Harnessing Law Enforcement for Business Success with Jason Pearson

What happens when a nearly two-decade law enforcement veteran steps into the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship? Jason Pearson, our guest with 20 years of experience in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, joins us to share his remarkable journey. From witnessing a supportive training environment shift to a punitive culture within the department, to navigating the complexities of accountability that led to deputies being imprisoned for policy violations, Jason provides an eye-opening narrative filled with personal anecdotes. Discover how these tumultuous experiences shaped his career and led him to leverage his policing skills in the business world with ventures like LEO Technologies and Smash Factor.

Moving from law enforcement to entrepreneurship might seem like a leap, but Jason reveals how decision-making under pressure, problem-solving, and legal expertise seamlessly translate into business success. Listen as we explore his innovative indoor golf simulator venture, a unique business model that combines state-of-the-art technology with year-round accessibility and affordability. With AI-infused cameras for safety and 24/7 access memberships, this venture promises a realistic golfing experience for everyone. Whether you're interested in leadership, adaptation, or the entrepreneurial spirit, this episode is packed with insights that bridge the worlds of law enforcement and business.

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Transcript

Jason Pearson: 0:00

When I first started, the mindset was as long as your heart's in the right place, if you make a mistake, we're going to help you fix it. We're going to get you some training and not make that mistake again, but we're going to move on Towards the end it became. Let's put all blame on the deputies. Let's make sure that the department did no wrong and we're going to send deputies to prison for violating a policy and having something go wrong.

Speaker 2: 0:24

going to send deputies to prison for violating a policy and having something go wrong. Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

Travis Yates: 0:36

Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored that you're spending a few minutes with us here today. We're honored to announce our newest sponsor, Safeguard Recruiting. They have the answer for the recruiting crisis, where they send real candidates and they're getting real results. Check them out at safeguardrecruitingcom. I am super excited about today's guest. Today's guest is Jason Pearson, who served almost 20 years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department before becoming the Vice President of Operations with LEO Technologies. He recently co-founded Smash Factor, an indoor golf facility that also serves as its chief operating officer. Extremely interesting life doing a lot of interesting things past law enforcement. We are excited to talk to him, Jason. How are you doing, sir?

Jason Pearson: 1:22

Great Thanks for the info. I sound pretty impressive, but that's not me.

Travis Yates: 1:25

Yeah, don't we all right, Especially online. But in all seriousness I mean you spent almost 20 years in law enforcement. Kind of walk us through that career, because you obviously what we always talk about, especially in leadership, is your law enforcement career can really do some great things for you past that career. We oftentimes think that law enforcement is just career and then things are kind of over, but really it's just kind of the beginning. So kind of explain to us how you got to where you are today.

Jason Pearson: 1:53

Well, the short answer to that is my law enforcement career by accident set me up for the success that I've had here. I didn't do it on purpose. Walking through my career, I started at 18 as a security assistant in passing the courthouse, Worked there for a year because I wasn't old enough to apply to be a deputy. When I turned 19, I became a custody assistant, which is a jailer in the LA County Jail. I was processing for deputy and got caught in the hiring freeze. It took me another four years after that to get hired as a deputy. I worked jails for a bit. I worked in Operation Safe for a bit. I worked in Operation Safe Jails gang intelligence, which is where I learned a lot of what I'm applying today.

Jason Pearson: 2:32

Went to patrol at Compton Station. I was the watch deputy for a little bit and did a little too much damage to my spinal cord and doctors told me I was done, had to roll it up. I thought I was going to be doing law enforcement forever and that was not the case. I cried in the doctor's office when he said you can't do this job anymore. But I am so thankful for having that behind me now.

Jason Pearson: 2:54

Since retirement, I've gotten married, I've got two kids. I'm there for everything which I wouldn't have been as a deputy, not because I didn't want to be, but because I lived for the job. On the way out of the sheriff's department, my best friend almost went to prison for doing what our bosses told us to do. I was an unindicted co-conspirator in that case, and that opened my eyes up to the world is bigger than being a deputy. He founded Leotech, he was the brains of the operation and I was a guy that just made sure the trains ran on time, uh, and then there realized how much we learned as cops and applied to the business world and then said I was never doing a startup again and six months later did smash factor.

