Manage Your Money Like Your Law Enforcement Career

Recently I had a chance to interview Howard Jaquay a retired Police Chief from Colorado who had over 31 years experience in law enforcement and who has a distinct passion for helping other law enforcement professionals learn more about finance and economics.  During his career he consulted with numerous agencies on pension design, administration & investment and testified before several state legislative committees on police & fire pension issues

Howard now teaches a class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Denver entitled “Set Your Own Financial Course: How To Think About Money & Finance”.  Howard thinks it’s very important for you as law enforcement professionals to take ownership of your financial future both to reduce your stress about money matters but also… to become more comfortable with what is happening with your money and your future.  We both agreed that financial management should be taught in schools for everyone, but is of particular importance for law enforcement officers who are under a good deal of stress from other sources.

During our hour long interview we discussed issues like:
The importance of Money & Finance – particularly for people in high risk/high stress occupations

How controlling financial future can help manage stress now

How police officers deal with high risk situations daily and that these skills can assist in financial decision making

How factors in the current recession can impact on your financial decisions

Financial volatility and its effect on investor confidence including, real and perceived risks, and the importance of time in setting and sticking to investment goals

Why diversification is important in dealing with market volatility

The condition of public sector pensions today – trends and likely future actions.

Here are to web resources that Howard mentioned during our interview:

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College at: http://crr.bc.edu/

Kuhn Academy
at: http://www.khanacademy.org/ then search for “Personal Finance”

Also during our interview Howard recommended the book: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely.  You can find it on Amazon.com by CLICKING HERE

You can listen to our 58 minute interview here:

Or you can download the 11 MB mp3 file by RIGHT CLICK HERE to download (that’s CONTROL CLICK if you use a Mac then SAVE LINK AS…) a copy of the mp3 file.

Plan for your safety and plan for your future!

CopsAlive is written to prompt discussions within our profession about the issues of law enforcement career survival.  We invite you to share your opinions in the Comment Box that is at the bottom of this article.

CopsAlive.com was founded to provide information and strategies to help police officers successfully survive their careers.  We help law enforcement officers and their agencies prepare for the risks that threaten their existence.

We will help your agency create the kind of place that supports and protects officers so that they can do their jobs better, safer, longer and survive to tell their grand kids all about it.

We do this by Helping Law Enforcement professionals plan for happy, healthy and successful lives on the job and beyond.  We think the best strategy is for each officer to create a tactical plan for their own life and career.  We call this Tactical Wellness planning.

The Law Enforcement Survival Institute (LESI) works with individuals and organizations to help them create and sustain success in their lives and careers as law enforcement professionals.  It is the primary goal of The Law Enforcement Survival Institute to become the preeminent source for training, resources and information about how to create and sustain a happy, healthy and successful life and career while providing superior law enforcement service to your community.

At The Law Enforcement Survival Institute we train law enforcement officers to cope with stress and manage all the toxic effects and hidden dangers of a career in law enforcement.

We provide stress management and Tactical Wellness for police officers and other law enforcement professionals.

CLICK HERE to read more about The Law Enforcement Survival Institute.

CLICK HERE if you would like to email us to learn more about training for your organization.

I’m John Marx, Founder of The Law Enforcement Survival Institute and the Editor of CopsAlive.com.  Connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Editor

John Marx was a Police Officer for twenty-three years and served as a Hostage Negotiator for nineteen of those years. He worked as a patrol officer, media liaison officer, crime prevention officer and burglary detective. Also during his career he served as administrator of his city's Community Oriented Governance initiative through the police department's Community Policing project. Today John combines his skills to consult with businesses about improving both their security and their customer service programs. John retired from law enforcement in 2002. When one of his friends, also a former police officer, committed suicide at age 38, John was devastated and began researching the problems that stress creates for police officers. He decided he needed to do something to help change those problems and he wanted to give something back to the profession that gave him so much. He started a project that has evolved into CopsAlive.com. Put simply, the mission of CopsAlive is to save the lives of those who save lives! CopsAlive.com gathers information, strategies and tools to help law enforcement professionals plan for happy, healthy and successful careers, relationships and lives.
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