Busting Drug Cartels w/ Jack McFarland Former DEA

HR the "DEA way" sprinkled with a little coke, crack, and grass.

What happens when HR’s most dangerous podcast sits down with a 32-year DEA veteran and former Quantico instructor? You get an inside look at recruiting, management, and intelligence like you’ve never heard before.  

This week, Chad and Joel are joined by Jack McFarland, a man who traded his whistle as a Pennsylvania football coach for a DEA badge in 1987—back when applications were 30 pages long, filled out on a family typewriter, and corrected with a bottle of white-out.  

Inside the Episode:

• From the War on Drugs to Reality TV

• The Ultimate High-Stakes HR  

• The Corporate "Tap on the Shoulder"

• Actionable Intelligence vs. Profiling

"We go on the street 10 times and we blow seven deals of those 10? Dude, you're done. You're finished."— Jack McFarland on the unforgiving suitability standards of federal law enforcement.  

Get ready for a conversation packed with war stories, networking wisdom, and a healthy dose of "keeping it simple, stupid."  

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:28.776)

Yeah, it's the podcast your weed guy warned you about, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman, joined as always. Chad Sowash is in the house as we welcome Jack McFarland, a 32-year DEA veteran and former quantico instructor, which means he probably has Christmas cards from El Chapo. but we'll ask about that later. Jack, welcome. Welcome to H HR's Most Dangerous Podcast.

Chad Sowash (00:38.232)

Weed guy.

Jack McFarland (00:40.788)

Thank you very much man. Really appreciate the opportunity to come on your show. Yes, sir.

Chad Sowash (00:52.386)

Bet he does.

Joel Cheesman (01:01.51)

You are more than welcome. So for a lot of our listeners, viewers don't know who you are, give us sort of the the Twitter bio on you.

Jack McFarland (01:08.468)

Twitter bio Jack McFarland, 32 year veteran, Special Agent of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Prior to that, was, believe it or not prior to that, was a former school teacher and football coach like my father was. Yes, sir. So back in 87, I applied to the DEA and FBI and DEA came a call and I've seen it all basically, which is a good thing and also a bad thing. You name a city, I've been to it, name a country, I've probably been to it. yeah, man, just happy to be here, man, talking to you guys.

Chad Sowash (01:14.914)

Damn.

Chad Sowash (01:21.816)

Holy.

Joel Cheesman (01:34.862)

Isn't isn't football coach like the law in Pennsylvania? Like steel country and coal country gotta

Jack McFarland (01:39.315)

Absolutely. I call it country. Absolutely. Just you hit it on the head. No disrespect to the western part of the state, but you know, people will challenge you on that. But go Eagles. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Joel Cheesman (01:45.469)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:48.996)

And and like Allen Allentown is in your bio somewhere. I mean you're you're like you're like Billy Joel a Billy Joel video on the itties meets like all the right moves starring Tom Cruise. That's your that's your upbringing. That's at least in my in my mind anyway.

Chad Sowash (01:53.124)

hell yeah.

Jack McFarland (01:59.348)

Oh my yes. Yes, sir. Totally. If you didn't play football, man, you weren't part of anything. yeah, from the age of five years old, I had the pads on my way to college and then I got out and started coaching and teaching. You got definitely some good football down there in Pennsylvania. But thanks for giving the shout out to PA football, Pennsylvania football.

Chad Sowash (02:07.523)

yeah.

You're talking to a couple of Ohio boys here. I mean, we're both yeah, I mean we know I that's religion, my friend. That's religion.

Joel Cheesman (02:14.109)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:18.492)

Mm-hmm.

Jack McFarland (02:27.795)

I really appreciate that man. I still think I can put the pads on sometimes, you know? Not really. Yeah, really. Woo!

Chad Sowash (02:32.334)

Don't we all, Jack? Don't we all? I mean, come on. So, okay, before we dig into things, before we dig no, no, no Steelers. This is Eagles. before we dig into before we get any further, Jack, you literally were just vying to go on Traitors Season Five. Okay. And in this is another thing. Apparently, you are going after an acting career.

