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Trevor Williams: From Surviving The Haiti Earthquake in 2010 to Success With “The Williams Key”
Ever wondered what life would be like growing up in a war-torn country as a missionary child? Our guest for today, Trevor Williams, paints a vivid picture as he takes us through his extraordinary childhood in Africa and Haiti during the Rwandan genocide. Trevor's tales of his family's faith-driven missionary work and his journey into firefighting are both heartwrenching and inspirational.
Trevor recounts his first-hand experiences during the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti. His stories of survivorship, coupled with the trauma of loss, embody the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity. His role as an EMT during this crisis lends a unique lens to the aftermath of the disaster. But Trevor's journey doesn't end there. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to create the Williams Key, a remarkable tool now favored by locksmiths for picking locks.
In our final segment, Trevor shares his vision for the Williams Key and his nonprofit organization, From Foundation. His unwavering commitment to serving his community continues to inspire, embodying the essence of turning tragedy into triumph. From constructing homes in Haiti to innovating locksmithing tools, Trevor's story is a testament to resilience, faith, and the persistent drive to make a difference. Don't miss this episode as we explore the inspiring journey of Trevor Williams and his profound impact on the world.
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Trevor Williams. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. Good to have you here, man. I'm glad that you're coming on. What's really cool is that you actually drove from where you did to get here. I'm not going to say where you live, but thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's always nice to do these in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've tried the what do you call it? Remote satellite. It just doesn't seem as organic as having somebody in the room and being able to kind of read the room, read them talk, laugh in front of each other and stuff. You know. Just it flows a lot better.
Speaker 2:I've done.
Speaker 1:I think I did one of them and I just didn't release it. I'm like this is too choppy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on those Zoom things, I always end up looking at myself instead of like I'm like I'm looking. Okay, right now it's like it's a distraction. Yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, man, seriously thanks for coming on the podcast. And is that shirt alligator print? Yeah, I think it is. Do that, that is clean. Thanks, sir. By the way, we do have Ollie over here. Put that camera on yourself, dude. Ollie is filling in my man. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. But anyways, trevor, again thank you for coming on. Man, a lot of cool things and interesting things to talk about with you. But first, dude, you grew up very interesting than interestingly is that the best way? Different than most people, I would say. Right, I think your parents were missionaries.
Speaker 2:They were.
Speaker 1:Where were they missionaries at? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2:So yeah, a lot of growing up very quickly. In my childhood, Born in Virginia, when I was four we moved to Africa. Wow, yeah, so Africa. At that time in 94, this is a couple years ago we were there during the Rwandan genocides. So what? It was war zone, so was it?
Speaker 1:I mean I interrupt you, but you guys went over and then it started happening, or did you go and it was already going down the genocide?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. Nobody's asked me that. And I was four, oh God. I'm going to assume that it kind of ramped up once we got there. But we lived in Zaire, which bordered Rwanda, so we were affected by it, but not in the middle like the heat, and it was like a lot of tribal stuff too, so we weren't necessarily part of a tribe when we lived there. It was more industrial. We lived in a city. My dad worked for World Vision, which is a large nonprofit organization, and yeah, we were there a couple years.
Speaker 1:So the missionary worker you dad was doing, was it going into tribes and talking with the people, or was it more city? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:They covered a broad spectrum. I do remember pygmies at one point like jungle very short and on the same size as this. So, yeah, I was four, so they were like hi with me. But they do education, they do clean water projects, building projects. Most people who are not missionaries know of World Vision through sponsoring a child. So that's why first thought so that's their big thing, that is most common. But yeah, they're in every country and there's just like a million things they do.
Speaker 1:Is that what your family did, like your parents did for living? Were they just missionaries?
Speaker 2:My dad was actually a lawyer, an attorney, and he one day we're Christian and he felt called by God to go help in Africa of all places. And so a lot of times when people think of a missionary, they think about like going and spreading the gospel, being sponsored by your church, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm, that's my thought.
Speaker 2:And that's not always the case, because there are a lot of companies that are like you can work for a company and you don't need to be sponsored, and you work in all sorts of different countries, and some are faith based, some are not. I guess you would call yourself a humanitarian If there wasn't like a tie to a faith. So this was both, though World Vision is the largest Christian organization, that's like a nonprofit and, but it's also a humanitarian organization.
Speaker 1:So was that pretty much until you were 18, or was that a short stint?
Speaker 2:No, so that was four years, just about four years, that I lived in Africa. We talked about that year, but it got really bad while we were living there due to all the wars and stuff going on. So we did kind of like a temporary evacuation to South Africa, and South Africa is more like a first world country paved roads, like you can go eat at restaurants, seems safe, but it's not. It's like it's actually very dangerous. So we wore these necklaces that had like a panic button on it. I don't know what would do if I pressed it. Like I feel like a lot of time go by before any like aid was rendered.
Speaker 3:It was going to come get me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like it made you feel safer. I guess Sense of security. So you guys didn't have any bodyguards or anything. No well, in Africa we did Well just at the house. It was like a gatekeeper. So our house was surrounded by a wall, barbed wire. We had a dog who in retrospect probably wouldn't have done much. It seemed big when I was four, but it's probably like a 20 pound little thing. And then we didn't have armed security but we had a guy who would like open the gate and hit a slingshot.
Speaker 3:No way.
Speaker 2:So it was more for like hunting and stuff, but he did one time he did hit a guy with his slingshot, so he was spot on with it. Yeah, wow, he was accurate. He was on the way home over the wall one night and he hit him. So I think it was OK, but he just deterred him.
Speaker 1:More power to him.
Speaker 3:What the heck did I just get hit by.
Speaker 1:Do you think those years being in Africa and your dad doing that mission work, do you think they had a pretty profound impact on your life, in shaping you as a young man and kind of who you are today?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and I'll get more into why. Because Africa was just like the first stop. I also lived in Haiti, the island of Haiti, well, island of Hispaniola. It's attached to the Dominican Republic. There's Haiti, dominican poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and I lived there during my teenage years. So, that's more specifically. You're impressionable during that time. I still am, I mean, although, yeah, especially when you're a teenager, though. So, yeah, that really kind of shaped me, I think, into part of who I am today and, yeah, you kind of grow up fast in those countries. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1:I know the things that you saw and we experienced. I mean, if you compare that what you went through then and what you witness to what we have now, I mean that's, I mean you're talking about two completely different worlds. Yeah, you know, we can turn on a faucet and have water. We're there. I'm sure that was not the probably not the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just different. No, no, hot water, at least for us. Yeah, and we were like very privileged, all things considered, in Haiti. You know we lived in a house. You know we had a car, that sort of thing when most people are living off a dollar a day and every day is a battle. Are you going to eat today? Are you going to catch a bullet? It's a violent country too. A lot of gangs, a lot of you hear gunfire every day. You see dead bodies in the streets. So how long are you guys there? Three years there, so I was 12 to 15.
Speaker 1:Wow. And then after that did you guys come back to the States?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was another scenario like Africa where it was getting really bad to where we had to evacuate. So in Haiti the government was being overthrown. The president at the time his name was Aristide, and nobody liked him. He was taking advantage of the country. He was supplying gangs with weapons and stuff just to wreak havoc. The country didn't like him, so he didn't like the country. He eventually got ousted. Meanwhile there's riots everywhere, burning tires in the streets, gunfire, roadblocks, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Like the stuff you see in movies, pretty much so. Are you an only child, or do you have brothers and sisters that were there with you as well, with your parents?
Speaker 2:I was an only child until I was seven, so most of my Africa years. By the time I got to Haiti, I had two sisters and we were spread out all seven years apart, so I was 14. Next one was seven, next one was being born. So the youngest sister, she barely remembers Haiti, at least at that time. There's more Haiti in our future.
Speaker 3:Even being like sorry, I didn't mean to. Even being like that young at a point in time where oh, thank you, Even when being like at the age you were, you were still pretty young but being in that scenario where you have such an intense situation going on around you, Do you feel like you had to almost be a protector of your family and your sisters, especially since they were so much younger than you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's a good point. My family was a very anti-gun and we didn't have the armed guards and stuff like that and for me I was seeing a lot of violence. I was seeing my friends at school were getting kidnapped or broken into. They throw poison meat over your fence, poison your dog, come in and do whatever they wanted. So I felt vulnerable as a 14, 15-year-old.
Speaker 1:I'm sure man.
Speaker 2:And I also didn't feel like we were prepared for something to happen. Our dog was a little bit bigger now, but still we didn't have the security, the armed guards that a lot of people had that were in our same scenario. So, yeah, I definitely felt like I had evacuation plans and I had stuff set up in my head when, if something were to go wrong, I was going to try and I felt like I was the one that had to do that for my family.
