- PNC is proud to support "Business Forward," where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Peoria Police Chief, Eric Echevarria.

Welcome, Eric.

- Good evening.

- Well, let's get down to it.

Let's talk about you.

So, you're not originally from here.

Where did you grow up?

Where are you from?

- I grew up in Elgin, Illinois.

- Okay.

And you were an officer there a long time, weren't you?

- [Eric] 22 years.

- 22 years.

And you had many, many different roles?

- I did, yes.

- And so now you have been to Peoria.

Peoria went on a search.

I'm guessing it's a nationwide search.

How does something like that?

Like how do they contact you or even find you?

- I find them, I think.

It depends.

There's very different ways.

But once you get to a certain executive level, you become members of executive groups, such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Executive Research Forum.

And that's where you see the job openings at.

They're looking for an executive.

I imagine this happens in many other types of businesses, where a research firm or an agency is looking and they put it out.

So, I happened to run into, "Peoria is looking for a chief of police."

And so the first thing you do is wonder why they're looking for a chief and you do a little homework on it to see why somebody's leaving.

And I applied.

- You applied.

So, you've been here, you get the job.

- [Eric] I do.

- Is that a huge, I'm guessing, leaving Elgin and having a family.

That's a big decision, right?

- It's a big decision, not an easy decision either.

- Did you struggle with it or was it?

- Yeah, I think you could say you struggle a little bit with it, because you're leaving your comfort.

- [Matt] Yeah, safety.

- Safety, yes.

And so I didn't need to leave.

I was comfortable.

I was a commander at the Elgin Police Department.

I wasn't the chief, but very busy city, very similar in size.

And I'd been there a long time.

I know everybody, I have relationships.

I don't have to start over.

My family's there.

I know Elgin like the back of my hand.

I grew up there.

And to suddenly say, "Wow, I'm gonna leave all of this "to go somewhere else."

I didn't leave 'cause I didn't like Elgin.

I didn't leave 'cause I was having issues with the police department.

It was just a great career opportunity.

And I know it's an opportunity that would've arose in Elgin once this chief left.

There was possibly an opportunity to take the chief role there.

But I thought there was a great opportunity to go and take on a new challenge.

- Well, I'll tell you this.

Our city needed you, so thanks for coming.

And when that job opens, don't go back.

(laughs) - It's funny you say that.

A lot of people ask me that.

And I don't have any plans to go back.

I really enjoy being here.

We enjoy the community.

We enjoy the house that we're living in as much as I get to enjoy it, 'cause I feel like I'm at work a lot.

But we enjoy it.

And it's been great so far.

- And we're gonna talk about why you think it's great, but I'm gonna give you my perspective.

When you first came on, this was a little over a year ago, you came here like you'd been here 20 years.

And I think that says a lot about you as a person.

But I think our city opened our arms too.

I mean, I called you and left a message and two seconds later, you called me back and I was sitting in your office for probably an hour and 15 minutes and we just had a discussion and you picked my brain, I picked yours.

And I thought, "Wow, this is very refreshing."

- Well, good.

- And you've only done that probably 100 times since you've been here, right?

- Probably a little more.

- A little more.

So, over the years you've served.

I find this interesting about police departments.

And I was talking to Sheriff Watkins about this too, because a lot of people just think you're the police and that you just go pull people over or you just go do things in your cars.

But there's a lot more to it.

- [Eric] A lot more to it now.

- Over the years, you've served in operations bureau.

Don't even know what that means, but we'll get to it.

Special investigations, major investigations, served 15 years as a resident officer, serving as police commander of investigations for the Elgin Police Department.

That's what you call pretty well-rounded.

- Yes.

And very thankful to my mentors in policing.

We've talked about mentors in other businesses, but you should have mentors in every aspect of your life.

I've had some great mentors in policing that have pushed me into different roles and encouraged me to challenge myself, which led to being well-rounded and being able to be competitive for a position like Peoria.

- You know, it's interesting you say that, that competitiveness, because I think a lot of people that get into your business, there is a little competitive edge, or there's a little chip on their shoulder, grit.

I don't know.

You could use all kinds of words.

But you have to have all that in you, don't you?

- You do, you do.

You gotta be able to stand up to a lot of things.

There's gonna be a lot of criticism.

There's gonna be people that are gonna give you kudos.

And you cannot let it define you.

You gotta push the ego to the side and you learn that very quickly.

Because I think that's a big detriment to this position.

- When it says operations bureau, what does that mean?

- So, the operations bureau there was really, it was kind of the patrol side of things.

- [Matt] That's what I was wondering.

- Yeah, so I was a lieutenant in patrol.

I never, as a commander, overseen it, but there was times where the commander wasn't there, so we would take on those roles.

A lot of my part as a commander was over investigations.