Travis Yates: 3:39

It's been running yeah, I'm super excited to get to smash factor. We have a little bit to cover before that, though, so I want you to just kind of walk through our audience, because we talk about leadership all the time here Explain how the leadership changed in the profession from when you started over the course of two decades and where you ended up, and kind of, what did you see there and what were the?

Jason Pearson: 3:58

issues. The mindset was as long as your heart's in the right place, if you make a mistake, we're going to help you fix it. We're going to get you some training and not make that mistake again, but we're going to move on. Towards the end it became let's put all blame on the deputies. Let's make sure that the department did no wrong and we're going to send deputies for to prison for violating a policy and having something go wrong. I don't know where the pendulum was at one point because it seemed like overnight it happened. Looking back on it, it took a while, but I grew up with a very good sense of question authority. That got me in a lot of trouble as a deputy, but I'm thankful for it now and I realized I wasn't the problem. I was battling the symptoms of the problem.

Travis Yates: 4:46

Yeah, I want people to understand because it is so outrageous it's hard to believe. They literally are going after law enforcement for doing what the organization asked them to do. They're trying to literally and they have sent officers to prison or prosecuted officers for literally following a policy or following a training and then the organization would will act like that didn't exist. I mean, you probably saw that firsthand, didn't you?

Jason Pearson: 5:10

I'll take it a step further. My best friend went to federal prison because the sheriff of Los Angeles County and the undersheriff said you guys need to do this. This is why you're doing it. And it made perfect sense to us. We didn't know that he was a federal informant and the feds thought that we were hiding him from the feds. We were hiding him from everybody to include other deputies, and keeping him safe. And then when they started asking questions, both the undersheriff and the sheriff said we didn't tell them to do that. I don't know why they would do that. And my buddies got a charge and I had a very long conversation with my parents about we can't afford the attorney fees. Don't fight it, we're not going to win against the feds. Pay for me to go to school while I'm in there and hopefully I'll come out an educated fellow.

Travis Yates: 5:54

That is really remarkable and I'm not sure people understand it. So when you see crime rising and you see all the chaos in these cities, especially these urban cities, it literally is because they've given the powers of law enforcement to keep law and order, but no one wants to keep law and order because of the consequences of actually doing their job. That's really what's underlying all this, is it not?

Jason Pearson: 6:11

Absolutely, and my department was very proactive. We prided ourselves on obs arrest and getting out and touching up everybody talking, interacting with the community. Now it's a reactive police force and that is the wrong answer. And it goes back to that. If you made a mistake in the past, it was hey, be careful in the next one, let's send you to train so you don't do that again. Now it's hey, you chased that guy. Yeah, he had a gun, yeah, he might've tried to shoot at you, but you didn't get on the radio quick enough. So now everything's illegal, out of policy and the onus is now on you.

Travis Yates: 6:45

Yeah, you didn't turn your body camera on during that split second life and death decision or something to that effect. Right, yeah, man. So leadership got us here, and I want people to understand this. This is not activists. This is not the media. We had activists in the media 20, 30 years ago. This is our leadership inside our own agencies that have made a decision that whatever reputation or whatever they're trying to uphold, they're going to throw the employees down, and so it's a destructive model of law enforcement that we're seeing across the country, when our men and women are more scared of the things you're talking about than actually the bad guys. And there's no wonder we see the metrics all off Crime is up, morale is down, recruiting is down you name it. Any metric you would measure a business off of law enforcement's in complete and utter bankruptcy. So I'm going to ask you the big question here, jason. Leadership got us here. What would leadership have to do to get us out of here?

Jason Pearson: 7:37

We're almost to the point where it needs a complete turnover. I feel like the greatest asset law enforcement used to have was other cops recruiting new cops into into the job, into the lifestyle. It is no longer a career that people want to live their life for. It is no longer people want to do 30, 40, 35 years in. It is now that's a paycheck until I can do my next thing. They've got to upend the entire the.

