APSA 2026 Northeast Director Candidates | Ep 365

Welcome to the Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS in partnership with Valor Plus.

On today’s episode, we’re pleased to welcome the two candidates for the Airborne Public Safety Association’s Northeast Regional Director position. Joining us are Eric Bourn of the South Berwick Police Department and Lt. Jason Baxley of the Delaware State Police.

This special episode provides an opportunity for APSA members to hear directly from the candidates as they introduce themselves, discuss their backgrounds and experience, and answer three questions that are important to the future of public safety aviation and the association they hope to serve.

The Hangar Z Podcast is honored to partner with APSA in providing a platform for these candidates to share their perspectives with the membership ahead of the election. Our goal is to give voters an opportunity to learn more about each candidate and make an informed decision.

For more information about the Airborne Public Safety Association, visit publicsafetyaviation.org.

Thank you for joining us, and now let’s meet the candidates for APSA Northeast Regional Director.

Thank you to our sponsors Spectrolab, Summit Aviation and Robinson Helicopter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Hangers E podcast, brought to you by Vertical Helicast and partner with Vertical Valor Plus. Today's episode is dedicated to the Airborne Public Safety Association's uh regional director candidates. There's a a couple contestant races and one of them's in the Northeast. And the Hangers E is proud and honored to provide APSA candidates a platform to introduce themselves to voting members. So this is for the Northeast. And we're happy to welcome from the South Berwick Police Department Eric Bourne. Eric, how are you today?

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Uh I'm doing all right. Having a nice, beautiful day in the up here in on the Nampshire main border.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Very nice. Very nice. Well, uh welcome to the podcast.

unknown 0:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

We're gonna uh go through just three questions, and every candidate uh gets to answer the same three questions in any way you want. Uh they're very basic, but they're they're a way to introduce yourself to people that might not know you. Uh you are the current uh regional director in the northeast, so some people uh uh apparently do know you, of course. But uh we want to make sure that all the voters from the northeast get to know both the candidates a little bit better, and we're honored to take a part of that. So if that's good, uh here we go. All right. Eric, tell us a little bit about your background in public safety and particularly in aviation.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Well, my background in public safety, um, I did 20, 24 years, 25 years in law enforcement in New Hampshire. I thought I had retired from that, um, but I decided that uh I like to say retirement didn't take. So here I am back uh working full-time again in uh South Berwick, Maine. I was working for private industry doing uh drone work, and uh then my I had been working as a reserve officer for the police department, and the chief said, Hey, we'll buy you a drone to have in your cruiser with you if uh you come to work for us full-time. So here I am driving a cruiser with a drone in the back of it. As far as my aviation background, I'm kind of unique of the APSA um board members that um I don't have a I'm I'm entirely from the unmanned aviation background. I don't uh closest thing I have to manned aviation background is my dad was an Air Force pilot for 20 years. So I I'm entirely from the manned side, uh unmanned side, sorry. I picked up my first drone in 2018. Uh one night my w my wife made the mistake of leaving me home alone with some money in my pocket. I and I went to Walmart and bought a little drone. And uh in in her words, it's been downhill from there. Um but but I've loved every minute of it, from flying it on my own on the side to my biggest passion has been trying to find ways to combine the passion for um unmanned aviation and my passion for public safety. Um and that's what I'm doing now with flying with the uh the police department and our regional, we have a regional uh emergency management-based um UAS team uh that we do everything from search and rescue stuff to fire calls, um uh to we we respond with our local uh SRT unit when they go out and we do the overwatch and the interior flying and all that good stuff with them. So that's uh that's pretty much my I've been flying, I've been part 107 licensed since 2019, and anything I can do to fly drones is is a good day in my book.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Nice. So share with the voters of the Northeast region how you have prepared to be an APSA regional director. Understanding that you're in that position now, but you can talk about the what you've done there, but you could, you know, expand on that any way you want.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