Joel Cheesman (02:35.504)

As as long as you don't talk Steelers, Steelers gets you the pot the moot button. No Steelers.

Jack McFarland (02:41.542)

haha

Jack McFarland (02:54.212)

Yes, yes.

Chad Sowash (02:59.086)

I w I want to hear a little bit about this because Joel loves some traders.

Jack McFarland (03:04.115)

You know, I don't know if Joe wants to some more water. I think he's going to step out of the room he said, but I'm just joking. You know, it was a great opportunity. I got sought out. I got back in January and I can speak of this now because I didn't sign any NDAs or anything because I didn't make it to the finals. But what a wonderful, wonderful experience going from January to April to trying to get selected for this show. And you'll see this. It's Traders 5.

Chad Sowash (03:08.418)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (03:33.651)

It's called civilians and thanks for bringing this up. mean, it's kind of funny, but I was just a guy. I got a kit with a casting agent from Hollywood. They hit me up and you talk about trying to get hired on a job and you guys are in HR. You like to talk about HR. We're talking from like, I thought it going back to DEA. was like four months and I was supposed to, made it to the semi-finals after.

Chad Sowash (03:50.7)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (03:50.706)

Uh-huh.

Jack McFarland (04:01.138)

Zoom this, zoom that, fill this packer out. Oh, I'm sorry, fill this application out. My goodness, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Fill this application out. I'm on a little thing here. And, you know, I got the call one Friday evening and they said that, unfortunately, we're going to have to stop you at the finals, which would have been in Los Angeles at the end of September. And I said, okay. And they brought a bunch of people out to LA at the end of April.

Chad Sowash (04:07.116)

You're good. I love it.

Jack McFarland (04:28.218)

And now they, right now they are filming, I believe in Inverness, Scotland. They film for a couple of weeks. That's what they film. It is. And there's a lot of things that people don't know and I won't put them out there, but like I said, I know zero MDAs on it, but it was such a wonderful opportunity. I met a lot of great people and it... This is all human several times.

Chad Sowash (04:34.076)

yes. Yes, they do. And a beautiful castle, by the way. And yeah.

Chad Sowash (04:46.766)

Well talk about the interview process though, Jack, because this is a this is an HR and hiring type of project.

Joel Cheesman (04:49.372)

Yeah, was there n was there any AI or was this an all was this an all human interview process? Okay.

Chad Sowash (04:55.831)

Okay.

Jack McFarland (04:56.268)

You get moved from one person to another person and it was one of those things where you had an answer to questions. Questions were not difficult one bit. They were not hard at all. There were more like, how can I put this, it wasn't hard, was questions. It was very simple questions, but they wanted to basically pin you down on your personality. Could you stab someone in the back? like, did you know my career?

Chad Sowash (04:59.982)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (05:06.584)

Were they tests? Were they tests?

Jack McFarland (05:25.135)

I used to do these kinds of things. I used to do things with weapons and we used to do negotiations with weapons in our pants, know, come on. So, know, with handguns and that. So, you know, was funny. One thing I got sent like, boom, it comes over to screen. It's like, please answer these three questions. These three questions. And then you have a certain amount of time to answer these questions. So there I am sitting in a chair and my wife's filming me and I answer these questions. Well, the questions were nothing really that hard, but I think I answered them. The three questions like 30 seconds.

Chad Sowash (05:25.46)

Ha.

Chad Sowash (05:30.262)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (05:54.17)

And then boom, then boom, I went. And then in a couple days, I get another thing. Can you fill out this packet? Can you tell me your shoe size? Can you tell me your pants size? Can you tell me? And I'm like, what the hell are these people wanting? So the funny part was, the funny part, and I tell my buddies this one. At the end of the one interview, at the end of the one interview, the gal, great, great interviewer, great person, really down there, lot of, really hit it off. It like with you guys, good personalities, easy going. And she was awesome.