So, special investigations, the gang unit, the drug unit, our undercovers, our technical investigation unit.

So, we had a remote information center there.

So, cameras and we could monitor things from the department.

So, our drones.

It was a very robust division.

- I'm guessing you still use Elgin as a sounding board with friends and mentors up there, continuing that relationship, 'cause they wanna see you succeed too.

- Absolutely.

So, the chief out there is a very good friend of mine.

We still stay in contact.

I send her information, she'll send me information.

I was just up there and there's a thing that we kind of, we would do to each other just to mess each other's diets up.

She'd drop off five pounds of gummy bears on my desk and I would drop off big, giant bags of popcorn on her desk.

So, at my year anniversary here, I got a five pound of gummies mailed to me, along with some other stuff.

And I drove up there the other day and I dropped off two big, giant bags of popcorn from the local popcorn vendor here.

- I love it.

Popcorn Heaven, I'm guessing.

- [Eric] Yep.

- Joann, she's great.

So, you served with the International Association of Chiefs.

I'm bringing this up because I'm leading to what I think you're saying you are.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, Hispanic American Police Command.

And the list goes on.

All of those things really lead up to, even though your title's chief, really you're CEO.

- Correct.

- [Matt] I mean, you're a CEO period.

- Yes.

- And so you as CEO, all those things you just talked about, I mean there are so many different departments and different people that need that leadership.

They're looking for that leader, right?

- Correct.

- And so when you came to Peoria, how do you come in new and set expectations?

Because you're really setting a new culture.

- [Eric] Yes.

- How do you do that?

- Yeah, I was very intentional when I arrived to really meet with the community more than my staff internally.

The goal was really, I wanted the staff internally to know that what the community had to say was very, very important.

And I think I had to set that tone from the beginning.

And so I didn't meet necessarily with the command staff for several weeks.

Like I didn't have an official.

Monday mornings, I have a meeting, every Monday morning.

Command staff, we meet.

What happened on the weekend?

What do we have going on this week?

And we meet.

I didn't do that in the beginning.

I was out meeting with community members, community stakeholders.

I wanted to know what was important to them.

Because I needed to bring that back to the department to say, "This is the way we need to move," one.

But two, they knew that it was important to me to hear them first, before I heard them.

Does that make sense?

- It's a strategy.

- [Eric] That was my strategy, if you will.

- As the CEO, you can set that strategy.

- And that's what I wanted.

I wanted the department to understand that moving forward, the community was number one and our customer service to them had to be a priority.

- To piggyback on that, a year ago you said, "Peoria seems to be primed right now for change, "looking for something different."

I think we were.

- I think so.

- So, you talk about the community piece and you know how I feel about community.

I love it.

But it is important for the officers to get out of their cars.

And it's important to talk and to not just say, "How's it going?"

It's actually that digging deep.

I see that everywhere now, that culture.

- And I hear that a lot.

- [Matt] I mean, that's pretty cool stuff.

- And I like that.

I like that.

I think they see it from the top.

They see it from the CEO.

I'm told everybody says, "When do you sleep?

"Because we see you everywhere."

I think it's important that the community sees the leadership is invested in the community.

And you know what?

It isn't an effort for me.

This is who I am.

I like to be out.

I wanna talk to people.

If I didn't have to be in an office, I'd be out on the street all day, quite frankly.

'Cause I enjoy being out and talking with the public and hearing what they have to say and having some dialogue, even at times when you don't see eye to eye.

But this gives us the opportunity to find some common ground.

- And that's fine if you don't believe what I believe.

And you're learning.

I mean, it's not like you've got the answer to everything.

- [Eric] Correct.

- People think you should have the answer to everything, but you don't.

So, when looking at major issues facing your office, what are two or three of 'em that come to mind that you look at when you're putting together the strategy for the upcoming year or whatever, however you do it?

- Well here, I was really coming in at the ground level.

I'm starting over.

And so what I needed to look at is who am I promoting?

Who are the next people that are gonna get promoted in this department?

And do they fit what I believe are the qualities that I'm looking for in a leader?

I'm looking for people.

And I tell people, "I don't necessarily need you to try and keep up with me, "but when I need you there, I need you there."

But I need people with integrity.

- I love it.

- I want people who are blunt, specifically around me.

I don't want people that are gonna sit around and just say yes because I thought it was a great idea.

And I don't wanna be the smartest person in the room either.

And so initially, I had to promote an assistant chief and some captains.

And that's my executive team.

- [Matt] Your core.

- Right, that's my core.

And that core has to be strong.

So, I had to do a little research, 'cause I could have possibly hired from the outside and brought somebody in.

Or do I keep somebody internally?

And I thought there was value in not disrupting what's already going on.

They brought in one guy from the outside.

To bring in a second person from the outside to understand everything that's going on.