The way I came to be where I'm at was because I was trying to host a uh NIST Proctor course up in my region um and had reached out to to Dan to help get that facilitated. And during that process, um I came to find out I I was familiar with the organization, but I uh I wasn't deeply familiar. And in learning about it, I discovered that the regional director position for the Northeast was open. Um it had become vacant in the middle of a term. And I got talking to Dan and we discussed about it, and uh they seemed to be uh receptive and open to the idea of having somebody from the unmanned side come on board, the directors, on the board of directors, to to represent that community. I think just about all of the others have some have experience with with the unmanned side, but they I their primary is the is the man side. So I I bring the uniquely, I guess maybe in a way one-sided, but uh yeah, it I think of it in a good way that because that's I'm that's my main thing as opposed to it being a secondary. So I was appointed to the position in I believe it was April of last year. Um I participated through the spring, through the summer convention last year out in uh Phoenix. I met a lot of people. I learned as much as I possibly could. Well, the man side of aviation, it's it's it's intriguing to me. I just had never didn't have any experience in it. So every every conversation I have with either other members of the board of directors or uh vendors or other participants at the convention, I I learned something about it. Um and I've been participating as a director since then in other meetings and uh and working to spread the word as as much as I can about the uh about the organization.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Good. Last question. Quick, easy. Uh provide us with your perspective of what the most important issues are in public safety aviation and what will you do as a regional director to work on those?

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Well, uh again, with my background, this is going to be uh the perspective of the most important issues for the unmanned side because I don't think I would be the person to talk to about um important issues from the man side. Um on-man side, I would say counter-UAS is going to be a huge thing. It already is with the uh the FIFA events going on right now. And that's just gonna continue into the future with other. I mean, we have we have large-scale events in this country all the time, regardless of whether uh the world soccer people are here or not. So that's gonna continue to be a concern for any time there's an outdoor event with uh large crowds and open air venues and those sorts of things. So there's gonna be a huge growth in that sector. Obviously, drone as a first responder is a catching on like wildfire for lack of a better term. It's it virtually every large police of agency and moving into smaller and smaller police agencies are getting into DFR to be able to get the eyes on a um incident prior to uh cruisers getting there and getting more information uh into the into the pattern. So we the more you know, the better you can respond to the call. Regulation and how to navigate the the ongoing attempts by the government to to keep uh keep unmanned aviation they're trying to keep up with the technology, and the technology just keeps growing and getting faster and better, and the legislation and the legislators don't have the knowledge to keep up with the with the uh with the growth. So there has to be uh people who are in the field to be able to pass on, have them rely on us and say, hey, this is this is what it's like in on the real side of things, and try to try to educate them on what it is they're trying to do and hopefully maybe steer them towards doing a little bit better job of it. So I think those are three of the three of the topic one, top ones from from my perspective.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

No doubt, no doubt, that uh the UAS side of things is growing ra at a rapid pace. It has been for a while, but it's it hasn't slowed down, has it?

SPEAKER_03 7:58

No, it hasn't. And I I'm the when I first uh got involved in this, I said that uh unmanned, I believe that the unmanned side is definitely growing faster than the manned side, but drones are never gonna replace helicopters. There are certain missions that one is better suited for than the other. There's you know the cost factors back and forth, but there is definitely room and definitely a need for both sides in uh in law enforcement and public safety. I mean, you we can't uh I don't see the day coming anytime in the future where we're gonna be hooking up hoists on drones to lift people from uh from sinking boats or rescue them from canyons and things like that. I just it that's not gonna happen, I don't think, anytime. Certainly not in my lifetime, maybe, maybe way in the future, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Well, very good, Eric. Uh I want to thank you for stepping up to the plate and uh giving your time to the Airborne Public Safety uh Association. Um they've they couldn't run without people that uh uh aren't willing to do what what you've been doing and want to continue to do. Uh that means all the candidates and all the people that are that are doing hard work for the association. So with that, uh Eric, thank you very much for joining us on the Hanger Z to to introduce yourself to the Northeast voters and uh and uh we'll move on to uh part two here with uh another the other candidate for North the Northeast, uh Jason Baxley's coming up next. So Eric, thanks for your time.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