Chad Sowash (06:16.066)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (06:22.641)

And she said, the last thing I have to ask you to do is I need you to stand up. So I had to stand up on the camera. So I thought I'm doing like, okay, I stand up. She said, no, turn, no, turn around. So I had to turn around and I'm like, she said, yeah, exactly. I said, so I said peace. And she says, she says a peace traders. And I said, peace traders. And I was like, it was good. I took it as very humorous. I really took it as very humorous. Cause I could only imagine.

Joel Cheesman (06:32.753)

Turn around.

That's harassment, Jack. That's harassment.

Chad Sowash (06:48.846)

Did you get a good shot of my ass? That's the question.

Joel Cheesman (06:52.166)

Yeah. Bend over.

Jack McFarland (06:52.227)

Yeah, I tried, man. You know, I don't know. my God. was was quite it was quite entertaining versus when you're used to a normal formal interview. you're like, you know, everyone's all serious and starts up and all this stuff. So.

Chad Sowash (06:57.964)

That's awesome.

Chad Sowash (07:06.946)

This sounds like mad men, like in the sixties, you know. Hey, hey honey, can you stand up and turn around? It's about time. It's about time men finally get the a little little bit of the little bit of the their own treatment.

Joel Cheesman (07:10.588)

But reversed reversed.

Joel Cheesman (07:18.472)

Shake your money maker, Jack.

Jack McFarland (07:19.023)

Yes. So it was, it was really great though. And like I said, when I got that, notification, was like, it was a Friday night in April, about a week prior to going out. I was kind of like, okay, gave it a shot and, and they're going to keep me of course, for anything that, moves forward, they're going to, they see a fit on, I gotta be honest. I mean, I just got a notification about, I don't know if I want to do it. I know this is in my, my brand, but,

Chad Sowash (07:35.707)

hell yeah.

Jack McFarland (07:47.793)

You guys familiar with Fear Factor, House of Fear Season 2 with Johnny Depp, with Johnny Knoxville? He's a sick guy, he's a funny dude. And I'm like, I don't know if I can, I could probably hang on some of the missions, but I don't know if I want the creepy crawlers I have to eat and all that stuff. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna see how goes. because, yeah, you know, mean, we know they're not poisonous and all that, but still, it's just.

Chad Sowash (07:51.358)

no way, dude. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (07:56.402)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (08:02.397)

yeah.

Nah. I like the trader's missions better. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (08:08.668)

Lay Lay in a coffin of snakes. That sounds great to me. That sounds like what I wanna do.

Chad Sowash (08:11.671)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (08:15.31)

I'm not eating maggots, okay?

Jack McFarland (08:15.854)

You don't want to get injured, you know? I don't think you want to get injured, Joel, or...

Joel Cheesman (08:18.088)

So back back yeah, back back to the interview, Jack. You you talked about the traders interview. I assume it's it was a very different process in the eighties when you went to the DEA. Like talk about what that was like.

Jack McFarland (08:30.896)

Wow, doing my school, I a school teacher. I wanted to say I was a phys ed teacher, but I was actually a business education teacher, football coach, defensive backs, receivers. And then I started to apply. Why did I start to apply? A friend of mine was working for Alphonse Diamano back in DC as a Senator. He played up in Syracuse in football as well. And he said, know, Jack, says, teaching is great, but he says, why don't you try coming over to the federal government? I said, what do you think? says, special agent, FBI special agent DEA. I said, okay, send me the packets.

Now back in the days, guys, you know this, back in the 80s, it was no online stuff. It was snail mail. He tells you on a Monday, send it out and it shows up Friday or the following Monday it shows up. And you get these packets and you got to sit there on your mother, father's kitchen table with a brother's typewriter and fill in everything about this 30 page application. And you're like, oh wow, oh you made a mistake. You got to do the corrective type. Oh, I got to fix that corrective type. Give me that white out. Very different.

