Staying Safe with Guests Joe Masisak & Brittney Luedecke of FPNP Protective Services

Especially as working parents, we can't have our eyes on every single thing all over life. You know, I mean, that's too much.

I love the preventative measure. I'd rather prevent it than have to deal with it later.

I would have reacted more on an emotional level because I was searching for this person for 30 years. But I found out that this probably wasn't the best person to have in my house. And it was nice to have Joe and our services to run that quick background check.

Being able to be there for someone and help support them during the worst moment of their lives is incredibly rewarding. And to be able to— nothing makes me happier than to have someone come back and say, like, "Oh my God, Joe, I took your CPR first aid class and this happened to a family member at a birthday party, and I was able to do this and I had an effect on their outcome." We're Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a San Antonio area realtor and lender, but most importantly, we're working moms.

The goal of this podcast is to provide support and a sense of community to San Antonio area working moms like us. So join us in trying to find a balance between career, family, and everything in between.

Welcome to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're here with Brittany and Joe from FPNP Protective Services, and we're so glad to have you guys on to talk about your business. And I'm going to just kind of turn it over to you and you can introduce yourselves and talk about what you do.

Great, thank you for having us. Brittany, you want to introduce yourself first?

Yeah, my name is Brittany. I'm the chief administrative officer for FPNP Protective Services. Um, I've been in the business of Almost a year. I started out really with the basic pistol course is how I got into the security business. I didn't want to learn from my husband and I didn't grow up in a household that had any firearms. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. And so I was terrified of them. So I asked Joe if he would be willing to do a class. We did a ladies' night pistol, basic pistol course. Which led me into getting my license to carry. And I had so much fun learning about my firearm and how I could effectively use it as a tool. And then I needed his services for some personal— or not personal, but the investigation portion. I did a 23andMe test. And then I just enjoyed so much learning about the industry and what he does, I asked to be part of the team.

That's great. That's awesome. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Joe.

Yeah, so my name is Joe. I've done personal protection investigations, security, law enforcement work for at least 25 of the last 35 years of my adult existence. Spent a lot of time in the Army. And was a police officer with a big municipal police department. After 9/11, I joined the Department of Homeland Security where I was a federal air marshal, and I did international counterterrorism stuff, some hostage crisis negotiations. And then as I'm getting down towards the end of my career, I started doing more personal protection stuff, sort of on the side, if you will, right? Started the company with the idea that we wanted to provide personal protection, help people who, you know, had threats against them or were in fear of harm. Um, and it kind of just snowballed from there. People started asking us to do investigations for them and, uh, trying to find quality security in the area. So we went ahead and opened up that branch, a training academy. Um, and so, you know, that's kind of how it snowballed into what what we have today.

Awesome. Well, Brittany, I kind of wanted to share your story. You kind of reached out thinking that for the company that you work with, you felt there were some services that the working moms of San Antonio might benefit from. And can you, can you guys kind of explain some of the things that you thought regarding what would help our working moms in our group?

Absolutely. We offer so many different courses that can help the working moms in San Antonio. More specifically, I was thinking of The private investigation, you know, as moms are constantly wanting quality babysitters, but who are they coming into our homes and being around our children, our most prized possessions? We offer somebody, a private investigator that can look into that background and make sure the people you're bringing in are safe to be in your home. You have a potential date. We know what online dating is like in the modern world. It's scary. It can be scary, but knowing that you can do a background check and they won't even know, you know, just for peace of mind is nice. I personally had a story of— I don't— I didn't know who my biological father was for 30 years, and so I did the 23andMe test and I talked with a half-sibling. And so Joe was able to look into the background and see if this bio dad was somebody that was safe, that I felt was safe to be in my household. Unfortunately, he was not the person I would want around my family or my child, so I opted not to reach out. But, um, it's nice to have that, um, safety net, you know what I mean?

Peace of mind, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Not that much money to run a background check, especially trying to invite people that you don't know into your home.

So, yes, so people say that kind of thing, you know, in your circumstance, before all of this kind of technology and that, you might find out who your biological parent was and just reach out blindly because you would want to know, right? How would you know otherwise? And then you might be in a certain circumstance where it sounds like you avoided one where maybe this person isn't somebody you want to rip, you know.