All right, see you see you in Fort Lauderdale. We'll continue now with our second candidate for the Northeast region for the uh Airborne Public Safety Association and the Hangers E podcast would like to welcome Lieutenant Jason Baxley from the Delaware State Police. Jason, welcome to the Hanger Z.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Well, we're we're happy to have you and happy to give you and Eric both the opportunity to introduce yourselves. Uh so three basic questions, you know, nothing to it. Uh and uh we're just we think this is a good good way to get more people involved in voting when they get to learn more about the candidates. And like I said, we're happy to do it. Jason, tell us about your background in public safety and particularly in aviation.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, so uh I go back to the 90s. Uh my public safety career started. I started as a volunteer fireman and I got my EMT basic and I rode the amulets in the fire trucks. Got excited, I got to meet county paramedics, and then I was decided I wanted to be a paramedic, and I was lucky enough to get hired by the county, and they they sent me to school and I worked as a county paramedic. I always had this desire to be a state trooper, but I didn't have any connections, I didn't have any education, I didn't have any ends until I became a county paramedic. So that that gave me the education and that gave me the experience and something that kind of set me aside and made me different than other applicants back then. Applied to the state police, uh, worked patrol for four years, and then they had an opening in the aviation section, and they were looking for uh tactical flight officers that were paramedic certified. So I kind of had the edge over some of the other applicants because I already had that experience as a paramedic. I knew they could save on time and money to uh if they pick me up. And then I've spent my last 17 years uh right here in the aviation section, loving every minute, getting it's like a dream job. Here, I don't know how much you know about the Delaware State Police, but we have a multi-mission profile. Uh we do statewide Medivac for the entire state that's provided uh tax-provided service, so there's no charge for that. We do uh search and rescue. We have a lot of beach and waterways and things within our state and the surrounding states that we help out with. Of course, we do law enforcement missions as well, as that's car chases, surveillance, uh foot pursuits. And then we also handle VIP and dignitary transportation and protection. So uh we had Biden, who was president. Uh we were part of that group. That um anytime he had movements within the state, we were a part of that, helping out the Secret Service. So that was kind of interesting and different that we hadn't done that. We do do some work with the governor as well. During my time in aviation, I've been fortunate uh to see our program evolve, you know, through the you know, through the last couple years. Uh we had several different aircraft platforms, and we started out when when I came in here, uh, we were in the 407. Um great aircraft progressed. We got into the search and rescue and wanted to do the hoist mission. So we transitioned over to a 412. But like everything, we we bought all the latest, greatest and put as much stuff in with as we could, and we made it too heavy and it was too slow and didn't really fit the mission profile like we wanted it to. And we were fortunate that Bell came through with the 429, and that has been like the ideal platform for us. And I'm not here for the podcast to push Bell products, but um, it's been amazing for us. Um, we enjoy that relationship that we have with them, and um, I I just have nothing but great things to say about that. I I spent the early time here in aviation as a crew member. You know, I was a tactical flight officer, worked the camera, worked the radio. I was the guy that got out and chased the bad guy. If we picked up a patient, uh, because of my medical background, I would get back and uh treat the patient. Got to establish a lot of relationships, meet a lot of people, do a lot of different things. Because of my experience, I had a knack for reporting and training. Uh, so they decided to make me the training and quality assurance officer. So I was in that position for three years before I moved on. I got to develop training programs, identify some deficiencies, and became certified as a field training officer to promote the training within the section. That was uh really uh rewarding for me. I mean your fingerprints are all over the people that work here, and you get to see that them progress and have success. It's just an amazing feeling. I was lucky enough to get uh participated in the promotional process and get myself promoted to sergeant. And usually how it works is once you're promoted to um in a position, you leave your special unit and you go back to patrol. I was just lucky enough that the sergeant that was in our section was also retiring around the same time I got promoted. So uniquely I was able to stay within the section, which was great because I had all the knowledge that coming up in the section that I was able to kind of pass on. After being a first line supervisor for about four years, uh we had another person uh get promoted and another person leave, and I was able to transfer over uh laterally to an administrative position within the section. So I got to see over operations, I got to see over training, I got to see the oral board process when we would take troopers from the road and bring them into the section and see that process and um actually sit on the opposite side of the board, which you know I've always sat on the one side where you're the nervous side, to be on the other side was pretty, pretty interesting experience as well. That also afforded me the opportunity to be on some of the builds. So when we would take on a new aircraft, we'd get to travel down the bell and we'd get to pick what kind of screens we use, what kind of equipment we were gonna put in there, what the paint scheme was gonna be, and go through the entire building process. And that was such a huge learning experience for me to see how in depth everything was. Not unlike if you ever build a house. You know, you gotta pick out the light switches and you gotta pick out the doorknobs, and you know, like I didn't realize it was that involved, but there's there's a lot of choices to be had there. I was able to mentor the person that took over in my position, so that that worked out really well for the section. And then back in 22, um, I was promoted to lieutenant, and I'm I must have a horseshoe somewhere because the lieutenant in the section happened to be retiring the same year I was getting promoted to lieutenant, and I was able to stay in aviation again, which is just something that's really unheard of in this type of situation. Uh I was made the deputy commander and I got to see oversee everything. And um it's great, you know, you establish relationships with vendors and you get to see the fiscal standpoint where now I'm sitting in fiscal meetings and trying to project uh what our costs are gonna be for fuel, what our costs are gonna be for maintenance, what our costs are gonna be for training. And I I've learned a lot. So, you know, throughout my career, I've I've had the opportunity to work in operations, uh, training, supervisory, and executive level roles. I think it's given me a broad perspective of the challenges and opportunities that we're facing here in public safety aviation. Uh I I don't think we're unique here in Delaware and the fact that like everybody with the rising costs of training and fuel and maintenance and staffing, I I think I have some first hand experience in that world. So I I I think I bring that to the table.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Outstanding. Share with the Northeast voters how you prepared to be an APSA regional director. You you've touched on some of that stuff, but if you want to deep deeper dive into how you prepare specifically to become a regional director.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

