD and how his service doggy, Zero, has already substantially helped him. We are huge supporters of Urban Paws and hope ya'll enjo...

A great face to face conversation with Haley, a dispatcher with 5 years on the job, who learned on day 13 of working the radio that this profession was a challenge and different than most.  On day 13 of working the radio, Haley was the primary dispatcher during an Officer Involved Shooting, where two Law Enforcement Officers were shot and wounded. We discussed the initial thoughts of hearing, &quo...

Coming to you via zoom from Ontario Canada is Aly Bird, a widow at the age of 30 after her husband, who was a fire fighter, unfortunately passed away. After Will passing away, Aly began experiencing all of the stages of grief and was directly impacted by what "worked" and "did not work" while experiencing death of a loved one.  Grief Ally is the only grief book written specific...