Speaker 1:And you're a teenager, yeah, yeah. So I guess you were saying about growing up quick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just the perspective on the world that you would have alone, like from experiencing such poverty in multiple nations. And then, on top of that, now you have your own security and safety that you have to worry about. I mean, how could that not mold you into what you do now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other thing is it's hard to live in an environment where you're not sure if you're going to make it through the day. That's intensive for a kid, that's intense and for anybody, but especially a kid and seeing evidence of other people who didn't make it through that day. So it's pretty easy to live in fear when you're in those scenarios and in those countries and fear can just cripple you. You don't want to do anything, you're scared of everything, your head gets the best of you and stuff. So at one point I had to make a decision to not be afraid anymore, and once I chose that which I don't think a kid should have to choose, but once I made that decision for myself, haiti became a lot more fun and I was able to live more of a normal life and just one day at a time.
Speaker 2:But I've already accepted my fate if that were to happen, or whatever.
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to worry about it. If it happens, you can probably also see, with your faith and being a Christian, we're probably doing that time. The Lord protected you guys. I look back on my life and I'm a prodigal son dude big time. I've already told you. Before we came up here, I was like, oh cool, you're a missionary, missionary is a kid, that's awesome man. And I look back now and see situations that I was in or put myself in, whether it's at work or off duty, doing whatever I was doing and I'm like, thank you. You're like, wow, that could have gone really bad, yeah, really really bad. So I'm sure you can see that in your life, your family's life. You know that's something that's pretty powerful too, especially what your family's doing. Yeah, so are they. Does your dad still do missionary work? Is he kind of like retired God, please don't say he's dead.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like why'd I say that?
Speaker 2:Why would you bring that up? No, he's fine, good, good. No, my family and we can dig into this too. They're all good, they're all fine, but the Haiti earthquake in 2010 brought them back to the States for good.
Speaker 1:Oh, so they were still there. Wow, were you there in 2010? I was. You were at the fire department.
Speaker 2:Or no, were you not? No, I wasn't hired yet, ok, ok, but I was visiting, you were visiting. I had moved to California. Oh my god, my family, we all moved to California for like two years, ok, and by that point, this was after Haiti. By that point, I was 18. I knew I wanted to be a firefighter. I'd gotten established with the Explore program, oh cool.
Speaker 1:Hey, I was with that, right there with you, LA County.
Speaker 2:LA County. Oh man, let's go Post-16. And you had a dude on like two episodes ago, post-16. Yeah, Grosses or Anthony or something like that. Anyway, I was like I didn't know him. I think he's a little bit older than me, but I was like dude, post-16.
Speaker 3:That's all I'm supposed to do Post-3. Oh boy.
Speaker 2:But either way, I knew I wanted to be a firefighter. That's cool. The missionary work kind of pushed me into that too helping people, yeah. Yeah, Exciting, unpredictable, all that stuff. But my family moved from California after two years back to Haiti and I was like I got to stay here. I know what I'm being called to do now. I want to be a firefighter. I'm on that path EMT, the Explores, the Fire Classes, all that stuff. I had a good focus and so I didn't move back with them. The option was there, but I was like, nope, I got to do my own thing here now. So I was out of the house by 18. And well, my family left me.
Speaker 3:So I was like what a little bit opposite. I was like what a house in Haiti.
Speaker 2:I was out here on my own trying to hustle and survive in LA, but family moved back to Haiti, and this was 2009. So not even a year before the January 12, 2010, haiti earthquake that was a 7.0, 39 seconds long, killed 300,000 people and left a million more homeless and you were there, so I went back after five years to visit. And I got there a couple of days before the earthquake and it was just insane.
Speaker 1:Like absolutely insane. So where were you when the earthquake happened? Were you outside in a room hotel Like where?
Speaker 2:were you. So the capital of Haiti is Port-au-Prince and I was in that city and it's a mountainous city, so there's like mountains all the way down to the beach. And I was down in the city at an orphanage, on the second floor, and when the earthquake started I didn't know. It was an earthquake right away. Even living in California, I'd never experienced anything substantial and to me it felt like a Big Mac truck was starting to rumble down the road and this was just like a few seconds and then it got more and more and more intense, to where our building was shaking. And there is a lady that owned that orphanage, was a paramedic, I think. She lived in California, actually for a little bit of time, but she's like more retirement age and missionary now in Haiti, and she yelled earthquake.
Speaker 2:She knew she had more experience and I'm like, oh shoot, earthquake. Ok, so second floor of this orphanage. I'm up against this railing, so hold on to the railing. And I'm starting to plan my escape route. I was like, OK, what if this building goes down? What am I going to do? Am I going to ride it down? Probably a bad idea. I saw a truck down below. I'm like all right, I'm going to jump on that truck. The shocks will kind of absorb my fall.
Speaker 1:Like every guy in the action movie.
Speaker 2:I'm jumping for the truck. I got this, so fortunately I didn't have to do that. The building we were in stood, but there was buildings all around us going down and it was noisy, dusty. After like five seconds probably that's when it started to become scary and intense and, yeah, that's when, like, structures started to fail around us and everything in our building that could fall down fell down, like every table or chairs were flipped over, all the cabinets were on the ground, all the pictures were off the wall, all the kids have fallen down 110 kids at this orphanage.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that must have been chaos. We've been dealing with them right. They're kids, they don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, all the kids are screaming Quite, a few of the adults too, and yeah, so once it stopped, we got all the kids off the second floor, which were the second floor's special needs area. So we like carried all those kids out first and then got the rest of the kids out. And this orphanage is surrounded by walls. So my firefighter not hired yet, but some of the training in me was like all right, collapse. We got to stay away from the building, stay away from the walls. So we got in like little groups where it seemed safer and sat on the ground Because aftershocks started hitting and the aftershocks were like 5.0. And bringing down remaining struggling buildings that were just barely hanging on, bringing down more buildings, and over the next couple weeks there were hundreds of aftershocks.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so this was almost 5 PM in the evening, so dusk, and I wanted to go out and help. But I felt like I was needed with the kids, like a lot of kids to handle, and I thought my dad knew where I was and there was like a couple places I could have been and I was like, all right, I probably shouldn't go wandering, like I'll probably stay where he thinks I might be, and no cell phones worked. Like all the towers either went down or there's like millions of people trying to text and make phone calls. But at the same time we didn't know how devastating this earthquake was. At this point I was like hope everybody's OK. We didn't see anybody die right in front of us when it was happening and we couldn't see anything around us because of walls and buildings and stuff. So, yeah, I had absolutely no idea how devastating it was initially and so I just waited and really wanted to run out there and make sure everybody else was OK.
Speaker 2:But I knew I was needed where I was at. So I waited probably a couple hours and my dad showed up. Oh good, and he had a bad, serious look on his face, like a look I'd probably never seen on him before, and he was like Trevor, I need to talk to you and he pulls me aside and he was like I went back to the apartments where your mom and your two sisters were and nobody's alive there, and it was a five-story apartment on the edge of a mountain. They lived on the bottom floor and it had completely collapsed, pancaked down. So he didn't tell me they were dead, he just said. He went back there couldn't find anybody alive.
Speaker 1:Dude, I'm almost a loss for words right now. For your dad to even come and find you, all this chaos has happened. He might think his rest of his family's past. He doesn't know where you are, that poor man. And then he finally sees you. But to deliver that information, I mean, how did you even receive?
Speaker 2:that I didn't believe him. He had a denial probably huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. So back to the God thing and being in all these different countries, we've always trusted God to take care of us and my thought has always been he's going to take care of us. So why would he put us in a situation where we trusted him and then we get killed? Yeah, so that? Yeah, that was my initial thought. We oh. And a little backstory on my dad. He's, at this point, the director of World Vision in Haiti. Wow, and he was the first point of contact that the US had with Haiti. So Wolf Blitzer, cnn called World Vision Wow, a couple seconds after the earthquake. And I would have told him the pound sand. Yeah, he's like what do you know? And my dad's like we have no idea what's going on right now. Like no numbers, no, nothing. You're a poor dad, dude. And then he's like I got to find my family. So, yeah, so I went with my dad. He had a car and a cool car. It was bulletproof. His dad had, like sirens and stuff.
Speaker 2:The thick windows and doors. Yeah, the windows don't roll down and stuff. So he did have a cool car, but it took forever to navigate the roads because now there's bodies in the roads, now there's collapsed walls, there's lots of blood. As people are getting uncovered, dead bodies are getting dragged out into the street. Oh my gosh, people who are alive are being kind of sheltered in place and taken care of there, and it's dark too. So Haiti is hard enough to drive in normally, but now there's all these extra obstacles.
Speaker 1:Now add rubble bodies. It's dark, you guys are going through it.
Speaker 2:So we decided to go to my dad's pastor's house, who lives up in the mountains, where it's safer, they are less affected by the earthquake and they have a satellite phone. So we eventually made it up there, first time getting on a phone other than CNN. But his satellite phone worked and we called the states. We called my mom's parents, told them we're OK, we're still looking, we're still trying to get everybody together. And then my dad called a mentor of his and just asked him to just tell him what was going on and pray for us. We did a miracle. Yeah, straight up. So I couldn't sleep that night.
Speaker 1:I can't. Imagine.