Absolutely. You know, I would have reacted more on an emotional level because I was searching for this person for 30 years, but I found out that this probably wasn't the best person to have in my house, and it was nice to have Joe and our services to run that quick background check, you know.

So yeah, we as a company do a lot of things that can be benefits for working moms. There's the investigations piece, which Brittany touched on, right? Nannies, housekeepers, roommates, dates, you know, possible missing family members, right, that we can run backgrounds on and give you an idea of who it is you're inviting into your home or making a part of your life, right? Um, we do a lot of education. So we have a training academy, we do a lot of education. As Brittany touched on, we teach on firearms and firearm safety for folks who have zero experience. Um, but we do more advanced stuff. We do CPR, first aid, and AED training. For individuals. We're a Red Cross certified training provider. You know, choking is the number 4 cause of death for toddlers and infants. Yeah. And a lot of people, you know, just aren't, you know, they're not aware of how to do, you know, how to take care of those kind of things. Drownings, same kind of thing, right? So we do that. We do have a security guard service where we provide unarmed and armed guards but we also do executive protection. What people would call them bodyguards, right?

Yeah.

We do that, and we've done that for a lot of people. People who are going through really messy divorces or have stalkers or things like that, we provide executive protection for them. Estate security, sometimes we'll put an armed guard in front of someone's house if they're having troubles with that kind of thing. You know, the first time I ever did that, I had a friend who had a work dispute with a coworker. And one night she was working from her home office at home and he came by and fired a crossbow bolt through her window at her.

Oh my.

Over this dispute. And so she was, you know, she needed, she was looking for someone to watch over her home and an armed guard while the police tried to find him and capture him. She, you know, she needed those kind of services for that. You never know when this stuff will pop up.

Not only that, but like if women need, when they're getting out of a bad relationship and needs a body there that is trained to watch to make sure that they can move out safely, get into their new place safely.

Yeah, we've done some of that executive protection work before for, you know, people who are getting out of a domestic violence situation. Yeah. Have a protective order in place., and we've had attorneys' offices who will hire us to protect the client until, you know, they can find the estranged spouse or until they can get through, you know, court proceedings or what have you. And we do other things too. We do security assessments. We'll come out to people's homes or businesses and do a walkthrough and provide security advice on ways you can beef up security around your home. We do crime prevention seminars talking about, you know, safety and security around children or online or or with the elderly, um, you know, vehicle safety and security. There's a wide variety of topics and things that we cover. Pretty much we're a full-service agency when it comes to safety, security, and investigations. And there's a lot of ways that we can help, you know, improve people's lives by inserting ourselves and helping them out with some of that kind of stuff.

Well, it's being proactive in your life, right? I like the preventative measures. I, you know, better than the, hey, I have this issue, not gonna take care of it. So yeah, leaning on the preventive measures. So can you tell us a little bit? So for example, let's say I have a nanny to come in to work in my household, and I, and I want to have it her vetted to see if that's something that I, you know, want to pursue. How long does something like that take? For, you know, like, if I— like, what?

Yeah, if we're doing a basic background investigation on somebody We can have, we'll have an answer in less than 24 hours.

Okay, so fairly quick.

Even with the workload, yeah. I mean, if it's one of those deals where we get it in and we have the time, we can get results in a matter of a couple hours because we'll do searches into various databases on backgrounds. We'll pull criminal, you know, places where they've lived, worked, and went to school for several years, and we'll look for red flags that way. And we can get one done in as quick as a couple hours in an emergency case. But typically 24 hours and we'll have a report back to the individual on a background.

Yeah, well, that's great. I mean, it's fairly quick and it's just, it's crazy that we even think, have to think about it these days. But with the world kind of where it's at, I hate— oh man, I might have— my husband's a big advocate for concealed carry and he's like, you need to do it. I'm like, I don't want to have— I grew up with guns, I grew up with them in our household. My children are aware of them, but we keep, you know, to keep them safe. But I personally, I wish I don't have to have them, but in this day and age, it's just, I don't know, like, it's really, it's a scary environment sometimes. I know even with Erika, with your line of work, you meet a lot of strangers, people that, you know, like, people reach out to us online for what we do, and we don't know who they are sometimes, and we meet them, and sometimes they don't have the best intentions in mind. We've heard a lot of the stories, you know, in the news.