I believe preparation comes from a combination of things. You know, my operational experience, my leadership experience, my professional involvement and development uh within the public aviation's community is uh speaks volumes for itself. I've been in here 17 years. It's hard to believe. It's gone so fast. I I remember all the old guys saying, it's gonna go fast, make sure you enjoy it. And uh they weren't lying. Uh but when you love what you do, it just it you don't really feel like you're working, and you get to hang out with some of the best people and do some of the coolest stuff, and it does just really whip by and go really by go by really fast. But yeah, so 17 years in here, I've worked virtually every level within the organization from flight crew member to executive leadership. I've been responsible for training development, quality assurance, operational management, personnel supervision, budgeting, strategic planning, and program development. I mean, I think that's a very diverse kind of set of skill sets. It's giving me a strong understanding of day-to-day operations as long as as well as long-term needs. But I think the most important thing I've done over the last 17 years is build relationships. If I've learned anything, whether it be in the EMS field or law enforcement or aviation, relationships are everything. Your relationship with your vendor is so important, your relationship with your personnel is so important, your relationship with your maintenance staff, your training staff is just critical to making sure that you stay operational and that you stay safe. And uh you get the very best out of your people when you have a good relationship. I've spent a lot of training events, a lot of conferences, a lot of interagency operations, uh professional organizations, you know, just like APSA, like just interacting. I really didn't appreciate how well I had it here in the state of Delaware until I started to travel. We hosted uh a stand to here and had people come here and got to see their airframes and talk to their personnel and look at their equipment. And I was just blown away about how fortunate I've been in my career, not only just staying in aviation, but the equipment and support that we've had from our division and from our administrators and a lot of personnel that have nothing to do with aviation. You know, they they they weren't aviators themselves. So like taking the time to explain our needs and then having them met is just huge. And I know that's not true for every agency. There's a lot of old airframes still out there because they're people just can't afford to buy new ones. I believe at at the core, if I were to be selected as a regional director, my role is to listen. You know, to see what what people are saying and really pay attention, try to connect people, be an advocate for our membership. I think my experience has prepared me to understand the concerns of both large and small agencies. You know, and I just look forward to helping create opportunities uh to bring people together so that you know they can do the magic, right? Like if you support the people, they're gonna do the magic, right? It it it doesn't always necessarily have to be me being the person doing it, but if I can create that environment, I think we'll we can do great things.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Outstanding. Last question. It's all about the the future, uh, obviously for candidates, you know, what things are gonna come up and what you're gonna do. So provide us with your perspective of what the most important issues are in public safety aviation and what you will do as a regional director to work on those issues.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, that's a lot. That's a that's a big question to unpack there.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