Speaker 2:On top of all the thoughts going through my head, aftershocks were again and again and again hitting us. So the other thing was was that earthquake preliminary to a bigger earthquake? We're also thinking about that? There was also tsunami warnings and stuff like that. We had heard the prisons broke open. So there's all these bad people out, so a lot's going on, and I'm thinking, ok, maybe one of them survived. I'm trying to, or maybe at that point I was still in total denial. I'm like, yeah, we're going to find them. And then the next morning I woke up I was like, all right, we've got to go right away. Like let's get to work, let's go get shovels, let's go to the office, grab all the stuff we need. And my dad's like, nope, stop, you need to eat. We're going to need our strength today. He's very logical and reasonable.
Speaker 1:Did you ever during that time see him get emotional?
Speaker 2:He doesn't get very emotional. He got emotional for him. I got you, which isn't much, but I'm kind of the same way, but at that point I was passionate about going to find him. So I was amped up and he was like no, we need to eat. He was right, so I sat down. We tried to eat some food it's going to be a long day and during the breakfast he starts talking about funeral plans and that's when it really hit me. He truly believes that they've died and I had to get up and kind of excuse myself.
Speaker 2:I walked over to the balcony. Now we're up in the mountains, overlooking Haiti. Hadn't seen it in the daylight, so it was early in the morning and earthquake happened pretty much at night and we're down in it, so I hadn't seen Haiti since the sun came up yet, since the earthquake occurred. And I walked over to the balcony and this is such a vivid memory for me that I still think about it a lot. But the sun was rising. It was like piercing through smoke. There's smoke headers everywhere Because the earthquake created a bunch of fires, and there's dust in the air still. There's still just this haze from all the rubble, and then there's singing and wailing, like you can just hear the whole country just morning and upset, confused, scared, all sorts of mixed emotions coming out of this country, and it's just so alive, like it was a that's going to be forever etched in your yeah, and that's when I started to cry. It was so overwhelming, I guess, and also the thought that now my family might not be alive and stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, that adrenaline dump and then the realization of the gravity of the situation probably just smacked you right in the face, looking at it and being able to see like holy smokes. Look at all this devastation, I'm around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we still this kind of confirmed like it's worse than I thought and it's the whole country and yeah. So that hit me really hard and I'm holding it together. Sometimes I tear up during this fart and I'm like you got me tearing up.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to hold back, but it's a lot, man.
Speaker 2:I don't like to cry and sometimes it hits me out of nowhere. You're good, bro, let it out. Baby, I'm holding strong. So far how you doing. I've had many nats of crying.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, before long, we're heading down the mountain, my dad's, pastor's driving, and then my dad's sitting in the front passenger seat. I'm sitting behind him, we're holding hands, we're starting to pray Pray about the day and I'm looking out the window at all these people, and some are hiking up the mountain with suitcases, some are hiking down the mountain with, like handfuls of clothes. A lot of people are bloody or like dusty and people don't know what they're doing or where they're going or like what to do. And I started like making eye contact with people and I'm a different American person. I stand out in Haiti, speak a different language.
Speaker 3:Just a little bit.
Speaker 2:All that like very different culture, all that stuff right, but we were all brothers and sisters at that time Because we had all experienced this tragedy together and yeah. So at that point we're just let's get through this together and there's like a deep connection there, even though I didn't know these people. So we get down the mountain, we get to my dad's office and we pull in the front gate, we jump out, we start looking for supplies, tarps, water, shovels, body bags for other people Not our family, other people that we may come across and we start hearing yelling at the World Vision Headquarters office and my mom and my sister coming in the back gate and my so the let's see how old was she, the 14-year-old sister. So the sister that is not the youngest was helping my mom walk. She had my sister at her, she was on, my mom did not. My mom was all beat up and they were both kind of bloody and covered in debris and stuff Unreal.
Speaker 2:And I didn't see my youngest sister though. So I was like, oh man, maybe she didn't make it, but somebody else came in carrying my youngest sister. So they all made it. The youngest one couldn't see. She had like debris in her eyes and stuff. But yeah, they all made it, so we held each other, cried.
Speaker 1:It was like the most beautiful thing. What a I'm lost for words almost here right now because I'm thinking about my family and you know we've been through. My brother passed away in the car accident in 2004, and I know what they went through. It's very difficult, but to imagine it's just you and your dad and your sisters and your mom having killed. I can't even imagine the emotions that you and your father must have been going through and then to see them coming up, man again. What a moment. What a moment of relief, of thankfulness, gratitude. Probably I mean you guys had to have squeezed each other to show tight in that moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. Going from thinking you lost everything to getting it back is incredible. Yeah, yeah it's like a second chance, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, how did they make it out of that building? Were they even in the building?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're in it, so they have a mirror. There should be a movie about them, that's what I was going to say.
Speaker 1:I mean, you guys better write this down.
Speaker 3:I was going to say next podcast interview.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get your mom and sisters over here, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they had just gotten home from school and normally they get home, they all split up, go to their rooms, whatever. They just so happened to all be together talking about the day and when the earthquake started, it started panicking down and I guess it got. They're on the bottom floor, so I guess it got to their floor last. And in the middle of it panicking, the structure the wall right next to them broke open and they jumped out because they knew like, oh, this is it. And all three of them jumped out and this is up on the side of a mountain, so they're tumbling down the mountain, the building's tumbling behind them like rubble and debris and stuff. Two of them are barefoot. They spent the night in a tree, immediately like looting and stuff started happening and it Haiti's like not a safe place for women in general, but especially after an earthquake, it's like very dangerous.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they hid up in a tree and that's why my dad couldn't find them and they hitched a ride the next morning to the office and we were reunited.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. You know I've been through some interesting things in my life and a lot of them have been from bad decisions. Some are out of my control, but it goes to show you the magnificence and power that we have in our faith and what God can do. And some people are like, oh well, other people died. It's like look things happen. But I mean just to hear the story and the wall just breaks open and they jump out. I mean, dude, it's amazing man.
Speaker 1:It's truly amazing. You can see the protection that he had over them during that time. And it strikes me because I have been really digging kind of into my own faith and Bible and stuff. I don't attend church every Sunday. I do go, but there's been points in my life where I've been in this place of waiting, waiting in pain, waiting in frustration, waiting in let down. And you're sitting here like dude, where are you? Like? My prayers, I tell people, are very gritty, very tough. There's been times I'll be like where the F are you right now? I don't like this. This is painful, this is terrible. You said you love me. You said you'd be here for me. Why is this happening? What's going on?
Speaker 1:That also reminds me of Friday, when Jesus was crucified right, and then they had that day. Three days later he rose from the dead. I can't imagine what they probably thought during those three days, that waiting period, we're all seen lost and then they go to the tomb and the angel says why are you looking for the living among the dead? He's alive. I just look at those things. It's so powerful where you're just like in these moments of terror, frustration, pain, let down, you're like what is going on in my life and it's like the Lord's like there sometimes. Just give it a moment. I got you. Give it a second. How powerful that story is, man. I mean it gets. I'm trying really hard right now to not choke up, but it's beautiful and amazing in so many different ways. What can come from what you think is tragedy and triumph can come from it. It's powerful, man. It's huge.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine how much tighter or closer there's major family. I'm sure all of you have had to deal with the trauma of that. I'm sure that's not easy to get through, man.
Speaker 2:That's a lot. They especially for them. They went through more than I did and then they got whisked whisked back to the US. We got them to the US embassy as fast as we could. The Air Force was picking up Americans, especially injured ones, and prioritizing them back to the US to get care. Was your mom beat up or really severely injured. So she was. We thought she broke her arm and her leg and I think she had some cracks and stuff.
Speaker 3:But Just a minor cracks.
Speaker 2:Mom's an app, I just jumped out of mountain from my house and hid in a tree. Yeah, I mean, she's older than I am and everything hurts me now you know, like I can't imagine.
Speaker 3:I feel you broke her yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine what she went through and yeah, she got beat up pretty good, but not critically. You know she's good now but yeah, the psychological trauma from that they spent years with PTSD and going to therapy and whatnot trying to overcome that and loud noises would affect them and shaking, and yeah, it took them a long time to get over that. For me, I actually ended up staying in Haiti for a couple weeks, so my dad took my mom and sisters and I was like dad, I gotta stay. Like I got my EMT, I've done some fire shading.
Speaker 1:Dude, look at my guy, I like it man.
Speaker 2:I knew enough of the language to get in trouble and get around a little bit and I expected my dad to like talk me out of it. And he was like you're right, dude, you gotta stay. He hit me with the car keys. I'm like okay, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:You had that with your dad, though he probably was like my son's a man. He's got this. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I spent a couple weeks. I did. I worked with the search and rescue team. We pulled body parts up but nobody alive. The you've heard of LA County's big USOT team.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they're number one all the time, dude, they're first up.
Speaker 2:So I saw them and I happened to be wearing a station 32 LA County shirt and an LA County hat and I lost everything else I had in the apartment because I was staying in the apartment with my family. So all my belongings were gone except the clothes on my back, and happened to be county stuff. And so Task Force two shows up and I'm like, hey, you know, just at the US Embassy. I'm like trying to get their attention and there's a fence between us. But one of the guys comes over and I was like hey, I'm a explorer and a county, and he's like what?