Chad Sowash (09:06.156)

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (09:22.332)

The whiteout.

Jack McFarland (09:26.704)

still to this day, pretty similar in nature, very, very demanding, a lot of questions. You've got to make sure your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted. This is not a process where you walk into, say, my goodness, Chad and Joel, you're to walk in and you're going to get a job doing something. And they sit you down for one person, they kick you to another person, then in a week they say, hey, you got the job. It took me, and I was at one of the faster ones.

me nine months from start to finish. Nine months. My roommate in the academy, God rest his soul, Jean T. McCarthy was killed in the first go for it. He a Cobra gunship helicopter pilot for the States Marine Corps. It took him as a Naval Academy graduate, a major in the Marine Corps, it took him over one year. He said, how did you get in on nine months? I said, man, I said, I don't know. I just put through it. I put the applications in and in the bureau. And so they were both competing. You know, one would do this, one would do that.

Chad Sowash (09:57.998)

Holy shit.

Chad Sowash (10:19.394)

Fast track.

Jack McFarland (10:26.594)

DEA would do this, after I would do that, eventually DEA came a call and I said, let's give it a shot. So I resigned from my teaching coaching position and moved forward.

Chad Sowash (10:35.896)

So w were you up for the the prospect of being in in in another department with regard to like another branch, maybe like CIA or no? It was just D A D E

Jack McFarland (10:41.857)

No, just, you know, no, just like I said, the two I really honed in was was because of my buddy, Jim, a great guy, was because of the DEA and the FBI. And there's so many opportunities today. And, you know, for the young guys and gals, I'll put a shout out to it. Man, federal law enforcement, local, local, county, state and federal law enforcement and military. The opportunities are there, man. If you get turned down by one.

Chad Sowash (10:53.733)

gotcha.

Jack McFarland (11:10.447)

higher on go and go for the next one, go for another one. Don't just stop there. Back in the day in 87, it was limited. It was limited, man. It was tough to get into these positions. And I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that I did.

Joel Cheesman (11:25.98)

What what was the brand like I'm thinking back to that time in the eighties, you had Scarface, which even probably everybody our audience knows, you had Miami Vice, you had you had tons of movies, Billy Crystal was even a D agent, I think, in a movie at one point with so what was the brand then and maybe what was the brand, how did it evolve as you were with the agency?

Jack McFarland (11:32.024)

Yep, Miami Vice, Miami Vice guys, yes.

Jack McFarland (11:49.913)

You know, the brands, think what we do is this is, not boohooing anywhere, but back in those days in the seventies and eighties, think DEA wasn't getting the push that say some of the other agencies, the brother agency, the sister agency of the state of the FBI. You know, no, I'm, like I said, I've worked with a lot of magnificent people in all the agencies, got great friends in CIA, great friends in FBI. but DEA to me, when I came on board with DEA, I'm still to this day, very passionate about it. I still.

Chad Sowash (12:13.378)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (12:19.726)

to this day, the administrator today of the DEA, and I gotta put him out there, Mr. Terry Cole, is doing a heck of a job. He will still hit me. He was one of my former students at Quantico when I was an Asian instructor down there, and he was one of my students. He's the man. He is the administrator for the DEA right now. And he'll hit me up at the Quantico, we have beautiful facility down there. You talk about, there's no, mean, college football, division one schools, workout facilities, you gotta see our place. It's amazing. And he'll send me videos and say,

Chad Sowash (12:35.416)

Damn.

Chad Sowash (12:38.957)

huh.

Jack McFarland (12:49.548)

Here's the badge, Jack. Here's the badge. And he'll click off. You know, just text me. I'm like, that's cool. You know, just to motivate. But the way this situation occurred is we began to come out on our own and say, hey, look what we can do by getting the proper public information officers out there, getting the congressional affair officers out there and getting our brand out there, if you want to say. And we really have, we really have evolved even since I retired in 2019.