As a realtor, I mean, it seems like— and I don't know if it has to do with how much we're all involved in technology now. Now it feels like we hear about these things way more than we ever did before. But I mean, as a real estate agent, there have been a number of situations where unfortunately agents have been attacked and even sometimes killed at showing a house, sometimes even to someone that they've shown 5, 6, 7 times already. And then the person decides to make a move and do something scary. And so while I, I too am in that situation where I've never— my family didn't have guns and I don't know anything about a gun. And sometimes I think I should because we're kind of getting into that time, you know?

Yeah. Well, it's funny that you say that because the words that were coming out of my mouth, I was going to use realtors as an example. I didn't even know that you worked in realty. So yeah, it's— but that is, we've had situations where realtors are going to do a showing in the evening. Or maybe not in the best neighborhood. Well, they'll, they'll, you know, they'll say, you know what, I'll pay a couple bucks to have someone come out and escort me, right? Yeah, out there, um, you know, for, for that purpose.

Or you get weird— you know, your, your phone number's out there, your phone number's out there to be linked, so you're going to get weird people and they, they know where you're going to be showing homes. We've had to go out to different listings to assist a real estate agent, but I do recommend that you take a basic pistol course get familiar, be more confident. I mean, it really helped me. I didn't even know I enjoyed going to the range and learning how to use my firearm. It made me more confident.

Even for people who aren't necessarily advocates of firearms, right? Having a knowledge of their basic operation and safe use or safety helps you. I mean, it takes some of the mystique out of a firearm, even if you're not a pro firearm person, but knowing how they operate, how to make them safe, is a good piece of knowledge. But one of the things that we regularly talk about when we do some of our women's only firearms classes is that we found that the worst person to teach you how to use a firearm is your spouse, right? It's— I have so many women who are like, my husband tried to show me and he just drove me crazy, and we were bickering at the range about this thing. So having someone who's experienced— and like I said, we've done— like, I've personally trained people in firearms for a couple decades now. I've done a lot of it, and I've taught anywhere from people who have never touched a gun before to SWAT teams for major municipal police departments. And it's really about demystifying some of it, making people comfortable, and either helping them feel safer around one, or if they find one, or making them proficient at using one to defend themselves. So Absolutely.

Erika, remind me to tell Roger not to listen to this episode. Yeah, because he's been— I mean, like I said, I grew up with firearms in the household. I have my brother-in-law, everybody very, very— now I have a knowledge of their working, but I've chosen not to pursue learning how to use one. And just because I'm just being stubborn. I know it's a necessity.

Yeah, well, from my experience— well, yes, but my experience is, um, when you take up learning something new, it's a little scary. But I've noticed that more husbands are okay with not teaching their wives and then seeking out a service or doing an all-women's course just to gain their confidence. And they're they're happy that you're willing to do that even though it's not with them. At least that's what I've had with the sales that I've done so far.

No, it's more of him saying—

I've done more yet.

Yeah, it's more of him saying, "See, I told you, go take the class." Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And it's amazing how much security touches people's lives and stuff. Like when we talked, Erika talked about being a realtor. We've gone out and escorted realtors to neighborhoods that they didn't love at night, or when meeting a client for the first time for a nighttime showing. I helped a client recently, she was a realtor. She went to take someone on a showing of a home and they fell in love with it. They came back for a second showing with the rest of their family. And while they were there, two police cars pulled up to the neighbor's house and the police went in and they were like, uh, like, is this a problem neighborhood? Is this a problem neighbor? I don't know if I'm interested in the house anymore. And so she had us do a quick background on the house and like calls for service from police and that kind of stuff in the neighborhood and do like a neighborhood crime evaluation and provided it to the client. And the client was like, okay, you know, I feel more comfortable about the neighborhood. And they ended up making the purchase afterwards. So it's just, it's amazing how many ways this stuff kind of intermingles.

Yeah.

And that's so valuable because as real estate agents, we're not allowed legally to discuss crime in neighborhoods. People want us to say stuff all the time. They wanna know, do you think this is a good neighborhood? Do you think this is this? We can't say that stuff. And I feel so bad, but you just have to direct them to like a website that's like, hey, look, this is where you can. So we could direct them to a company like yours where it's like, if you really wanna get in depth, these people will be able to tell you this stuff and they can legally do so. That's their job. Unfortunately, I can't, but I have this service that, you know, I know these people and they can help you. That's a great resource.

