- January 1, 2025
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David Ogden has spent most of his life serving as a first responder. Specifically, he’s dedicated more than 38 years as a law-enforcement officer, spending the last decade and change serving as the chief of police for the town of Windermere.
Still, nearly four decades since beginning his journey in law enforcement, he vividly recalls his first day on patrol as part of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. However, Ogden doesn’t remember this day because of a photographic memory or a traumatic experience.
Rather, he remembers that first day because his training officer told him he wasn’t going to make it as a cop.
“I started my law-enforcement career in corrections, but about a year and a half later, I went on to be put on patrol — which is all I ever wanted to do,” Ogden said. “My first patrol was on a really cold January day. I got in the patrol vehicle, and back in that day, they didn’t have computers, so you actually had a three-ring binder with all your policies in it."
"So I sat in the car with this guy, Cpl. Hoyt Stough," he added. "(Hoyt) was a great guy, just very knowledgeable, extremely smart, but he was a smoker. So we sat in a car and he smoked his cigarette, and he asked me a series of questions, right? Clearly, I didn’t smoke. I was rolling the window down to get some fresh air. But still, he asked me, ‘Hey, boy, do you smoke?’ I go, ‘No, sir, I don’t.’ Then he takes a big drag from his cigarette. I think he was really trying to make this moment stand out. So he asks me, ‘Do you drink?’ I respond, ‘No, sir.’ And then he asks, ‘Well, do you cuss a lot?’ I go, ‘No sir. I try not to.’ Again, he takes a moment before pulling another drag from his cigarette, blowing it out and saying, ‘Well, hell, boy, you ain’t gonna make it.’”
Looking back, Ogden doesn’t resent this moment. Upon reflection, he now understands what his sergeant was trying to tell him.
“I’m sure he was trying to scare me a little bit, trying to tell me that this is real,” Ogden said. “But this happened in like 1988, and at the time, these types of guys didn’t know how to articulate what it is that we were going to go through in this job, but he was really trying to tell me something important. I look back now, and I know what he was really trying to say, and it was that this job is not easy. You’re going to see the worst of people … and at the end of the day, it’s really easy to believe that everybody you run into is the worst version of society. If you don’t have the tools or support system that helps you take a step back and understand how to manage your overall wellness — mental, physical, spiritual and relational — this job can have a really negative impact on your life.”
According to Ogden, the divorce rate for couples within the law enforcement field is 72-74%, significantly higher than the average rate of 51% in the United States.
Statistics like this and experiences like Stough, sadly, are the norm in law enforcement.
“When I look at data like that and ask myself, ‘Well, why is that the case?’” Ogden said. “My experience tells me it’s because leaders in our profession, as soon as someone says they’re getting a divorce or something bad has happened at home, they just turn the other way and go, ‘That’s your problem. That’s your issue.’
“The fact of the matter is, if you’re having a bad day at home and you come to work and get in a shooting or get in an arrest situation, or you get in a situation where somebody’s violently resisting arrest or giving you lip, there’s no doubt in my mind that your home life is going to affect how you respond to the situation and vice-versa,” he said.
Knowing the overwhelming impact a first responder’s overall wellness has not only on their ability to do the job but also how that affects the community they are serving, Ogden saw an opportunity to help.
So he got to work. The result was a 100-day devotional book called “Seeds of Leadership: Sowing the Foundations of Excellence in First Responders.”
The book was written and designed specifically to help bridge the spiritual wellness gap of first responders by combining lessons from the Christian faith, lessons focused on leadership Ogden has learned throughout his professional career and the lessons he’s learned throughout his personal experiences into 100 easily digestible sections.
“I have a passion for these guys and ladies,” Ogden said. “I think they do God’s work, and I think police work is intrinsically spiritual, in that we’re trying to do good in the community."
"So, my hope is that this book can help plant seeds of leadership and help people learn to develop the relational tools, discipline and resilience to not let being a first responder have the negative impact we’ve all traditionally seen it have on our personal, emotional and spiritual life," he added. "There are some great leadership lessons in here. There are a lot of lessons in there that helped me develop discipline and determination. There’s a lot of lessons about how I handled different situations, some I handled well and some I didn’t handle well as a younger leader, and even as a leader to this day.”
Ultimately, Ogden’s desire when crafting this book was to make something that would connect with first responders and hopefully plant a seed of positivity.
“I want to put this book in the hands of every West Orange County officer that’s out there, and then eventually every officer across the country,” he said. “I know how first responders think. Most of them won’t pick up this little book and read it from cover to cover, but maybe they’ll stick it in the visor of their car — which is why I made sure to design it to be this size — and one day something happens and decide to open it up and take a look. The hope is that something in this book helps them get something positive in that moment. That’s all I want to do — just spread a seed.”