Jason Pearson: 8:03

So it's not just a one facet. The legal standing is gone. The crime like why arrest somebody if they're going to get a ticket and walk right back out? Why, again, why be proactive and do your job if you're just going to get in trouble for it? I don't know if it's something that can be learned. It's got to be. Some of these younger guys that haven't experienced the old ways and heard about them are going to have to take another look at what is happening and how best to solve the problem. Because that's what cops do they solve problems and best problem solvers I've ever been around. So let them do it. But I don't know how you make that happen.

Travis Yates: 8:46

Well, and you're so right in problem solving. We're some of the best at it, and you talk about the things that you went through and many people are going through even right now on the job resilience, stress management, problem solving. Talk to us about how that propelled you into your next life, your next career, because I want people to listen to this, to understand this. If you think law enforcement is one and done, you're completely wrong. You're going to be set up for failure. If you think that pension check is going to cover you, you're going to be set up for failure. If you got in your mind this is it. You're going to be set up for failure, just like you.

Travis Yates: 9:17

You thought you would do this forever, and I'm telling you why you said that, jason. Because you were told what were a slave to the man or a slave to that entity forever. Because we have this pension system and you wouldn't dare leave. People care less about that now because they're about survivability. So I want people to understand that if you're doing this job, do it well, but think about it At 40, 50, even 60 years old. You have another life in front of you. How did that mindset and I know you did it by accident, but you found that the problem solving and the skills you got in law enforcement helped you in entrepreneurship. How did that end up?

Jason Pearson: 9:52

helping you. I know you remember this. I don't know what your listener base is, but I remember the first time I sat in the passenger seat on a ride along and I watched the deputy rolling code three coordinating a call, taking a drink of his monster while he was driving, looking around clearing intersections, and I thought he was walking on water, like how is he doing these 75 things all at once and calm as can be and having a conversation with me at the same time. Then, before I knew it, I was that guy and people were looking at me like how did you do that? We don't really.

Jason Pearson: 10:20

We're desensitized to what we learn and what we accomplish as cops every day, and it's all based on legal standing. We we as cops every day, and it's all based on legal standing. We are experts on the law most of us experts on the law and know what is right, how to circumvent when needed to. I mean, look at the Constitution. We don't want illegal searches and seizures in our home, but I do want somebody to boot my door if somebody's life is in danger inside of my house. And knowing the ins and outs of what you can and can't do translates to business right. So the first at leotech early on, the first paying customer. We got surprised, like we've been trying to get one for so long, and somebody finally called and said you know what we want? It send us a contract. Uh, yes, sir, what contract you're gonna uh, yes, sir.

Jason Pearson: 11:07

Contract. Oh my God, hold on, let me, let me just and my business partner was out of town so it was on me, okay. So I, I did what I could, I put it together, I pulled some stuff from here and there, just like the first search warrant. You right, it seems like you're never going to be able to do it again, like, oh my God, how do people do this? And then, before you know it, you're doing it without thinking. That framework of knowing this has to stand on law, it has to stand on what the company stands for and it has to be reasonable and make sense to both sides.

Jason Pearson: 11:38

The contract got signed as is. There wasn't a push back and forth and there were some terms in there that I probably didn't fully understand but I had seen them in another one and everybody won, and more than that. We deal with life and death decisions every day. We make decisions with limited information. Most people are deathly afraid of that. They want to know everything before they make a decision. That's not the world we live in, and if you can do that, you're going to be effective in business, because you almost never know it and you've got to retool and look at it again and problem solve. Business is problem solve.

Travis Yates: 12:15

Yeah, we've almost been brainwashed, right, we're almost made to believe by our leaders this is all you can do, because many of us in law enforcement, especially with an entrepreneur mindset I was one of them we would come up with ideas and we would come up with things to solve and we would get told no over and over again. My joke in class is is some of us will get told no, so much we have, you know, our heads been pushed down so much We've got marks on our head because you work with people that don't want to do that and after a while you just give up. We sometimes we'll call that retired on duty or all kinds of acronyms. If we you know kinds of acronyms. It's so true, we have acronyms for all these things. Right, you got promoted and you had your spinal removal surgery. Those acronyms exist because it's real. But when you get away from the organization and the bureaucracy, nobody can really tell you no and you can really soar and I think you experienced that, even by accident, firsthand and people need to understand.