Well, it's typically way out of the box thinking to make sure that they're making an educated decision on a purchase. I mean, that's a big investment and find out your neighbor's a pimp. I don't know.

That would crack.

Right?

No, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like Erika says, right? I mean, they're very limited in what they can say, what they can do. And they contract out, buyers contract out services all the time to do home inspections, and things like that to make sure that their purchase is, you know, that they're really informed about their purchase. I mean, this is your home. It's your most major purchase. You're gonna live years there. And so contracting someone to give you a neighborhood crime assessment, to talk about, you know, crime in the neighborhood and some of that kind of stuff, you know, where are there, if any, sexual predators within a certain amount of radius around the house, those kind of things. Those are things that they can ask of someone and get an evaluation on, uh, separate and private, and the realtor doesn't have to violate any of the ethical rules surrounding their stuff, but the client, the buyer, gets some information.

So that's great. Um, I know you have lots of services. There's one that I'm particularly interested in I kind of wanted you to touch base on. We recently had an episode regarding parenting and technology, right? And it was a topic that we just kind of talked about. We didn't really have any advice to give anyone, just kind of stuff that we were kind of discussing between ourselves to figure out like, hey, these are things that we've done, not sure if it's right. Can you touch on some topics or something that you guys cover regarding helping us navigate technology and safety with our children?

Sure. So there's a— we have a whole class on just that topic. The biggest things that I would typically advise, advise just like right off the top, is number one, As with anything else, having conversations with your child about online dangers and things to look out for. And depending on age, like, you know, you can have a variety of complex conversations regarding age about things to look out for. And if these things happen, if you see these online, you know, let me know, right? For some younger age kids, we always recommend that if they're gonna be online, have them do so in the same room as you where you can get a visual on the screen to keep an eye. There's different software types, types of software that you can download on the computer that end up blocking access to certain things, that will give you alerts on online activity and whether or not someone has tried to message them. And because that's, you know, one of the big dangers now is kids playing games online where you have the ability to message each other in the game. Yeah, you know, a lot of people are taking advantage of that, and you will have people who have sort of, you know, nefarious intentions with children and will get online posing as a child in the game and will start talking to them innocently enough. You know, "Oh yeah, I'm a 9-year-old boy too, and this is where I'm at, and this is what I do." And then, you know, they build a rapport with the child and then start communicating about things that are inappropriate, asking them to send them things and things like that, so— or meet them. And so you can have— there's different software that you can download that on your computer, this sort of like that parental advisory type stuff, give you reports, can block certain things. So, you know, those are a few of the top tips that we usually throw out there. Yeah, we have a whole, we have a whole small segment on that. Um, Brittany had previously set up a deal where it was moms groups, and they were coming in, uh, every couple weeks to every month, and we would talk about a new crime prevention topic. We'd get together, we'd have a little bit of food, maybe a couple glasses of wine, and we'd sit there and we'd talk about the topic of the night, right? Um, we might do like a women's self-defense deal where, you know, I bring in a guy or two and put them in a red man suit and let the ladies beat up on them with some different techniques, right?

That's a stress reliever.

Yes, that's a really great stress reliever.

It's empowering.

Absolutely. Um, we might talk about, um the online internet security or home security or different things like that. So yeah, absolutely, we have a whole class on that we can do. You know, we know a lot of moms out there, working moms, they have their little circle, their group of moms that they talk to, they hang out with, and they trade stories on. And you know, oh, you'll never guess what Junior did today, it's driving me crazy, right? You know, that kind of stuff. And so a lot of what we've been doing is we link up with those groups and say, hey, have a night out, bring the ladies over, and we'll do a little class and have a little fun with it and impart some knowledge. One of the things that we think is super important when we talk about sort of tips for people is education is number one, right? They always say knowledge is power. And so, you know, the more we can educate people, the more we— that people know, the better prepared that they can be for for incidents, right, for things that might happen.

Well, also, and like, don't be afraid to ask for help. That's a big thing. Don't be afraid to ask for help. There's services out there, like our company services, that are more than happy, eager, you'd be talking to me, to help you out. Like, you guys are our family. We wanna make sure you're safe. I love kids. I wanna make sure your kids are safe.

So, yeah. I love the preventative measure. I'd rather prevent it than have to deal with it later.

Absolutely, you're absolutely right.