At the age of 57, was done, I was finished, I was mandatory retirement. But I had 32 years and, you we have to, as a former boss, we had to go to PIO school. What's PIO school? Public Information Officer School. Learn how to speak with the media. Learn how to deal with the press. I mean, I was the boss down in the Virgin Islands and the one time I got the phone rings and my gal sends it in to me, my secretary and I had a great, person there.

Chad Sowash (13:31.864)

Hmm. Yeah.

Jack McFarland (13:45.454)

And she says, I said, hello, is this Mr. Jack McFarlane? Resonating in charge. And I said, yes, it is. And she says, oh, this is Lisa from the Daily News. I said, the New York Daily News? And she goes, no, the Virgin Islands Daily News. I kind of like, boom, I nailed it. I'm only kidding, I'm only kidding. So we would like to meet you in person and do an interview with you. And I'm like, sure, come on, let's do it. Let's do it.

Joel Cheesman (14:00.316)

Ha ha.

Jack McFarland (14:13.623)

But the brand started to really evolve. I believe when we start really tackling, as you guys know, well, most people know the war on drugs with of course the late eighties with Reagan and Nancy Reagan. And then of course, now we're starting to hit Columbia harder and who's in Columbia, know, our boys down there are doing their job and that. And then the TV shows, like Narco starts to get out there. Good friend of mine, you you're part of all that business.

Chad Sowash (14:23.374)

War on Drugs? Yeah. Reagan. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jack McFarland (14:43.601)

And so that's when it started to turn. We started to work closer with, think, with the Colombians and really working some of these major traffickers. You know, today, I mean, we are crushing, crushing the traffickers. I mean, when the country of Mexico sends a leered jet up with like 20 bad guys in it or 30 bad guys in it, it's pretty impressive. And it gets in the news. It gets in the paper.

which is great for us. I think we're doing, I think it's doing, we're doing the right thing. And I think I like seeing it every day. I'm all about publicity. I'm promoting DEA. Still to this day, I really am. And I think by us talking about this a little bit, it's pretty cool. It's actually pretty cool about it.

Chad Sowash (15:30.786)

Talk about some of your teams, though. I mean, because you you obviously excelled. You not only in Quantico, but you were a boss, as you'd said, you know, in the Caribbean. so you had an opportunity to manage a very diverse crew. Now, did you get a chance first and foremost to to kind of like pick your crew on who you got to work with? did you get a chance to do that? Number one. Number two.

Jack McFarland (15:34.007)

Okay

Jack McFarland (15:54.23)

That's good question. That's a very good question.

Chad Sowash (15:57.942)

If you did or if you didn't, talk a little bit about managing those types of characters because you I mean, you know better than we do how the FBI actually chooses different agents, right?

Jack McFarland (16:10.86)

Sure. I mean, that's a really super question. mean, Chad, really great question. Let's take it, for example, when you're an educator, teacher, these people are young adults and you got to manage them. And then you get on a football field and they're young adults, totally different. Football players to me, they plus personalities. Persons in the school industry, got the ones that are very smart. You got the ones that are athletes. And I used to call them army jacket kids. The kids that kind of like...

You're getting through, they're gonna get their education, they're gonna get through, they might go into the military, but then they might not. They might go and work for something else. Perfect. Boom. Now I get into the government, the federal government. You're talking about a whole different structure of people that, you know, you have their bachelor's degree, there's master's degrees, they'll have their doctorates. And these people are athletic and they're smart and they're savvy. And you're competing against this. I mean, back in the day, I don't know this is actually a true statistic, but for every DEA agent that applied,

Okay. For every DA it would take about, I'm like, don't quote me on this somewhere around. It was when I was coming through, like a thousand applicants to get one. We open up, we open our shop now. We open our shop now for, say for special agent, opportunities to come to Quantico until we have 500 vacancies. And within a day, we have to shut it. They have to shut it down in headquarters because they get so many applications. Now, a lot of them are, are not reading the policies and procedures and the qualifications.