Travis Yates: 13:07

That's why I wanted to bring you on, because of the success you've had after the job, because I talked to so many people, because there is a transition. Whether you do this job one year, 10 years or 30 years, there is a transition when you leave. But if you wait until you leave to start that transition, you're setting yourself up for some things that really go wrong. And we all both personally, without talking to you I know we've had friends that's had to deal with that and so you're sitting here in a great mindset, great success, using and leveraging the career for you.

Travis Yates: 13:35

I want people to get that mindset. And you didn't have rank, so to speak, on the department, but you're very much a top leader today and you are successful doing that, even though you didn't have rank. As I always say, this leadership in law enforcement has nothing to do with rank, and so how can a deputy or an officer that goes well, I haven't been able to get promoted, and this and that Folks. That doesn't mean a thing. Leadership has nothing to do with a rank structure inside a police department, but you have parlayed that from a deputy standpoint to leadership roles, multiple leadership roles. Talk to our audience about that.

Jason Pearson: 14:11

Well, we spend a lot of time talking about what's wrong with law enforcement. Here's where I want to talk about what's right. The LA County Sheriff's Department did one thing very, very well they understood the boots on the ground were the leaders. When we were running a CP as a deputy, if a chief came and the undersheriff came and we needed him to go sit on a containment spot, we'd hey, sir, I need you to go sit on that spot and they would go. Whoever had the most information at the time didn't matter rank was the leader. They made leaders out of us. There's some mission statements and whatnot. Whether you believe in that I don't know, but in practice a deputy would take charge because they were empowered to take charge. That's huge.

Jason Pearson: 14:55

We've been bashing law enforcement and I have a love-hate relationship with it. It made me who I am. I don't like how it ended, but they did that very, very well. Being able to be a leader it's not normal. People are scared to lead. Everybody talks about I want to be a leader, I want to be in charge, but then, when the decision time comes, they don't want to make a decision because they're not used to making decisions.

Jason Pearson: 15:12

We have a bias for action as cops, and we aren't scared to get it wrong. We might make a decision and it's wrong, Okay. Well, I learned something from that. Let me dust it off. And that goes back to your no's. We've been told no, so much that if something doesn't work, no doesn't mean no. No means find another way to get a yes, and that's fine, I will. I will find another way. And again, I did this by accident. I can't tell you that I built my career to get to where I am today. It just happened organically because of what we get to learn and experience as cops. I think I went off trail a little bit.

Travis Yates: 15:48

No, I mean, it's what we're trying to get across to people is what you're doing is a mindset. We have the skills to do anything. You look at a Fortune 500 CEO. Every cop on the street has the skills to do the same thing. But it's a mindset right. And what I would love and some leaders do it I'm not completely bashed the profession. We need leaders in law enforcement to empower those around them to make sure their mindsets right where they can do the same. Because if you can run the company you're running now, think of what you could have done in your police department if you'd been empowered to do it Right. And if we all do that, we all lead that way. Think how great that makes our organizations. And so I want to lead into my favorite topic, which is golf. You ended up founding Smash Factor. We're getting into what that is, but did you have a love for golf after this? How did you get this idea? No-transcript.

Jason Pearson: 16:41

So I was on the golf team in high school, not because I was great at golf, but because I played baseball growing up. My dad got thrown off a horse and messed up his shoulder and we couldn't play baseball or he couldn't play baseball anymore. So we took up golf in the 90s. Now my dad, my brothers, my son, my sister will play golf Again. We aren't great, we're shooting in the 80s and 90s, but we have a great time shooting in the 80s and 90s, but we have a great time. I was.

Jason Pearson: 17:10

The tech company was getting so big and we were coming out of COVID and I had two young kids that I didn't want to slow it down. I didn't want to be away. So I told them hey, I want to take a step back. I want to spend some more time with my family because I have a. I can now and I don't want to slow the organization down and I think I want to take a break from from startups. Um, that lasted like three months and I made a joke about one of these simulators when I turned 40, like, hey, you guys want to chip in? It's only 50 to a hundred K to put one in my house, yeah, and then I said that's a lot of money for my house. It's not a lot of money for something to put into a business to rent out by the hour, to let normal people access this technology. That don't have the hundred grand to throw a sim in the house.