Speaker 1:the heck is this. What are you doing in?
Speaker 3:Haiti Kid doing here. How the heck did you get?
Speaker 2:here. So I gave him the Cliff Note version and I was like, can I help you guys? You know like I'd love to join the team. And he's like nah, sorry, kid, you know can't do that, cause you know USAID and FEMA and often all that stuff, like all their governing entities, organizations like they just are not going to have it right. So that kind of crushed me a little bit. But I was like, all right, one day I'm going to get hired and one day I'm going to get on that team. And eventually I did. But in the meantime, yeah, I found a smaller search and rescue team and they were kind of like a team. They had a pilot, army ranger, cadaver dog, paramedic, a leader, all the crucial security.
Speaker 2:Yeah, security dude, so small little team, and I was like the, I knew the country and like I knew kind of how to help us navigate around. So I went with them and yeah again, like no, like live saves, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:But still important work, yeah, still important work.
Speaker 2:You know, we got, we got to try and I got to meet a lot of people during that time. So that kind of like paved the way for the next thing that I did where I met, I met up with these group of helicopter pilots. They had three helicopters, independently wealthy, flew them down on their own dime and they were just trying to figure out the best way to help. Wow, so we'd take food from the airport. Food was getting dropped off from all these different countries but it wasn't getting out because of riots, like people couldn't handle like the stuff, like they were so hungry they couldn't just like get you know line up and it was just by port, pretty much right at steel.
Speaker 2:It was getting really dangerous. So I was involved in like two riots on the ground trying to distribute and it just did not work. So with the helicopters we'd fly, we'd hover, we'd drop like cans of beans and food and stuff and it was amazing, we got tons of food out all day long. Three helicopters moving like around the clock.
Speaker 1:Are these small helicopters Like, like private, small private ones Like two-seaters, three-seaters or something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's two R44s.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:And then there's one that was a little bit bigger, it's I don't know. There was one that was like a pretty expensive, like probably $2 million helicopter that fit, I think, like six people, and we'd load that thing up like pretty good Hover over rivers sometimes, like it helped kind of disperse, and we'd sleep in the Dominican at night at a baseball field. They'd land the helicopters at this baseball field. We had security, it was safer over there. They weren't really affected by the earthquake very much and then we'd get up, fly back to Haiti the next day.
Speaker 1:How tired were you guys by the end of doing those cycles over and over? I mean even not just you, but for the pilots having to focus the attention it takes to pilot a helicopter. I mean, it's a flying toolbox, right, they're not made to fly, but they do, you know, to hover and watch out for trees and the weight of the load of the food. And having another passengers in there like yourself, the rescuers, I mean, man, that's a lot dude.
Speaker 2:So what I found was and this is why I had to keep moving around and finding work to do there were tons of work to do, but you just had to go find it. People get tired really quick. So the search and rescue teams most of them were done after the first week, and that's also due to viability of your rescues. But the helicopter team, they were done after a week. And then so I'm like, all right now, what am I gonna do? And I found a like a mash hospital.
Speaker 2:So all these makeshift like circus tents were set up at the airport and University of Miami was like overseeing it and they had just hundreds of people a day coming through there like they were doing amputations. They were doing like all the people. Up to like 21 days after the earthquake, bodies were still like being pulled out. And on top of the violence remember we talked about the prisons breaking open so there's like really bad dudes out there and there's gang violence and gunshot wounds we're getting and the normal stuff like car accidents. So they were treating all those types of people. I went back to the apartment that collapsed to see if I could get any of my stuff, like I didn't have my passport, my wallet, phone, anything, and I went back. I went in as far as I could, which wasn't very far, and somebody had already like looted the house, found my wallet, took the money, but like my national registry card was in there, for example.
Speaker 1:For EMT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I had just gotten it. So I was like super proud of it and this hospital asked me for it and I pulled it out. It was like it looked like a rock had crushed it. So it was all like beat up and I handed it to them and they looked it up and I'm like I can't believe they're doing this Like we're in like emergency, like third world country, like national disaster. They looked it up and then they're like all right, do whatever you can, like you're a doctor now.
Speaker 2:Cut this guy's leg off, no seriously like I was helping with amputations. I was pushing drugs starting IVs learning. You know like I was getting a nurse or a doctor to like help me, but they're letting me get in there and do way more than I'd be able to do here in the States. So that was pretty cool. So I did that as long as I could. And that was a real burner, Like you would work until you dropped and then you'd find a cot, an MRE refuel, take a nap and then back at it.
Speaker 1:How many hours a day would you say you were working?
Speaker 2:Probably 20. Like it was just like oh gosh, just pretty much nonstop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You'd sleep for a few hours four hours or whatever it is and then go right back to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then before long I had like seniority at the hospital, Like the doctors would come for a few days and leave and stuff, and I'd been there over a week. So I was like I knew my way around.
Speaker 3:You know I'm the goat's-eekest Street, cred and everything. How many EMT, sir? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a little piece of tape that said EMT audit. You know so my ears. But yeah, it was burning me out too. So the last thing I did before I left Haiti, I found a group that was doing rubble removal and they were cleaning pathways to wells. So a lot of wells got covered up with rubble. People couldn't get clean water. So we were like hard labored, just clearing out rocks and stuff out of these wells so that they could get water again.
Speaker 1:Wow, how many? So how long were you there doing that? Three weeks.
Speaker 2:After the earthquake, about three weeks, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then to get back home did you have to go back to the embassy or the Air Force?
Speaker 2:Home or you just take a normal flight home. I should have gone to the embassy. Now that you bring that up, no, I went to the airport and everybody was like no, there's no way you're getting out. First of all, flights aren't coming into the airport, airports damaged, only relief plans are coming in and you don't have money or a passport or anything.
Speaker 1:I got my Nasser register.
Speaker 2:I got this.
Speaker 3:I don't look like anybody here. Yeah, I know right.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's true. So, yeah, people had been camping there's tents on the tarmac, People have been camping for weeks trying to wait for a flight to get out of Haiti and to get home and stuff. And I just felt this sense like a God thing, that I should go. It was time I should go to the airport and my goal was just get as far as I could, so walked in the front, walked past security, Nobody stopped me, kept walking, kept walking, kept walking. I eventually made it out to the tarmac. There's hundreds of people out there, no planes, and I'm like, all right, not wet. But for a long not more than 10 minutes went by. Somebody came up to me. They're like hey, we have a little puddle hopper that's going. I think it was Bahamas and then the States and we got one seat free. We felt like we should talk to you.
Speaker 1:Oh way.
Speaker 2:Oh hey, I was like, well, I don't have any money, I'm just seeing how far I can get here. And they're like no, no, no, it's OK. I don't have a passport. No, no, it's OK. Ok, I guess I'm getting on this plane. So within 30 minutes I was on this little tiny airplane and, yeah, we stopped in Bahamas, fueled up and then landed in Florida and I get to Florida. No idea what city I'm in. It's nighttime. No cell phone, again. No money, like no, nothing. I borrowed a cell phone called my dad. They hadn't really heard it for me in a while.
Speaker 1:Can I just say I think it's actually amazing that you knew your dad's number by heart. Ok, good to hear. Right now I don't know. Yeah, I don't know any of my family's phone numbers by heart. I go write my phone, just hit that.
Speaker 2:Sister, whatever, it's good. So here's why Our phone numbers were one number different. Oh, ok. That makes me great when we signed up for the cell phones. They're like all right, this is yours, this is yours. It's just sequential, so that's why, luckily, but yeah, he handled it, he got me a ticket home and he's like you got to get to this airport, figure that one out. And you got to be there by tomorrow morning. So there's a shuttle leaving the airport, hopped on Luckily it was going the right direction made friends on that shuttle.
Speaker 1:You're such a wild man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just got to do what you got to do. I made friends, slept on the floor of my new friends' hotel room, had a continental breakfast for free and then a free shuttle to the airport the next morning. And I remember there being a little bit of trouble getting onto my flight because I didn't have anything like an ID and stuff. But I think I explained myself pretty well and then they're just like they probably saw you too.
Speaker 1:The same shirt all during the day. Man, I've been through hell and back. This is for a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, so yeah, I guess that worked. So I don't think I actually saw my family. I think I went straight back to California. So there's a little bit of we should meet up soon type of deal going on. But yeah, that was the Haiti story. I got home, I wanted to continue helping. I started a nonprofit building houses for earthquake survivors, so that one's called Firm Foundation, f-i-r-m-e, which is the Haitian Creole spelling for strong. So a strong foundation Built 39 houses so far.
Speaker 1:That's excellent, dude 39, eight building more right now too.
Speaker 2:We're trying, yeah, right now, it's always too dangerous. So it continues to get really bad and dangerous. And I just had a kid six months ago and I was trying to go right before that occurred and they're like don't come. Nobody's leaving their houses, people are getting killed for leaving, everybody's lost their job. It's really bad here right now. You just can't. You won't be able to do anything if you come right now. So I'm like, ok, fine, we still have money in the account. We're ready to build that sort of thing, raise awareness. But yeah, I got a second chance. My family got a second chance. I didn't even tell you my second chance. Oh, bring it.
