ASSOCIATE Magazine FBINAA Q3-2026

2025-26 FBINAA National Board

continued from "Meet Your New FBINAA President" page 14

NA: Member engagement is an important part of the FBINAA’s success. How do you hope to encourage greater involvement and participation across the Association? JG: Member engagement, for me, starts with reframing what graduation from the National Academy actually means. It's not a single moment in time — it's the beginning of a lifelong commit ment to the Association and the values it represents. That diploma is earned, not given, and it can never be taken away. So when we talk about engagement, especially with members who've drifted or become less connected, our job is to remind them that their place in this association doesn't expire. We need to keep reaching out and keep the door open so they stay connected to us through out their entire working life and well into retirement. What makes this association so valuable is the sheer depth of ex perience we can draw on. Between roughly 14,000 active members and another 20,000 or so who aren't currently engaged, we have access to an enormous body of collective knowledge. There is vir tually no challenge — professional or personal — that someone in our association hasn't already faced, worked through, and found an answer to. I think of it as the ultimate library of experience, and part of my job as president is making sure more of our members know that library exists and feel comfortable pulling a book off the shelf when they need it. continued on page 35

psyche that require care and maintenance. What’s most important to me is that we continue to message our members that seeking help is not a sign of weakness, but rather it is the ultimate sign of strength. We can affirm an environment in which we take care of one another through the mental health challenges that are so common in our profession. This has to be the norm and not the exception. The third area of wellness I want to focus on is with our spiritual wellness. Our former National Board chaplain, Pastor Mike Hardee of the Florida Chapter, began a program at the Chapter level en gaging our members who are both National Academy graduates and chaplains to provide another layer of care to our members who are experiencing the challenges of life and policing. Now, under the leadership of Chaplain Kevin Jensen, we’ve seen this program grow and Kevin adds to it immeasurably. The last area of wellness I’d like to focus on is financial wellness. Most members of our Association are in the second half of their career heading towards retirement. And for the effort that we put into our careers, I want to ensure that our members are prepared to approach retirement with the idea that they can be financially secure. We’ve got the contacts and we’ve got the interest from partners in the financial planning community to provide this resource to our members. And I think that is just as important as providing them with resources at work.

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