Chad Sowash (17:12.728)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (17:27.8)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (17:34.524)

Wow. Wow.

Chad Sowash (17:41.282)

Yeah. All right.

Jack McFarland (17:41.484)

They're just dumping them in there. And then the poor people in HR, human resources got to weed them out. We got a heck of a heck of a HR. I mean, you talk about like two floors full of people, man in DC. So they do a heck of a job on that. But getting back to working with the different crews, when I was an agent, I started in the Alatown Resident Office. That was my office assignment out of Quantico, Virginia. After 17 weeks of getting beat up in Quantico, and then you finally get the badge and the creds and the weapon and you're going out.

That was my office of hire, office of hire, not office of assignment. So I had to go to my office of hire and you could spend anywhere from, oh my God, I ended up spending almost a year there because of the fact that they needed an extra agent there on the streets. That was fine. Cause I was from that, from that location. But my office of us hire, excuse me, office of assignment was Philadelphia. So when I went down to Philadelphia, Philadelphia had about, about nine enforcement groups. I was put in an enforcement group three.

Back in the day, was broken down into different drugs. We worked mainly coke, crack, and grass. So I didn't have the opportunity to say where I wanted to go. I was just placed. No say. Then I worked my grades there. I get the grades. What are grades? If you look on a general scale, your listeners and a general scale, the United States government, it goes from one to 15. And then it goes from step one to step 10. That's your pay grades. You pay grades. Yeah, general schedules, general schedule.

Chad Sowash (18:42.766)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (18:50.125)

Gotcha.

Chad Sowash (19:05.974)

Actually, are these G S grades? Okay. Yeah.

Jack McFarland (19:10.315)

So I ended up having to come on as a lowly 7, a GS7 man. So it's like, wow, I'm making big money. Let's go to town, let's go to work here. So what happens is, I then work it where it's doing the, the seven you come on, the nine, the 11, the 12, the 13. Okay. Now I went to 14. 14 is your first boss, supervisory position. Good money, decent money. So we have to take a test.

I do a good in a test. So what happens for me is I'm great with getting my grades in Philadelphia, but I still don't want to apply for the boss position. I raise my hand, I put in for, to be a special agent instructor in Quantico, Virginia, Office of Training. And I got to, I went down there as a 13. And from there, I got my 14 in the Virgin Islands and I spent time as a boss in the,

Baltimore, lovely Baltimore, and then got pulled into headquarters and then applied for the 15s. Never made it to the 16s or the senior executives, but for the extra $12,000, you can keep that job, No thanks, man. No thanks. You'll go from like, no, just no thanks. No thank you. yeah, so the different opportunities. So when I was a boss in the Virgin Islands and a boss in Baltimore,

Chad Sowash (20:20.269)

Mm-hmm.

Ha ha ha

Joel Cheesman (20:31.09)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (20:31.52)

And ninety nine problems.

Jack McFarland (20:37.578)

I got to select my people because I was a boss. was a supervisor. say, you know, if one agent was, say, Joel was rotating out, he did his four years in the Virgin Islands. I need it. I have a vacancy. I would pick Joel to come in. mean, Chad to come in. So it was one of those picking and choosing kind of things. So yeah, but.

Chad Sowash (20:39.82)

okay. Okay.

Chad Sowash (21:00.792)

Gotcha.

Joel Cheesman (21:02.172)

Jack, you mentioned and we talked a little bit about it before the show, but you're you're I guess forced out, may or may not be the right term, but at 57, you're tapped on the shoulder. And we talk about ageism on the show quite a bit, and and obviously people that get a little bit long in the tooth are considered out of touch, don't understand the technology. Like, what was the reasoning in the agency as to why they sort of tapped you on the shoulder and said it's time to leave at 57?

Jack McFarland (21:09.863)

Yeah, mandatory retirement.

Chad Sowash (21:10.582)

Pretty much.

Joel Cheesman (21:29.958)

And then also talk about how they're sort of bringing in people after they leave and why the why the reason is for that and what their purpose is.