Speaker 2:So one of the reasons I was in Haiti wanted to visit my family, but two kind of do like a little resume builder and I was going to teach firefighting with the United Nations. They had like a new fire program and I was like, all right, cool, I got a little bit of experience that can come and help out at the very basic level. So I'd set that up with the United Nations, but they're still like some formalities and stuff. So come in, do the interview. They still wanted me to go through a couple hoops and so my interview was scheduled for the day of the earthquake.
Speaker 2:During the time of the earthquake, the day before the interview, I was like I don't want to waste my time here in Haiti, like I'm only here for a few weeks. I'm going to call them and see if I could do it a day early. So they say, yeah, I could come in. I went in a day early, did the stuff they liked me, got my ID and all that stuff. Had I not rescheduled, the building I was in completely collapsed. Oh boy, everybody died. 300 people died in that building and I definitely would have been involved with that if I had kept my interview day. So I knew I was like, oh dude, I definitely dodged the bullet there. So, yeah, I'm like, for sure I got a second chance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my friend. If you can't see the hand of God in your life, bro, you blind. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I tell the story I'm like maybe it's happenstance, but there's too many coincidences here to say that God didn't have his hand in everything that went on.
Speaker 1:Oh dude, how. What a story, man, I mean, of tragedy and triumph and then also service and sacrifice for you to stay in the country and say I need to stay here and do it, and you just made it work 20 hours a day, going from being in helicopters to you're in a medical tent, you're helping people, you're doing surgeries or whatever was happening in there, and then how it all worked out is just it's incredible. I hear the story for the first time, but I purposely did not listen to the other podcast you're on, because I'm like man I want this to be. I want to hear it from my two years first, like fresh and man. It's powerful, it's really powerful. And how did that? When you came back, how long after that did you continue to pursue fire fighting? Did you get hard pretty quick after that? No, no, ok.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't get hired quickly. After that, I did continue to pursue it. Let's see. I think I missed an interview with county due to being in Haiti, dang it why?
Speaker 2:So that pushed me back a year, but I was able to appeal that part and they did give me another test. It was either the interviewer that, I think, is the written actually. So, yeah, I did my written and then it was just bad time to get hired hiring freezes. So I got hired. It took me almost seven years from the time I started applying at 18 to the tower date and I've been on. I think it'll be nine years in February.
Speaker 1:Hey baby, let's go man About that 10-year mark goes quick.
Speaker 2:It's gone really quick. Yeah, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's cool because you saw, you were an explorer with county, you saw them over in Haiti when you were doing that work and now you're wearing that uniform and still serving people. I mean, it's like a Commisple circle. It's really cool yeah.
Speaker 2:I finished probation and that was goal number one, right like focus on that, nothing else, just get through probation. And then it was it's almost like two extra years of classes to get on the USAR team. So I and that's on your own time, you know you're going and trying to sign up and like maybe you miss it, maybe you don't, whatever, but there's a bunch of extra classes you need for those USAR classes. So I worked through those and then got on the team.
Speaker 1:So now, when anything goes down around the world and they need search and rescue, they go. I, from what I understand, they go to LA County first, right.
Speaker 2:I think so. That's what I've always been. It's like counties.
Speaker 1:First. They're on C-130, he's gone, or whatever airplane they're on. You know, sounds good yeah.
Speaker 2:I think they're like one of two international search and rescue teams. Others can go, but it's like they're. I don't know.
Speaker 1:They're number one, you guys are, you're the first of me.
Speaker 2:I think they're the only ones that have deployed to like two different countries at once. Okay, but yeah, that's wild, that's what it is.
Speaker 1:So are you still in your paramedic now? No, no, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm a. I'm a truckie. Mom and sleep's all night, Okay it's all making sense, dude Chucky firefighter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sleep too, you get hungry, right Yep.
Speaker 2:So rough life. West Hollywood firehouse eight.
Speaker 1:Do you think those moments I mean going from your raised admission at your home to experiencing what you did in Haiti do you think that really helps you form kind of how you are a firefighter now, how you look at people, how you serve, cause you helped people and very I want to say, less than poor communities probably had. You know nothing. And then you come back here. I mean it's so different, right. You've got to see so much of the world and from a different perspective. That's had to play into your adult life working as a firefighter. You probably be in a father, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a husband, yeah. I think the biggest way it's helped. I think it's helping me is just like my stress levels are very like. My tolerance is very high. Gotcha, my worst day is my like threshold level right. So if my worst day is up here and then most other people's are like kind of around here where they have, you know, family member die, which is horrible and that's their worst day, I'm just able to kind of like base everything off of like the really bad days that I've had and there have been some bad ones.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think most of like 99.9% of my life, even in the stressfulness and in the job, is kind of like down here compared to like my past, so I'm able to like keep a low head and focus and think straight. Yeah, I mean you got good practice yeah.
Speaker 1:You got great practice getting ready for it. And I don't, you know I've had this talk yesterday with my sister. We went out to like a black brunch just to hang out and I was just telling her like, yeah, you know, she was asking about my job and I said you know, the hardest part for me is that people will never understand in our line of work as firefighters that it's not just you know, a cool uniform and riding around in a shiny firing dinner truck. You know we're called everyone's worst moment. Every day You're living out someone else's trauma with them.
Speaker 1:You know, then we got to shut that down and I told her I'm like it's just, it's a great job, it's great service, but it wears on you. You know, it's just constant all the time. And you know that's one thing. I told her, my gosh, our parents, my parents, don't understand, they don't get it. It's like, oh hey, work out. You know, government job, retirement you have no idea what we go to on a day to day basis and what we see.
Speaker 1:And I was just telling her like how I've had to learn to try my best to leave work at work and come home and be present and actually have emotion Cause I've been married once and divorced once and you know own it. I've messed up a lot and a big part of me towards the end was being so shut down and reaching for anything that would just give me pleasure and happiness and not knowing I wasn't emotionally available. It would come home just like I was at work, just quiet. You know what's wrong? Nothing fine. And then we'll say you're not being fine you know you break up.
Speaker 1:God stop ask him. You know. But learning now through, we have counseling team international at our fire department and it's free for us, free for us, our families, and it's been such a good thing for me. You know, I've been going a lot, haven't gone in a little bit, I would say probably like three weeks or more, over a month now, but I was going to him like once a month. I just give you once a week, you know, and realizing, hey, like you're what you've seen, what you deal with on a day to day basis, including the other trauma in your life of other things you've been through, like it'll stack up and you have to learn to process that and get it out and not just bury it and keep burying it and keep burying it. You know, and that's something I had to learn over my career, dude is, you know, coming home and being present and being emotionally open, being, you know, being available and not just being shut down. You know something really, really had to work on.
Speaker 1:I mean, I only have what? 17 years going on now within the fire service, but it's enough time where it's like man, you've seen a lot of bad stuff, you know. I've seen with Ollie. We've worked at busy stations. You're up all night, all the time and you know you go from delivering a baby to seeing someone you know beat up and you know maimed in a car, to someone hung themselves. And now you had a structure fire and it's like seven AM comes. All right, go home and be a father, husband, son. You know it'd be normal. It's like man, that was wild. Like this is crazy.
Speaker 1:Like I've read something the other day that in the normal civilian life most people only see one or two traumatic deaths, like maybe two. We see it shifly. It's not normal. How do you process that? How do you get through that? How do you deal? You know, how do you cope, and that's something for me.
Speaker 1:I've tried so hard now, with the years I have on the fire service, to really start to manage properly. Like it's not weak or weird to say I go to therapy. It's good, you need to work these things out, you need to talk to somebody. But what has also helped me with that is coming back to my faith. You know, putting Christ first in my life. And has it been easy? By no means. No, bro. I have some terrible habits I've had to kick and it's hard. But I can see, you know for myself a greater purpose in what we do as firefighters, but also in my private life. We're serving people, we're helping others, but also the people who serve need help. At times they need to be served as well. You know A lot to say. It's like it's been.
Speaker 1:It's interesting like seeing you're hearing your story in what you've been through and you're sitting here now, this dude who can talk about it and be open and you're still involved in the fire service and doing what you do and how amazing that story is and you can see God's hand in your life. Me personally listening to you, I'm like, wow, talk about a man of faith who just went for it, stepped out in faith and just did what he felt he was called to do in an emergency and he made it work and it worked. You had nothing. You had nothing. You got through this city. You helped all these people. You did all these things that you didn't do for fame or to look at me. You did it because it needed to be done. That speaks volumes of your character and who you are. This is not me just praising you, but we need more people like that. We live in a time where everyone just steps back and wants to film and look at like why don't you freaking help the person dude?
Speaker 1:Come on, man. It's encouraging to hear your story and to hear what you've been through and to see the man that you are now and that you're still stuck to your guns and getting hired with the fire service. You even said it I'm going to work for that department one day. You're doing it. It doesn't come without hard work.