I think a lot of moms sometimes are embarrassed to ask for help or they're embarrassed to say like, hey, we got in this kind of a situation, maybe we weren't monitoring our kids as much as we should have been or this. And sometimes people won't admit that kind of thing, but you should ask for help. You're right. I mean, why not? It's there for a reason and nobody should feel embarrassed. We can't have, especially as working parents, we can't have our eyes on every single thing all over life. You know, I mean, that's too much.

So, you know, well, and it's easier to fix it then and move forward. You know what I mean? And we're not the people that go, oh, look, Susie was talking about this. We're not gossipers. We're here to help. We want to make sure you're safe. Your children are safe. We're very confidential.

Yeah, it's one of those kind of deals. You're absolutely right. Right. There's two really two parts of this, right? There's the preventative part. How can I educate myself, educate myself, be knowledgeable enough about the topic that I can prevent things from happening, right? But no matter how prepared you are, things happen, right? And when they do happen, don't be embarrassed. Don't be afraid to ask for help. You know, it's one of those deals where it's— there's too much at stake when it comes to safety and security of our families or of our children.

You're right.

To let the embarrassment get in there. One of the things that's super important to us And I learned this a long time ago when doing personal protection, especially like for high-value clients, right? There's things in their lives they don't need the world to know, right? And so when we work with a client, we have a very strict non-disclosure policy. Your business is your business. We help you work with your stuff. No one will ever know what we've done for you or even that we have worked for you. Unless you release for us to talk about those kind of things. That's why a lot of times when we talk about things, like Brittany had to talk about her personal experiences, I will only talk about cases we've worked on if I can do it in a very nondescript manner or if I have the permission of the client to talk about them. So it's one of those things, there's no reason for people to be embarrassed, and there's no reason to ask for help. Asking for help in something like this It's not a sign of weakness. It's not a sign you can't handle your own stuff or that you're not strong, right? Everyone wants to be strong, right? Everyone wants to be strong and powerful and that kind of stuff. And having to admit that something has gone awry or that you might need help can be difficult for people sometimes. But that's really what we're here for. We're here to help people sort of navigate those things. So.

I think when you acknowledge that sometimes for, I know for me, Once I get my conceal and carry, it's real. I've now made it a real thing, you know? And I'm not trying to put it out, but making it real and okay, it's something I might have to use at some point in my life, right? And I hate to even think about that. But it's, like I said, I think in listening to you guys talk today, it's more about preventing something is a lot easier than having to deal with it later, you know?

Yeah, and I think we have talked about this in other ways, No education is a waste, right? So, yeah, even if you never plan to use it in your life, no education is a waste. Just to have the information about how to do it correctly, I don't think is bad. No, even I'm starting to get convinced.

Good. That's good.

That's right.

Come out to one of our ladies' class. We invite both of you to come on out.

Well, no, Erika, I'm saying, like, I'd love to have a woman's night out, right? And come out and beat up on someone. That'd be really cool.

Absolutely.

For our group, we do like nights out every couple of months. We try to get whomever can go out to go out and just relax a little bit and talk to other moms. And maybe that would be an option. I mean, you learn and, you know, get to chat a little bit and stuff. And, you know, that might be a good thing. We should look into that, right?

A lot of times with those moms groups, what we'll do is we'll, we'll be there to provide advice and answer questions, right? I like to call it the stump the dummy. Time, right? So I just stand up there and people can ask me all kinds of questions and feel free to try to stump me with difficult situations. I've been doing work for a long time and I'm usually pretty good at it, but if I don't know something, if you happen to stump me, I will find it out for you, right?

Don't put me to a challenge, Joe.

Bring it on, bring it on. But part of what we do there is we facilitate conversations, right? A lot about is being open and that. So if we get a moms group in, right? I might talk about a topic for a little bit and then we just open it up to Stump the Dummy time and just let them fire away. Like, I had this, and you have another mom go, oh my God, I had the same thing. Like, what about that? And they can talk about what they did, and then I can talk about some of the things that worked well, and I can talk about— so give them some other ideas or tips to take away. And so you're sharing— not only are the moms sharing their experiences on things that they've seen and see that it's, you know, not an uncommon topic amongst the other moms, that they might not otherwise talk about, but also it allows us to give some tips and tricks on things you can do, and we try to make it fun.