Jason Pearson: 17:47

At the same time, a deputy that I was on training with, and I'm pretty close with his son, is 12 and kicks our ass on the golf course. He's been taking lessons since he was five. He was going to put a sim in his backyard and he said I want to offset the cost. I want to charge people to come in. I said well, why don't we do this the right way? I learned a lot in the tech world from Leo Technologies. We both love golf. Why don't we put this together and we'll do it the right way?

Jason Pearson: 18:13

So we paired the best simulator technology I've ever been on and we'll get to that in a second with self-serve beer and seltzer and going back to being cops, liability, liability mitigation with AI-infused cameras that are going to monitor when we're not there. So we sell, you can come in and rent by the hour. You can get a membership or you can get a secondary membership that has 24-7 access to the sims. So if you work a weird shift like we used to, if you got off at 1 in the morning you want to go hit balls, you book a tea time with us, you RFID your way in because you're a member and the camera is going to watch.

Jason Pearson: 18:47

If you have a medical emergency and nobody's there, it's going to recognize something's not right that wasn't a golf swing and then it's going to send it to a monitoring center that says, hey, there's somebody having a medical emergency, going to call the fire department, going to open the doors for it, and fire's going to come scooping and roll you where and and you have access and you're safe and we don't have to have a high employee headcount. It's beautiful and everybody wins.

Travis Yates: 19:11

Well, let me. Let me back up because we're going to get into this and this may be off topic from leadership, but it's not because you're running this huge business, you know, just so our audience knows that aren't into golf and I'm not gonna tell my golf story today, because it was two years ago. I used to make fun of golfers, but I'm down that path now and it's ugly. But I want our audience to know is a lot of places in the country and the world it's not feasible economically to play golf. The weather doesn't participate to play golf, and so these indoor facilities have popped up. When you go over to Asia, they're everywhere, because that's really economics.

Travis Yates: 19:43

People can't afford to play on those big, lush, plush golf courses over there, but they can afford to go into a simulator environment. They can play year-round, any time of the day. They don't have to worry about paying $500, $600 for their group of four to go play. It's an indoor facility and you can put any course on there. When we say simulation, folks, this looks like the real deal. It looks like you're on the course.

Jason Pearson: 20:11

Well, not only does it look like it, so this company maps the courses, not just a drone flyover and Google Maps. They map where the trees are, where the bushes are, where the fairway is, where the rough is and our top of the line one the ground will move. So if you hit a ball that would have been on the side of the hill in the rough, the ground will give you that exact same lie, and you've got to put it in simulated rough. And if you don't, it says you should have been in the rough. Since you're hitting from the fairway, we're going to penalize you 10% off of your shot. These things are so accurate. They play professional leagues on them in Korea. They're incredible. Or behind me is Pebble Beach. I thought I was going to take my dad to Pebble Beach because he retired last year. I didn't realize how expensive it was to go, because it's not just the green you have to stay at their hotel.

Jason Pearson: 20:51

Yeah, yeah, yes, so it's like rough. I think I was looking at $10,000 a head to get my dad up there, me and him and my brothers. Or you can come here and pay $40, $45 for the hour and you can go play it. And if three of your guys say you know what I was going to play, but I got busy, I can't go. No problem, You've already got the time. You can play it two, three times if you want to here. You can finish a round in an hour here and you don't get paired with a random fourth that you don't know. That's right and you don't have to wait. There is a little bit of dodging balls.

Travis Yates: 21:21

My wife. My wife is like deathly, uh, phobia about playing with people she doesn't know and, uh, I usually have to book the empire four out when we go play at a random course, because I don't want to deal with the drama. But you're right, I mean, y'all got all these issues on a golf course. You know you're going to be behind, people are in front of you, people are behind you, you're hitting balls. There's all these issues and and this is a really aor, I think, in the industry, especially here in America, because these are not very common Did you franchise this or did you start this from scratch on your own?