Speaker 1:There comes a lot of sacrifice for this job, getting in and then, once you're in, it's amazing to see that. Man, I might sound weird, but I'm proud of you. I'm saying man to man dude, I'm super proud of you. That's huge. I hope that you're still. I'm sure some of those things have probably left a lasting scar image in your brain, but there's nothing lower it can't handle. That's what I've learned. It takes time. It's not like Lord hears things overnight or things happen instantly. But think about everything in your life and how everything lined up, perfect for you to be there on that day at that time, and that orphanage when all that went down.
Speaker 2:Isn't that wild? No, accident?
Speaker 1:No, it's not. I think of things like that sometimes, or things that I've been through or things that have happened. I'm like how did this all happen, that I had happened to be here at this time, at this moment, to be here and help this person.
Speaker 2:Isn't that?
Speaker 1:wild it's like. Sometimes it leaves you speechless.
Speaker 2:It's incredible. Definitely something I've thought about before.
Speaker 1:I'm sure your whole family probably Are they doing good now, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my parents are semi-retired now. The older sister is married, the other sister's in college. Everybody's happy doing great. We're close. We talk every day. Still, that's good dude.
Speaker 1:Family's important man Of course mom's good.
Speaker 3:She's a gangster. She survived a crisis with two little girls. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 1:That's wild, dude. Now I know your significant other, your wife knows this story. Dude, my goodness. What does she think about all that? She's a believer, too, out of man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, I'm not sure if I get to share my story a lot, yeah, yeah, that's part of the therapy for me too, getting on a podcast or speaking for a fundraiser or whatnot. She's heard it a lot, but I don't know if it's ever been just me and her like hey, and then this happened, and then that happened, right, right right.
Speaker 3:So I don't know Whatever, just fix the baseball yeah.
Speaker 2:She's probably sick of it right now. I'm like, hey, you check out that last podcast.
Speaker 3:I said it to you twice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're a play to you. I should ask her, though her thoughts. I know she's proud of me, she loves me, all that stuff yeah, and she's actually really good as far as taking care of my mental health and stuff.
Speaker 2:That's huge, every shift she wants to know, she asks me, she takes time, she's intentional with her questions how is the shift? She wants to hear everything and she's like you hear. I don't know there's a lot of different firewives out there and stuff, not to categorize anybody, but she's top tier, solid, she gets it, she understands the job. She understands what a firefighter, who is a man, needs from a wife that isn't a firefighter and stuff like that, so I can't say enough good things about her.
Speaker 1:Well it's to have that support at home and have a solid home is huge For me. If my private life is in disarray, I am not good at work, it's hard to be present, it's hard to do my job I need to have my home life solid, I need to have that support. So when you have that, it's priceless dude. I mean my goodness to have a good woman in your life that's going to help you and take care of you, and both of you are meeting each other's needs. You can't put a price tag on that dude. You cannot put a price tag on that dude. Okay, I need to bring something up for you. You also have, on top of all the wild and amazing things you've done and have it on nonprofit, you have another company called the Williams Key. So this is pretty cool because we're all first responders here. Let's go, I'm going to bring this out right now. Okay, you need to. I'm going to put this on camera. Can we see this, sir?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got it in the camera.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Williams Key. And look at what my guy did on the back dude Personalized it. Let's go.
Speaker 3:Hey, yeah, that thing is sick.
Speaker 1:This is cool. Okay, so this is kind of like a I wouldn't say forceful entry tool. It's more of like a lockout kit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like there's a couple of different terms thrown around out there Respectful entry, soft entry, non-invasive type stuff, or even covert entry for the SWAT and stuff. They want to be quiet with it. But yeah, it doesn't do damage. It doesn't work on every door, so you're dead bolts and stuff. If you have a dead bolt, don't worry, you're safe. Lock it up at night. This tool is not getting in your house in the wrong hands or whatever. So it's sold to firefighters, police, actually a lot of agencies now. But yeah, it's been great. How did you come up with this?
Speaker 1:Because when I remember I've seen this quite a few times, at least on social media, like to commercials and stuff. I mean it's pretty ingenious. What sparked you to kind of come up with this?
Speaker 2:So my background is in a door installation. So one of the things that I did before getting hired was as a carpenter construction worker. Carpenter Following.
Speaker 2:Jesus supposed to? Yeah, specifically doors. So I got to install several thousand doors before getting on the job and finished carpentry work. You have a lot of specialty tools so I mean this concept has been around probably 100 years plus Not that specific tool, but the concept of like slipping a lock, you know so a shove knife or whatnot. So we were always making our own types of tools, things for getting into doors. When you're installing locks all the time you like, really get to know them really well. So I'm good at picking locks and I had a handful of tools I'd made for myself and I had a little wizard bag I'd carry around with me when I first got on the job Satchel.
Speaker 2:No, not quite, but I had a pretty crude version of what's now known as the Williams key and I'd pull it out all the time like every day. I was getting into doors every day. Guys were seeing it. My district in West Hollywood there's like so many different types of buildings and doors and locks. There's thousands of combinations out there. So again, it doesn't work on everything, but there's every day. I was getting into doors with it and before long people were like, hey, that stupid thing you made. Can I get one of those? You know, like nobody's ever going to give you a compliment in the virus.
Speaker 2:So I made a couple. I actually had them fabricated because it takes a long time to hand make them, but I had like a small batch like 10 or 20 made, gave them out just to help guys be better at their craft, be quicker in the door, hopefully save a life or whatever. And fires were breaking doors like pretty much all the time and there's definitely like I love the HAL again and the rotor saw all that stuff.
Speaker 2:There's places for those. But there are some scenarios where we don't have to break the door and you know you're doing a welfare check or something, if you can get in without doing damage. You know new doors like two grand so not everybody has the money or wants to replace a door, you know when I know, bro, just order two, they're very expensive.
Speaker 1:There you go and they're. Yeah, I had them custom made like different. Yeah, it's expensive, yeah it's very expensive.
Speaker 3:Well, part of our job is property conservation, so it's like, as a business owner, that's exactly what you kind of want to see. Is a product out there that's going to save me from having to replace an entire door just because my alarm was going?
Speaker 2:off, you know, or you get the wrong house or whatever, or a scenario.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might have been a couple of those.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, before long, once I gave some out like word spread, and then like people were hitting me up. I didn't even know. And then I was like, all right, I got to like like I want to help guys. Right, I want to put tools in people's hands if they want them and they think it's something that's going to help them be better at their job and stuff. But I was like I can't do it for free. So I'm like, okay, we'll do like, I'll make like 100, you know and see if guys want them. And yeah, those sold quick and before long it just turned into a thing. Wow Made an Instagram website and now it's just like all 50 states, 30 countries, international. I've got about 20 distributors.
Speaker 1:Dude, I love it. That's what I love seeing man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's excellent. He's super busy now. He's like he's taking over. It's a problem to have. It's a monster yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my gosh, so is it? I mean, do people when they order online, is it? It doesn't? I mean, you'll probably see it, but is it sent somewhere else and made and shipped off? Is that kind of how it works?
Speaker 2:No, no, I ship everything, oh, you ship it all oh man, you are working. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, Trevor Damn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well. Well, here's the thing. I have a fabrication warehouse. They make all the tools, so I don't do that part. The 20 distributors that your coffee cup included yeah, Fire Brigade is one of them. Oh, John dude, I love that guy. So, yeah, John's a distributor and Chief Miller the firestore bunch of bunch of good ones out there carrying the key. They are kind of my, my hands in the fuel, right, so they're filling orders too.
Speaker 1:How did you reach out to Chief Miller and then John from the brigade?
Speaker 2:John was a friend of a friend, so somebody connected me to him and he's killing it. He's doing great. I've had many conversations with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been. We've been trying to get him on here, but the schedules just don't keep lining up. So I've interested. Told him I look, February, I'm flying you out. Yeah, it is what it is. I'm flying from San Diego to freaking LA.
Speaker 2:He's a good personality so he'd be great on the show. Some reach out to me, some I reach out to, just depends. Okay, I've got a couple. I think I used to have one in Canada but the shipping was like getting too expensive. I have one in Tasmania which I think is part of Australia. What, yeah, australia is actually a probably the third biggest consumer of Williams Key products Excellent, other than Canada. Wow. And then I just got one in Puerto Rico, but that's US, I guess. Yeah, so it's crazy, like I'd say like every other week, companies hitting me up hey, do you mind if we carry your key? You know what does that look like? And that's cool. Yeah, so they're basically my employees. Like I'm, I don't have employees, but my distributors are like fulfilling that need of like right, fulfilling orders, advertising, just getting it out there.
Speaker 1:Now, do you have fire departments that kind of like hey, we're going to order, you know, a hundred of these and put one and all over rigged, or something like that. Do you have fire departments doing?
Speaker 3:that as well.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's what.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about Baby. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's been some big orders, I think. Since October I've sold about 4,000 of them. Wow, over 20,000 total. So they're just an interesting man.