And the more questions you ask, the more you absorb, so you're benefiting yourself. The more questions you— I can't tell you how many questions I have asked Joe over the course of my employment and our friendship, and really just absorbing everything. So the more questions you can ask in a setting, especially around your other mom friends, the more you're gonna retain.

And we love questions. So a lot of times you go to classes and they'll be like, you know, well, there's no such thing as a dumb question, right? And the person sitting there going, no, this is a dumb question. No, we love questions. Like, I push people to ask questions, right? Because it's one of those deals that, you know, if people have a question, if they're thinking about something, then it's a valid concern for them, even if no one else in the room can relate. Right? For them, it's a valid concern. Ask away. And a lot of times what we'll find is, is that someone will ask a question that is like way off topic or something that they hadn't, you know, they're like, no one else. And it doesn't, but in the ensuing conversation surrounding it, then someone else is like, oh, that leads me to this, right? It's all about provoking thought and letting people think and talk through things, right? So we love questions.

So I think we'll hear more when it comes to your protection, feeling safe. I think it's a very personal matter, you know. So I think some people might have a hard time expressing, hey, I feel unsafe, or I feel concerned about this, and not realize there might be a whole lot of us that are in that, you know, group. And if we, you know, open up to have a conversation about you might be able to relate more than you think, right? I think a lot of, especially if you're a single mom out there and you're made to feel strong and like you said, you know, you have it all under control. It's okay when you don't. And if, you know, we have this, you know, available for moms to reach out and say, hey, I have the circumstances that I could be embarrassed about, right? Because they might, hey, I put myself in a situation that I did not realize what I was doing and I need help. And I think for working moms, it's hard. It's hard. And you think you're alone a lot of the times. You don't realize there's a lot of people out there that might have the similar situation. And by you stepping up and, you know, you might get other people to come in and be able to relate to it.

Absolutely. We're all about trying to make people feel comfortable about this stuff, right? Some of the topics can be really difficult to talk about. People can be really self-conscious about it. Our primary thing is is letting people open up and make some of these topics not so taboo. And a lot of times, what one of the things I call is our gateway class to other things is CPR, first aid, and AED, right? Even when it comes to the safety and the security stuff, people are self-conscious about it. But like, with February being Heart Health Month, we've done a lot of stuff surrounding CPR, AED, first aid. And like I said, choking is, it's the number one cause of death for infants. And then number 4 for toddlers, right? And so I've run into so many parents every time I go to school parent groups, PTOs, to talk about that. Almost every parent I've talked to was like, you know, I've been meaning to do that ever since my son or daughter was born. I've been wanting to learn. And I'm talking to like a 4th grade class, right? And it's like, that's how many years have passed by. But, you know, 90% of CPR is done on a family member or someone in your household, someone that you know, right? Only less than 10% of the time is it on a stranger on the street. So, you know, we're talking about your children, you know, parents or grandparents, you know, people that you know and love. And so, you know, that class, that CPR First Aid AED class, is something that we do.

It helped me.

Yeah.

My son choked and I knew how to assist him calmly. And it was terrifying. He choked on a chip, a Pringle. Of all things.

Yes.

But I was able to save his life because I took that class. And so in doing so, I've been reaching out to, I've reached out to over 100 schools, 2 different superintendents to try to get more teachers, more staff members, more bus drivers, to get this education because they're around children and they trust us with safety. Kids trust us to keep them safe all day and choking on a chip of all things.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those deals where when it comes to kids and choking, right? The top hazards are coins, right? Kids love to put coins in their mouths. I don't know why, but they do. Coins, balloons, grapes, hot dogs, peanut butter are like the top 5 choking hazards for little kids.

Wow.

So, you know, whenever I do CPR, first aid, AED, I always teach choking. Even if we don't do first aid, because we, you know, you can do just a CPR AED class, I always include the choking module because it's super important. And, you know, it's to know that, you know, hoping that someone will be able to to save a life, because it's more prevalent than people think, it's important to us.

So Joe, what's a typical class for like that? Like if someone wanted to book a class with you for that topic, what does that look like?

So if we're doing a full CPR AED first aid, so the first aid includes like cuts and bleeding incidents, it includes diabetic response, seizures, allergic reactions, and anaphylaxis. It serves a wide range of first aid topics. If you do a full class on CPR, AED, and first aid—

in adult—

we always do adult and pediatric, so you get adults, children, and infants.