It is.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

I would I would say uh first I would try to look in and and at staffing and secession planning. I think that's that's an issue across all boards. One of the things that we're learning here is like you have to grow your personnel from a very early time if you want to get quality people. Agencies all across the United States are facing recruiting and training and uh retention problems, especially if they're qualified people. You know, I know a lot of agencies they bring staff in, uh, they train them up, and then they go into the private sector because now they have this skill set. And uh, I mean, good for those for those individuals, but we got to find a better way to retain our people. It it's it's gonna be a problem throughout. Many organizations are preparing for retirement. You know, talk to some other agencies out there, they develop programs like the drop program, you know, where people are able to stay for another three to five, and I've seen up to eight years past normal retirement, which is just unheard of. So just looking at all sorts of programs like that, training. And uh preparing retirement for experienced pilots, tactical flight officers, maintainers, and leaders. Trying to, in the municipality, when you leave here, trying to find a way to make what you've learned here in your experience and your training applicable to the civilian world so that you're marketable. I think is a really important step for secession planning. Need to focus on developing the next generation of aviation professionals, mentorship, training, and leadership development. And I think you could take these three things here and apply them to the EMS world. I think you could directly apply them to the fire service. I think you could directly apply them to law enforcement. It's not just an aviation-specific uh issue or problem. I think that we needed to address that all across the board. So, secondly, high quality and accessible training. You know, a lot of times uh what's restricting people is is not being able to afford the training. But we have experts within our own house that we could take advantage of. And if we made them available to people that are close by that could make that drive or that flight, um, there's experts that surround us. And it just there's building those relationships and creating these opportunities so that we can have some high quality accessible training at low cost is is huge. Uh, I've been really fortunate that my agency has supported us and traveled. I've got to go to Colorado for crew resource management training, for uh safety management training. I've got to go to Texas, I've got to go to Florida. Uh, and then I know not every agency has that opportunity. I've got to go to some local um training as well, and it's been very beneficial. Ultimately, as the regional director, when it comes to uh training, I'd like to expand regional training opportunities, encourage uh greater sharing of what's best, what's considered best practice. This is a forever developing world that we live in as far as technology, and that's that's going to lead me into my third thing is technology is evolving so quickly and so fast, um, it's very hard for us in general, the world to keep up. Uh, so I think that's also uh an important thing that we need to keep track of. Whether we're talking about a mission equipment that is is advancing. I know that when I started, I had a very simple camera and I had a map book, an actual ABC map book that I'm trying to hold and I'm trying to keep my thumb and I'm trying to counteract the orbits that we're making. And and hey, we may need to get low enough where I read that street sign, you know. And now we have, you know, we went from Garmin uh all the way up to integrated maps into our what we're the image that we're seeing in our cameras, and it's just phenomenal as far as navigation, as far as uh catching bad guys, as far as doing search and rescue. And it's only going to get better from here. I had a small time where I was in charge of our unmanned uh program and trying to develop and standardize that. We had multiple units within our within the state police, each doing their own thing because it was so new at the time, uh, working through accreditation, working through FAA standards, and trying to standardize some of that. And then just when we got, we thought we got it just right. Um, then they they put out a list of all the aircraft you weren't allowed to buy. And it's and then they were all the best, you know, they they did the best job, and now we were like, oh, we have to do this all over again. But understand national security is uh is an important part of what we do. So we get it. But I think you know, APSA can play a critical role in helping members navigate those changes and by serving as a resource and education and working on the collaboration that we already talked to. If elected, my focus would be on strengthening community throughout the Northeast region, increasing engagement, promoting regional training opportunities, and ensuring agencies have a strong voice within Epson. Most importantly, I want to make sure members feel connected, uh heard, supported by and work together uh so that we can all advance this profession.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Outstanding. Lieutenant Jason Baxley of the Delaware State Police, thank you so much for joining us. And more importantly, thank you for stepping up to the plate. I said the same thing to Eric APSA doesn't exist without people like you and Eric and many others that have stepped up to the plate and said, Hey, I'll I'll I'll work at this and to make uh make things better. And uh so I I personally appreciate that and uh we appreciate your time. Thanks for being with us, Jason.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

I really enjoy speaking with you. Our pleasure. We'll see you in Fort Lauderdale. All right, sounds good.