Jason Pearson: 21:51

We started from scratch on our own. The plan is to franchise it. Oh yeah, yeah, we're just. We wanted to prove it here in California because, one, this is where we're from, but, two, this is the best weather in the nation. If we can prove the concept here, it's going to work better anywhere where it snows, anywhere where it gets above 120, anywhere where it's raining. All the time I tell people I used to hate rain as a deputy because that meant car crashes and the gangsters weren't hanging out. Now it's a much factor. I love the rain because business is really good when it's raining, because you can come in here and stay dry and have a good time.

Travis Yates: 22:29

From your law enforcement career to what you're doing now. Problem solving is very, very similar, but the difference is if people got mad at an LA County deputy, the next day they had to call the same sheriff's department back for the problem and you probably understand customer service like nobody's business because you got it. It's all about customer service in the private industry because you want them happy and coming back.

Jason Pearson: 22:43

Absolutely and we get to solve the problem the way we want, not the way that policy dictates or the way the political winds have come and go. My business partner and I are very much long-term thinkers. We aren't worried about if you're going to come here and spend $100 and never come back again. We want you to come in here, even if something happens. We've got to give you free simulator time or we have to refund a membership. We're happy to do it because we want to create an environment where you're happy. You want to keep coming back, or the environment is also if you're too intimidated to go to the golf course, come on in. We're inviting. We're not going to talk shit to you. You're going to have a good experience.

Jason Pearson: 23:18

It's quiet and in our permanent facility that's being built, if you want to be like your wife, if you want to be completely by yourself, we have a private room that can seat up to 10 people and you don't let anybody else in. You play as fast or as slow as you want. You do exactly how you want to do it. Have sales. We can give stuff away. We're not trying to. We're in business, but we understand the bigger picture here and you don't get that without. There are a couple of ways to get it, but we get a very heavy dose of it in law enforcement of big picture.

Travis Yates: 23:47

So I've been involved in a couple of startups, Jason, and I'm just going to describe to you what I think everybody deals with. Startups is you grind, grind, grind, but then you get to a point to where you're seeing a little bit of success but it's time to scale up, and scaling up is a really dangerous time period in the business world. So I assume you've hit that scale up period and you've actually scaled up. Kind of describe that for us, or do you feel like that that's coming.

Jason Pearson: 24:13

It's coming. The problem is our landlord is a year behind scheduled, delivering location one to us. So we have location two negotiated. I can't pull the trigger till location one is up Because of the way we've built the model and we've done a lot of thought and we opened this temporary spot. It's going to be easy to scale. We need five employees total per location, a lot of technology. Technology is very easy to scale, aws is very easy to scale and, again, california is one of the more expensive places tax-wise and cost of living. It's only going to get easier to scale in middle America. So we're at the tipping point. I can't say that we've scaled this and it's easy because I haven't, but we have the framework for it.

Travis Yates: 24:58

Do you offer lessons there Do you offer lessons?

Jason Pearson: 25:01

We do. We have two instructors Well, we have two. Now we're bringing a third instructor on staff. One of our membership tiers includes one lesson a month as well as free simulator time. We've hosted some events, so women's intro to golf, women that have never touched a golf club before. Our lead instructor is Naomi. She played collegiately semi-pro. She's awesome with young girls getting into the game. And again, we love people coming through the door that said you know, I was too scared to go to the golf course, but I want to try it here. That's the passion project. Part of this for me is I love seeing people get into the sport that love it.

Travis Yates: 25:40

Jason Pearson Smash Factor. I think this interview may have been more for me than you, jason. I really love talking golf, and you combine your law enforcement background with that. I can't thank you enough for being here, brother.

Jason Pearson: 25:50

No, thanks for having me. This is my first podcast, if you will, so give me some critiques notes. We're thick-skinned and coachable. Let me know how to do it better next time.

Travis Yates: 25:59

It's all good, First of many to come. Man, I can't thank you enough and if you've been listening, thank you for doing that. Thank you for spending the time with us today. And just remember lead on and stay courageous.

Speaker 2: 26:10

Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. travisyates. org.