I needed somebody that knows what's going on inside.

And my first promotion was the assistant chief to Brad Dixon.

And we had an interview panel.

I brought in people from the community.

I wanted their voices.

I wanted to hear what key community stakeholders that were in the interview panel would have to say about the people that were interviewing for it.

And that's how I've done every interview from then on for all my executive team.

- [Matt] That's interesting.

- Yeah.

'Cause again, the voice of the community is important to me and all of it.

And so I was able to promote an executive team that I'm very, very happy with.

The captain over investigation, the captain over operations and patrol, and the assistant chief are all a phenomenal team.

Everybody brings a wealth of knowledge.

My assistant chief's been there a long time.

I don't know if you've met him.

I'm assuming you probably have.

His reputation in the community, his reputation within the police department.

- [Matt] Great guy.

- Yes.

And he's done a phenomenal, phenomenal job.

He's a guy who's not going to say yes to me because I came up with an idea.

And that's what I want.

I want somebody who could, "Let's dialogue.

"Let's talk about what's going on."

I want my admin team to be able to.

Let's have a conversation and we don't have to agree.

But when we leave this room, we're all on the same sheet of music.

And the troops, the officers need to know, we're in this together.

And it's been great.

And I think what was important, again I keep talking about community, was that our officers know that community was going to be important and is important and their voice.

And now let's look at what technology we need to have in place.

I walked into a police department where we've been lacking a little bit in technology, to say the least.

Detectives on flip phones, not enough computers for report writing areas.

It's just not efficient.

It's not effective.

And getting these other things in place to make sure that I can't ask my officers to get the job done effectively and efficiently without the proper tools.

It's hard to do.

Fixing some things internally, making sure our policies are up to speed and up to date.

Still working through that.

It's a lot of policies to go through.

And if all I had to do was sit around and read policies, maybe I could get it done, but there's a lot more to running a police department than just sitting down, looking at policies.

So, it was really just looking at our internal culture and saying, "What are we lacking in?

"What can we improve on?

"What are our strengths, our weaks, "our opportunities, our threats?"

SWOT analysis, if you will, of the department.

- [Matt] And each person.

- And each person, yeah.

And then figuring out from the union, what issues are you seeing and what do you need changed?

And one of the things I immediately implemented was meetings with the officers.

There's officers here that have never been in the chief's office.

Never.

And I tell people, this is not your grandma's living room with the porcelain that you can't touch.

Come on in.

So, we'll do 15-minute meetings, set out a date, and they make appointments, so I know who's coming in at what time.

And we just sit down and talk.

Tell me who you are.

Tell me a little bit about you, your family, whatever you wanna share.

What are your goals here at the department?

What do you wanna do?

What needs to change?

What's good and what's bad?

And sit down and try to get to every officer and every professional staff we have to get their perspective.

'Cause I'm the new guy.

So, I need to hear it from them.

Privately, in a safe place, which is weird for them because I am the CEO and now I'm asking you to gimme the bad.

But it's been very well.

- There's a trust in doing that.

You're building that trust.

When I look at your, let's say your next five people underneath the CEO, it looks like you hired them because they all could eventually be a chief someday, or they're all just as.

- Yes.

You hit the nail on the head.

I tell them this in meetings all the time.

I say to them, "I was never expected to leave from Elgin."

I'm the guy that grew up there, the first Latino in a city with a large Latino population, to make it to the rank of lieutenant and then to the rank of commander.

The first.

The story was set.

"This guy's gonna be the next chief.

"Eric Echevarria will be the next chief at some point."

That's what everybody thought and thinks.

Nobody ever thought that I would leave that city.

But I did.

And I don't expect them to leave, but there's a possibility.

I will say this.

Everybody on my team.

Our assistant chief, I'll start with him.

And I mean this to no disrespect to any other chief anywhere else, but my assistant chief probably does a lot more than some of the chiefs in these smaller cities, just because of the size of our department and all the things that we have.

We have a bomb squad.

We have a SWAT team.

We have negotiators.

We have drones, canines, which other departments may not have these things.

- It's huge!

- We have federal task force partners, state task force partners, officers that we have on task force.

So, the experiences that the assistant chief in a department this size and the captains in the department this size have is oftentimes more experience than the chief in a small city will ever have.

And the amount of police activity that we have and the things that we're involved in just gives them the experience just because of the size.

Any of them at any point can decide if a position opens at a smaller department.

We're the sixth largest department in the state.

So at any smaller department, they decide to go apply, they could be a chief at any other police department, just like I had that opportunity.

- You took me around and I know most of 'em anyway.

And when I saw, I said, "Yeah, I can verify that."

- And that's the same thing for the lieutenants as we go to promote lieutenants.

So I tell them all the time, "If I leave, I wanna be able to leave a department."

