My name is Brent Stratton. I am currently the President of CATO and I began serving in this role when Sid Heal retired in December of 2019. While those shoes are impossible to fill, I have been doing my best to gain full situational awareness of all areas of our organization. I have approximately 16 years of LE experience from a variety of ranks and assignments. Approximately 13 of those years have been spent on a collateral assignment team as operator, team leader, commander and division commander. I don’t count myself as a tactical expert, especially amongst so many of you who so regularly demonstrate clear expertise in this field of tactics. I believe my strengths lie in our organizational planning, procedures and processes. My hope it that this will keep our organization alive and thriving, so that YOU can provide the tactical training to keep our membership and their departments on the cutting edge, which will in turn keep their communities safe. CATO has provided me training, support, access to information, mentorship, leadership and friendship throughout the years and I feel a very heavy responsibility to return that to you and the next generation of tactical officer.
In the past 7 months I have tried to gain as much situational awareness as possible throughout the entirety of the organization. I have written a strategic plan that I believe will help position CATO to be stronger in the next couple of years. I’ve revamped our organizational chart and responsibilities, have restructured our board of directors and have helped manage a change in our focus of training. I have helped position us better for improved communication via social media, podcast, newsletters and our website which is coming soon. I’ve helped re-negotiate burdensome hotel contracts, have tightened our spending while trying to increase our revenue, have helped instill better financial processes and have tried to increase the usefulness of your membership to you. I wish to transition us away from being a strictly SWAT based organization and move us to a tactics-based organization that is represented by EOD, K9, CNT and Patrol officers, as I believe tactics belong to all officers in the field and doesn’t just show up on SWAT callouts
Much as LE is, CATO is in unprecedented times. While I am opportunistic about its future and the impact it can and must have on our profession, it also runs the risk of falling apart. We must focus on running this as the non-profit business that it is, instead of running it as the collateral, volunteer association that it has become. Our organization must become “more practical and less tactical” in that regard. To that end we have started a Business Development Advisory Board which will be comprised of industry wide experts in this area who can make recommendations and give me advice in this area. This will have people who run successful businesses, accountants, book keepers, contract-based lawyers, hotel consultants etc. Covid has changed much of how we operate and has hurt us financially. We are burdened by extensive annual hotel contracts for the foreseeable future and our main income source (training) has changed. It will take bold and decisive leadership to help change the course to one that is more sustainable. I’d like to continue volunteering to help lead and manage the process of re-positioning CATO and am willing to continue putting in the time to do it.
If there is a way you’d like to contribute your talents and passion to CATO, we are always looking for volunteers. This organization is important to all of us who volunteer our time and balance it with our jobs, families and other obligations. We see it as a way to make our service more meaningful and we’d love to have you. Thank you for your service to the profession we all serve. You will never be able to quantify the impact you have, but I know beyond all doubts that your work saves lives and makes things better for people you may never meet. We at CATO are proud to stand with you.