Speaker 3:And it's been.
Speaker 2:It's like not slowing down, it's like ramping up. Right now, like I'm having trouble like keeping up, it's a good problem, great problem, great problem to have dude. So yeah, we're trying to figure that out because two, two, two babies and diapers, right now, oh my gosh, and they're both in diapers, yeah Like twins, or just real close, real close, and so I'm like dude, so not enough time in the world for me right now. So, yeah, trying to navigate that, but it's all good.
Speaker 1:That's super cool, man. I mean the future of this, I mean pretty much endless for you, dude. This could keep going for a long time, because the fire department's always going to be around.
Speaker 2:Same with the lease swat all that. Guys are always getting hired. Guys will lose these, which is why I recommend engraving it.
Speaker 3:Yeah $10 more.
Speaker 2:Put that plug in baby. But yeah, I mean yeah, and then like a new version comes out or whatever. And then guys want that too, this kind of like built the foundation for Williamski Incorporated or whatever. But I've had like 10 other products come out that probably wouldn't sell on their own but because the brand is like recognized since your stand established, guys are like, yeah, I'll buy a wedge or buy you know this or that. So I got a new product, hopefully dropping this month, that I think would do well. You have to wait and see, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Got to wait and see, but it's pretty close to debuting. You can tell us off air. Yeah, it's exciting. I love it. It's a piece of me. You know I like being involved, I like answering questions. I encourage anybody to hit me up. Well, I'll talk you through a door, or you know you have any questions. Internet is brutal. There's a lot of haters out there, but at the same time it helps the product too.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be haters. Look what I've noticed, because I'm I've always been someone's kind of like. I had the fire service as my career and I'm very thankful for it. We're Tarber. It's cool. I've always had other ventures, other things. Anytime you're doing something else and it's doing well and other people aren't a part of it or they didn't have the idea, you're going to have hate.
Speaker 1:I get hate for this podcast. Oh, dude, all the time that is other things. I own a couple of businesses like, well, what firefighting is not good enough for you? It's like, dude, I just, I know I can do more. That's just me. That's how I am. I like doing stuff, I like being involved, I like creating. I love seeing things come together and then, you know, blossom into whatever it's going to be. But, dude, you seem very, you know, strong and you can take it. But I always tell people just be prepared, when you start something, they're going to have haters. It just is what it is.
Speaker 2:No, you got to love the haters because they generate a conversation.
Speaker 1:Oh, of course, Of course.
Speaker 2:It ramps it up, gets stuff trending sometimes, you know, so I welcome it. Hate all you want.
Speaker 3:He only survived a 7.2 earthquake in a third world country. Your internet hate old reach him, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Nate Hate on my key. I can have a question. I can have a little hate.
Speaker 3:I kind of did some research ahead of time and I you know, so it's for the people that are listening to the podcast or viewing or interested in the Williams Key products Do you actually have? Because I mean, from the person that literally installed, fabricated you know you were a door carpenter, commercial carpenter, all that stuff like that. So who's better to have knowledge for forceful entry and stuff like that than you? Do you have outlets or ways for you know individuals that want to buy or have the product to get better with it or better in general, a forceful entry like where they can watch videos or hear you walk through some of this stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd like to be putting out more videos. There's a lot of videos. Like you, we have a full YouTube channel, full Instagram. There's probably like 100 videos on there. Tiktok too. Not many of them are me like instructing. A couple are, but I'd like to do more of that because there's like so many different types of doors out there, for one is content, but two, I feel like I'm answering a lot of the same questions some of the times. So if I can just be like watch this video, yeah, tap on this link, that would be helpful. I think most people that are savvy with the internet in today's age can find the answers they're looking for if they dig a little bit. But spoon feed people yeah, I'd like to do that too. I just want guys and girls to be better at their craft.
Speaker 3:So you have a YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a YouTube channel, Okay.
Speaker 3:What work can they look at? I mean, what is their name for it? Like Williams Key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's the Williams Key. That's pretty much all the handles, like the TikTok, the Instagram. My Facebook page just got deleted, so I had to make a new one. I don't know why that happens to a lot of people. Yeah, it's a nightmare, dude, but yeah, and the website too, wwwwilliamskeycom. There's a bunch of videos on there, so I'm sure it'll end up on target solutions.
Speaker 1:one day, everything ends up on target solutions. Yeah, maybe so the answer to all fire department problems when something goes wrong is more target solutions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm hoping not to be involved in something going wrong. And the Williams Key Like don't do this, dude.
Speaker 1:I'll say the experience I have with getting a door open is it was many years ago and there was a fire in this building and you had glass doors. Captain said, hey, get the K tool, let's open this up. And I remember you can hear everyone comment to it and I was sitting there and I was like put this on and you can see the black smokes just Pumping. Dude, it's coming down this hallway and I was like this building's on fire, like who cares about a lock right now. I took the k-tool and threw it to the glass window and it got my axe and bang. I was like there's your opening. Oh boom, we're out. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you did the right thing.
Speaker 1:Because I threw it and, like it, crashed all the glass and then we're only a three person engine. We all just looked at each other. But okay, that works too.
Speaker 2:Let's go yeah, sometimes you have to be creative.
Speaker 1:That was my. That's my two cents on doors and lock.
Speaker 2:So people are creative with this tool. They send me videos I've never like even thought about before, like getting into windows. I'm like, oh, I didn't know you could do that. So I mean that video, you know, like I'll post that. You know that's good for people to see. So, yeah, bending it now, like that's a new thing. They're designed to bend so you can like J hook, panic hardware and stuff like that. But that's like kind of unconventional. Like guys don't want to mess up their tool. I'm like mess it up on purpose, don't mess it up by accident because you're forcing it too much. It's like a lockpick. It's not a halogen, but if you want to bend it on purpose, so you get in the door, yeah, and then you can fix it or throw it in a vice, you can reset it in a vise. It's no big deal, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so rad. What, what is? What? Do you see the future for the Williams key? What like? What is your vision for this? You have like a five or ten year plan or what you eventually want to see this do or work for it to go and get bigger. I.
Speaker 2:I'd like for it to be like a firehouse name. We talk about household names like Nike and Apple and stuff like let's go podcast.
Speaker 1:I get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that too, exactly. So I don't want this to be a household name, but like a firehouse name. We got you great, where everybody kind of knows about it. Yeah, we're saving a lot of property and lives with it. I'm getting the stories like he stopped a suicide jumper you know, I saved somebody in cardiac arrest. Like I get those stories now but added like hundred X scale would be nice. You know where I'm just like that's what makes it worth it for me. Just knowing people are getting better, knowing lives are getting saved, properties getting saved.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's a difference being made when I can get that sort of feedback, because there's no way to quantify 20,000 tools out in the field, right? You know, I recently posted a video of I've tested on a hundred thousand plus doors and that's based off of twenty thousand keys at least five doors, like I think it's safe to say like each key is touched at least five doors. Yeah, and like the ones at our station, they've probably touched a couple hundred doors, right? So I Don't know how to measure at all, there's no way to really measure at all, but all I can Get out of it really is the feedback I get, and it's all positive I think with your life and your story and you know what you've done, the man of faith that you are, I believe that you could probably take this as far as you want to go.
Speaker 1:I think it'll probably get there. That's just my two cents, thank you.
Speaker 2:I hope you'll be fine, dude. Oh, so I'm excited for the future of whatever that might be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all right. Do you ever see yourself getting back in ministry like you're you did when you were with your family over in Haiti and Africa and stuff?
Speaker 2:So if I were to retire, early or not, my, my dream would be to live in Haiti, oversee the projects of helping people, whether it be building houses or churches or schools or whatnot. That's always change, like that can change right, but, however, the most good can be done. Being able to live in Haiti, kind of secluded, but able to like go in and and See the work that's being done and still like kind of running that sort of thing. Yeah, so, yeah, right now, that's like my, my goal is to be able to Be successful enough to be able to do something like that without relying on outside funding right, right, right.
Speaker 1:I think you can get there. Anything's possible. Yeah, I think anything. That's how I always feel try anything and just go for it.
Speaker 2:You never know what's gonna happen, but throw your darts to what sticks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, dude, from what you've been through, what you've done, where your life has taken you, I mean I, why wouldn't it happen? Personally, that's just my thought, dude. I mean, dude, it's. I think it's absolutely attainable, it can definitely happen. And to give back to your community, then you're giving back to another country. You know you live in a life of service. Not many people can say that. You know doing it for the right purpose. You're there for the right reasons. You know you always see these. I don't know if you follow some of these Instagram accounts. I can't remember. I think it was like Youth group memes or church memes or something like that. I this is probably gonna sound terrible, but I really love when people make fun of the church. I just I find it hilarious because I grew up in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really no for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's super relatable. I've I've gone to mega churches, I've gone to the super small ones, I've done ones that are just in homes. So you know, when you see people make a fun, this time I just think it starts like, yeah, that's kind of true actually, but it was what it say is said the the official church missions trip, and it's like it's just people taking selfies. Oh, I like an orphanage real quick and then walking away you know, we get our beach day, it's like, no, you're there to work.