I don't plan on leaving.

Let's put that out there.

I'm here 'til at least I'm 55.

I'll turn 49 next year.

I'm here for the long haul.

I wanna hang out.

I like where I'm at.

Assistant chief one day may be the chief, but one of those captains should be the assistant chief.

And whatever lieutenants that we promote, that I promote, I look at them as I need to promote people who are gonna be the future executive team of this department.

- That's exactly how I feel.

- And so if you don't fit that qualification, you might get skipped at some point.

I have no shame in saying that.

I need to set up the city for future success and this department for future success.

That's my job.

And I wanna make sure that the people that we are promoting are people that will be able to take the helm, any of 'em, at any point, on this executive team of this police department.

- Switching gears, transparency.

You and I have had this discussion before, but I think it's my favorite thing about you is there's a bluntness to it, but there's also when you're doing all this social media stuff, sometimes it's not good.

Sometimes it's you're sitting there with stuffed animals at the hospital or doing something with a nonprofit.

But you're just as transparent as a guy that I've seen in this position.

I think that's pretty cool stuff.

- I think it's important.

We can't forget we work for the community.

Yes, we're the police department and we have a lot of authority and power.

At the end of the day, who do we work for?

The community.

The community should know, should know what we're doing, what we're not doing.

Yes, there are some things that we're gonna hold onto a little bit.

There might be some information that we're gonna hold onto because it may compromise something.

But I think at the end of the day, when there's an opportunity to share, we need to share the information, good or bad.

Good or bad.

We're gonna have to talk to it.

There's gonna be times where we're gonna have something bad may happen.

Let's hope not.

But the odds are in it's going to happen at some point.

It's people policing people.

Things could happen.

So, it's very important that we are transparent.

I think that builds trust, legitimacy with our community, and we can't compromise on that.

- I hear you.

So, you're probably asked to serve on numerous boards and things like that, committees, even statewide or nationwide committees.

How do you juggle all that and decide which ones are the most important?

'Cause they're all important in a sense.

- Yeah, they are.

What I've tried to do is really not commit to any big boards this first year.

I think the focus has to be on the police department.

Between all the meetings and everybody wants to meet with the chief.

Everybody wants to talk about something.

Everybody has a solution to an issue.

And really getting just to know the community.

I don't think there's any time to really sit on boards.

And there are some things that I do sit on that we need.

But I'm not committed to just.

- Like the mental health needs.

You have a hand in that piece.

- And we meet with the health department.

Those are gonna be meetings we're gonna have.

But we're partners in it, it's not like I'm sitting on their board.

So, I'm not really sitting on any boards because I need to focus on the Peoria Police Department and the city of Peoria.

But if there's time to sit down and you need some input on something, I'm always willing to do that.

I just can't commit right now to being on a board.

There might be a time that I will, but this is a very busy job.

My priority is the police department.

- What's the best thing about living in central Illinois?

- The people are very, very nice.

- [Matt] I teed that one up for you, right?

Yeah, the people are great.

- I think the people are very nice.

We talk about this all the time, my family and I, and it's like Peoria embraced us as if we were from here, and they didn't have to do that.

And it's been very nice.

It's been great.

It's been great.

And so some of the things that I do have to deal with because of that is we'll be out.

Somebody wants to take a photo.

Somebody wants to come say hi, you're having dinner.

And I tell people all the time, I said, "Bring it on."

I rather I'm doing that than I'm getting yelled at or something else, right?

And so it's been great.

The community's been great.

They've been great to my wife.

They've been great to my son.

'Cause I dragged 'em around with me everywhere as well.

- And that was when I invited you to something, you said, "I hope it's okay I'm gonna bring my son."

Of course.

- Yes.

And that's one of the things that I've had the.

I get invited to a lot of things.

And if I don't involve my wife and my son who are very important to me, obviously, one.

I say this all the time to the officers, but we really count on our families to support us so we can do what we do for this city.

The countless hours we gotta put in, the phone calls at night, the Shotspotters going off at night.

'Cause my phone is constantly going off and my son already knows what it is.

"Hey dad, Shotspotter went off."

And he'll ask me how many rounds it is, which is kind of sad, but he knows what it is.

My phone goes off.

Sometimes I have to sleep in a separate room because something's happening.

- And you know something ahead of time could be happening or whatever.

- Something's happening.

And so I don't want to disrupt them, 'cause they gotta get up and he's gotta go to school.

- It's tough, right?

- It is.

It's hard but we count on our families and I'm very appreciative that they support me.

- Well, we're appreciative of you.

And it's been a year, but welcome to Peoria and you know we love you here.

So Chief Echevarria, thank you.

Keep caring.

This wraps another show.

I'm Matt George and this is "Business Forward."

(upbeat music)