We do that.

That class takes about 4 hours worth of time, and we do it in person. There are providers out there who do like a majority of it online And then you come in for about 45 minutes and you just push on the dummy and walk out and carry your card. But for us right now, we're sort of pushing back on doing it online because it's one of those deals where it's— there's a skill, and having the ability to do it in person, to be able to talk through things and to be able to give demonstrations and practice and practice, we think it's an important topic to do in person. And so it takes about 4 hours of your time on a Saturday or on an evening after work, and you walk away with an American Red Cross certification card that lasts for 2 years. And so we'll go through the class, we teach it, and again, we like to have lots of questions. So we'll talk about a lot of questions, we'll tell stories on some stuff that we've learned and, and, and situations we've been in, and try to make it an engaging educational environment for people.

Oh, that's great. I love the fact that you covered the diabetic and the seizures because that's— a lot of people don't know what to do.

Yeah, sure, absolutely. Yeah, the full First Aid has many topics in there: stroke, drowning, choking. And there's a wide variety of those things that you run across. And especially for that topic, like with 90% of CPR being done on a family member. It's one of those kind of deals that even if you're not interested in any of the other security topics, to be able to, you know, to be able to react or respond or help if an elderly grandparent has a heart attack, or a child is choking, or someone has an accident in the garage and cuts themselves badly— like, that ability to be able to provide that initial aid on a family member and help them through a medical crisis is invaluable in my mind.

I agree.

No, I agree.

Definitely.

Yeah. Well, you guys offer so many services. It's too much to cover right now, but we will circle back. But I want to know from each of you, I guess, because we always ask this question of our guests, what is your favorite thing or the best thing about being in this career field?

Ryan, you first.

Helping people. I love helping people. It's, it's, it's one of my passions and making sure people are safe and learning about another individual. It's fun to have that interaction with people and I can help them.

Yeah, I've spent a lot of my career, I spent a lot of my career interacting with people during the worst moment of their lives. Yeah, you know, as a law enforcement officer, or when I was working in federal doing counterterrorism, you're responding to incidents, you know, people are afraid, you know, they feel weak, they feel preyed upon. And being able to be there for someone and help support them during the worst moment of their lives is incredibly rewarding. And to be able to— nothing makes me happier than to have someone come back and say like, oh my god, Joe, I took your CPR first aid class, and this happened to a family member at a birthday party and I was able to do this and I had an effect on their outcome. Nothing is more rewarding and more empowering than that. And we love those kind of things.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, you can definitely tell that you're both passionate about what you do. So I feel like that's so awesome. I love when I see people that just love what they're doing.

Absolutely.

Because it's rare.

It's very rare in this time and age to find people that love their job. Yeah. And then lastly, I think we just want to know, how can our listeners get in touch with you if they want to take advantage of some of these services?

So we have our website, it's www.fpnpprotective.com. You can call us at 844-463-7670. Brittany is at extension 1. And you can reach right out to her and talk to her there. You can email us, there's a contact page on our website, or you can email either brit@fnpprotective.com or directly to me, joe@fnpprotective.com. We have a Facebook page, an Instagram page, so you can direct message us through there. And one of the things we talked about that we wanted to be able to do for your listeners and for your group is if anyone is interested in any of our services, having an investigation done or coming to a class or doing anything for the month of March, if they email in or call in and talk to Brittany and mention your, your podcast, and they can use the discount code SAMOMS10, and we'll give them 10% off on anything we have going this month.

Oh, I love that. That's so nice.

That is awesome. That's great.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And we will put some of that contact information. We have the capability of putting that in the episode description as well. And that way, you know, people can sometimes just click and it's a little easier to get ahold of you guys.

So, well, I'm going to be sure to go follow you guys on social media.

Yeah, please feel free. Please follow us on social media. And if your listeners come up with anything that they're interested in, we'll be happy to come back and talk about any given topic at any time.

That sounds great.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on. And thank you to our listeners for listening to this episode. And I guess then we'll just catch everybody next week, hopefully.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks so much for tuning in to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. Be sure to follow us on social media at our respective Instagram accounts or join our Working Moms of San Antonio Facebook group. Those links can be found in our episode description. If you have an episode topic suggestion or question, please email us at office@erikaradisagent.com. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. See you next week.