Challenges and Opportunities

By Maj. Chris Nordloh, Texas Department of Public Safety; CVSA President

As we know, the challenges in our lives generally make us stronger. A life or career without challenges would be boring and monotonous and would not lead to improvements in how we operate. Not every trial is welcome, to be sure, but as a general theory, I believe they give us the opportunity to change the status quo. This leads to new ideas, efficiencies and developments. Challenge gives us opportunities.

Police have had many challenges over the years, including budget constraints, recruiting and retention problems, advancements in technologies, highly technical criminal activities and social pressures. These and other challenges allow police agencies to look internally to solve problems. The solution is never that we don’t need law enforcement, only that we continue to improve our processes for our customers and our people.

Take commercial motor vehicle (CMV) enforcement, for example. Innovations in communication, in-car technologies, CMV screening and inspection facility design all allow for more efficient processes. Our populations and traffic patterns are only increasing, and we can utilize these innovations to sort trucks more efficiently than ever before. This improves safety for our enforcement personnel, the trucking industry and the general motoring public. It allows us to have more efficient back-office processing than when inspections were handwritten or printed out and mailed to headquarters. This was especially clear when COVID-19 forced everyone to reevaluate how we operate. It came at a time when many could work remotely without a break in the workload. This could not have been possible not very long ago.

To be certain, not every change is for the better; that is not my point. There are plenty of instances of fond memories of the “good old days” to which I am not immune. As leaders, we just need to continue to recognize the opportunities that exist in our changing work environment.

As we move into a world where CVSA has the state CMV enforcement training and support grant, the members have more control over the training processes and outcomes. We are developing a Level VIII Electronic Inspection process, which industry has needed for some time. Our new environment now includes autonomous vehicles, from small food-takeout drones to full-sized CMVs. As a result, CVSA is developing an enhanced inspection process for autonomous vehicle motor carriers. These all represent challenges and opportunities, ensuring that our administrators and state leadership stay informed of our progress.

I applaud each of you, as I know this has affected all of us to one degree or another. We should each be looking around and asking ourselves where we want to be in five years, in 10 years. This is not just a retirement plan, but asks us to consider what our organizations are going to look like in the next five years. Who succeeds you when you get promoted or move to the next phase of your career?

Take care of yourselves and look forward, keeping the past in mind.