Speaker 1:Dude, sir, don't worry about the pictures, you know, yeah, but now, that's that's Now. Can people get involved with your nonprofit? That's what I want to remember to hit on. Is there a way for people to donate and Support you building those homes over there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so from foundation org is the website we have taken teams to go and build. The biggest support is usually monetary, okay, but if you have a special skill like you're really good at swinging a hammer Maybe videographer, photographer, or maybe a big donor, who knows?
Speaker 1:you know, hey, you never know man.
Speaker 2:There's like we consider everybody. A lot of people want to go. You know these, see the, the videos and the photos and they're like, oh my gosh, that looks amazing. It is very rewarding. So yeah, that being said, we have taken people before. We are Working through our ability to receive donations right now okay. So you will be able to donate soon. So okay, save up.
Speaker 1:So when, if somebody say they donate or they want to be involved, you have a pretty good vetting process, I would imagine to allow somebody beyond that team, since you have so many people yeah, sure want to do it, mm-hmm. So how you vet them, they're part of the team. When you go over to, it's Haiti, right. When you go to Haiti and you build these homes, how long is your team there for?
Speaker 2:We typically do at least a week okay, sometimes two. We can put these houses up really quick. It's not your typical American house. Yeah, these are like concrete floor, tin roof. Okay, haiti is a very outside culture, so they need a place at night to rest their head and lock the door and like that's it. So no plumbing, no electricity. Sometimes they'll run stuff to it afterwards, okay, but it's not set up for that and that's not typical for the culture. Okay, so we can do most of the house in a day, and then Sometimes most of the time is too, because of the concrete, like laying the foundation and stuff. We actually pour the foundation inside afterwards. Okay, they're lightweight enough and it's stronger that way, and Haiti gets hurricane, so these are equipped with like anchor straps and hurricane straps to help it, kind of.
Speaker 1:That's excellent, not blow away. I actually really thought it out used to go I'm just gonna build something real quick, yeah good, no, I need to withstand it, or something.
Speaker 2:So no, that too, because if it were to fall on you you'd probably survive like these. Okay, the, the houses that killed people were unreinforced masonry concrete, so like just no building code, poor infrastructure. The earthquake was shallow and then all these buildings are just built on top of each other on a mountain, so like domino effect just wiped all out Our houses. The only concrete part is of the floor. Everything else is lightweight construction 10 roof and 2x4s.
Speaker 1:You guys have to be known out there. Now, right, you, I mean people have to see you know, like, hey, that's the guy that builds the houses, or I?
Speaker 2:Don't know, I don't know there's a lot.
Speaker 1:He's not like you freaking, look like everybody else anyways.
Speaker 2:But hey, he's on the map now, so there's probably like a couple hundred Organizations. Oh, whether you see him or not, there's like, there's like a lot. That's good, that's a good thing. I think the most well-known would probably be that does something similar to me would be Sean Penn. Oh, he both houses out there too. He's built a lot more than me.
Speaker 1:I Little bit of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's probably a little lot of a lot of influence too. But, dang, dude, trevor, I can't thank you enough for being here and just chat with us. Man, what, what an incredible person that you are. Your family, what you've done, what you've gone through, speaks volumes, man, and the fact that you're sitting here now and you're just talking about it and encouraging other people you have a nonprofit, you created a company, williams key. I mean you're doing a lot, man. It says it says speaks volumes for you, for yourself and who you are as a person. And If I could say anything, man, keep going, dude. I mean they people always say the skies a little, whatever. But Truly we're the only ones that hold ourselves back. I mean it's, it's amazing what you can do if you just put forth a little effort. Then, on top of that, put faith behind it. Yeah, you never know, man, amen. I mean it's been very encouraging for me. Like I said, I've been a productless. So, man, and when I have people on here and they open up about their faith, it's, and it's encouraging for me.
Speaker 1:And not to go off subject here, but, like today, I had a pretty powerful phone call and there's another firefighter and he's going through some really hard times and he's like I've been. He's like I wanted to tell you, like I've been listening to your podcasts and have been listening to you talk about your faith and it's been really encouraging. I was like, oh, what I'm like? Well, I just try to be honest, you know. And he's like I've been. You know he's been going through some difficult times for himself and he's needed to seek help and different things. And he's like when, when you told, when you started talking about your life and you've had other people talk about their faith on there, what they've struggled with, he realized he wasn't alone. He's like, okay, so I'm not crazy. It's like, no, bro, that's hard dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my life is freaking difficult, dude. It's not easy. But you know, lord, I saw him look. Lord said he's gonna make a way. So that's what I'm believing in. I just take it a day at a time and I just go, I just wait on him and Everything works out, as I've been in some very deep pits and he's pulled me out of it how, I don't know. Yeah, but he just does, and it's really cool to hear someone say that. It's like, oh wow.
Speaker 1:So you know, this is actually having an impact on people, having people coming on here and talk about their lives and being open and being honest and just being raw. You realize and I'm not alone in what I'm going through, in my pain and what, what, what's affecting me. You know to have that our conversation with him was actually more encouraging for me. I'm like dang dude. I was like I'm a nobody. I just talk on a microphone and get people to talk, you know. But you know You'll never know the lies that you've impacted, from that time in Haiti to what you're doing now. Yeah, I always say it on here it's like throwing that rock in a lake Boom, it hits and it's that ripple effect.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:I'll just. You will never know until the day you die and the Lord says you know, hey, welcome home my good and faithful servant. You know it's, it's huge. You know the things we do for people on here, on here on earth. To me, you know it's priceless. You can't put a price tag on it. You're serving people, you're helping people. I mean, I always tell people my faith is like realizing what Jesus did on earth. It was grace, hope, love, forgiveness.
Speaker 1:That dude accept people as they are. Just help him, dude. Help him out, because everyone's going through a hard time. Whether you want to believe it or not. You could be the richest person out there, or the most destitute. Everyone's deal with something. It's hard, but I told him, no matter what, no matter how hard it gets, dude, he'll make a way. You just gotta wait on him, dude. Just so wait, say a little prayer, do your thing. So I've had times in my life where I've been Laying in bed in the field position crying, can barely say whisper, but he hears you and he'll make a way, dude, it'll happen. So it's just cool, man. You really all of us will never know the amount of Hope that we've given people through the things that we've been through, but been able to talk about and be open and honest with and to, to be able to do that to me is so priceless. You can't put a price tag on. I'm like all right, I'm doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:You know I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. So if I can encourage you anything, man, please keep going. You are, you are a special human and I think there's big plans for you. You just got to keep going, man. So thank you so much for coming on this broadcast, trevor. I feel honored to have you here. Man, you are welcome on here anytime. Anytime you had advertisement, hit me up, throw it out here on the, on an episode or on the social meter, whatever you need. But it's been humbling having you here, man. It's so amazing to make to know that there's someone like you in the fire service. We need more people that are there for the people. You're here for the right reasons, you know. So thanks, man, thank you seriously.
Speaker 2:I love it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Usually actually only got any, say you good oh.
Speaker 3:I'll just make it quick. You know you pretty much nailed it on the head there, but you know the one thing that I think is important, especially in today's climate. You know Service to others is a huge thing, whether it's faith-based or just that's what you feel like you should do. I think everybody should kind of dedicate themselves to serving other people in some capacity, and the fact that ever since you were a child, you had that in grade to you, into you, and that you continue to do it and you're probably gonna pass that on to you know now your future generations which congratulations, by the way, yeah, I think you're a shining example of of exactly what that means is you know you're in service of others.
Speaker 3:You're trying to help firefighters get better access to the patients that they need to serve. You're helping people around the world and in our own nation. I think that that's a huge thing is is that sense of community and and service to others. So thank you very much for what you've done and you know, like Tim said, hope. All the best for you, man, thank you.
Speaker 1:Step, my game shoot.
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm at a table of legends right now. I don't know what I'm doing, can we?
Speaker 2:ring that bell one more time.
Speaker 1:We also, I might We'll talk later I have a few people I know we might need to get your story out to see if we can Get someone to take that on to make a film. A friend oh, it's pretty good. It's pretty, pretty powerful dude.
Speaker 2:You keep me. Give me something more to be busy with.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, maybe you don't have to work as a farmer anymore. You can really do the things you want to do.
Speaker 2:But we'll see. I love being a fireman, though I do it for free, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got, I won't get. Anyways, we, uh, trevor, we do a. Let's go on three at the end. You ready, buddy? Yeah, all right, one, two, three, let's go. Oh, bye everybody. Thank you so much for listening in. If you liked what you just listened to, please leave us a five star review on Apple podcast and on Spotify. Please follow us on YouTube, on Instagram and on Facebook, and a big shout out to Stephen Clark, our sound editor. He's a huge part of this team that is unseen. It's eight nine barbers, our first sponsor. Look good, feel good, be great. That's two locations Orange, california and Long Beach, california. Book your appointment online eight nine barberscom. Bye everybody, you.