Jack McFarland (21:38.001)

Well, when I came on, the minimum age was 23, the maximum age was 37. I came on I was 24, which was great. Okay. I hit it at a right early, early age. Um, that at that time, the age Congress set for all 18, 11 special agents throughout any agency was 55 years of age. Throughout my career, they raised the 57. The, the, the, the powers to be were trying to push the 59 because they felt 57 was too young.

But as we well know, the answer to that question is money purposes to create additional gapping. You get people that are say, 57 years old and you're a 15 step 10, you're making some decent money for Uncle Sam. So why not let's move this 1510 out and bring in three sevens, three GS7s. I hope I'm not talking over your viewers heads. But if you got a guy making just simple numbers, guy making 200K,

Chad Sowash (22:07.81)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (22:20.696)

Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh.

Jack McFarland (22:34.728)

And he got three, we could hire three fresh faces at, know, say, you know, 30, 30,000 a person. Man, we're just, we just saved $110,000.

Chad Sowash (22:42.528)

Exactly what we're seeing in the civilian world. They exactly what we're seeing in the civilian world. We're seeing VPs get kicked out and, you know, and then they don't fill that VP position anymore. They do with you know, like senior executives or or not senior executives, but like directors or you know, like junior directors or something like that. So that they can pay them a lot less and and you know, maybe fill them with two and then pad the margin a little bit more.

Jack McFarland (23:12.627)

There you go. and so, so money is a driving factor. mean, it interrupted Joel, but money was the driving factor upon that. I believe in a lot of guys that I worked with believe that as well. So, cause you're making X amount of dollars and remember every year you stay that adds onto your retirement. So, you know, like my one buddy used to say, let's live as long as we were on the job and take it from uncle Sam. So if you'd worked 30 years, let's live 30 years after our retirement.

Joel Cheesman (23:12.808)

But it but

Chad Sowash (23:30.594)

Yes.

Jack McFarland (23:42.352)

and get every first day of the month, the eagle shits green, let's do it. I should have said that word, I'm sorry, eagle poops green, you know?

Chad Sowash (23:42.432)

Amen, brother.

Joel Cheesman (23:50.808)

Eagle shits green. That's a new one. But now you're but now you're bringing people back. What's the reason for that? And are they paid less as consultants? I mean, how does that work?

Chad Sowash (23:52.558)

Amen.

Jack McFarland (24:02.28)

Okay, so what we're doing now is, Office of Personal Management has allowed a lot of the agencies to bring additional 18-11s or special agents back on the job under what they call a rehired annuitant or re-employee annuitant, whatever you want to call the terminology. I call it rehired annuitant. When I retired, they didn't have that. So at 57, I'm out. Age 60, okay, so age 60, all of a sudden, I'm at age 60 now.

Oh my God, they're bringing a new program in. Re-hired a new attend. So if you're 57, you can come back till the age of 60. Holy cow. I can't, I'm 60, I can't, I'm ineligible for age-wise. I missed the boat. Funny story. Then at 62, they increased it to 61, 62. I'm 62, I can't do it, I'm over, I'm over. I'm over again. But now...

Chad Sowash (24:56.382)

Sons of bitches. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (24:58.525)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (25:00.263)

They're increasing it to 65 and I'm 63. Why are they doing that? Why? Personnel on the street. Personnel, more additional personnel to fight the fight on the street. I'm not just talking DEA, I'm talking to everybody. Seasoned individuals, there is a lot of amazing people that are gunslingers, are war fighters, weapon, they can still do it.

Joel Cheesman (25:04.146)

So why?

Chad Sowash (25:13.902)

And it's se it's seasoned individuals as well. I mean y yeah.

yeah. Already had the training. Hmm. yeah.

Jack McFarland (25:26.342)

Oh, you guys still go through all the, you still got to do the process. My good friend of mine at Los Angeles, heck of a guy, he retired out. Now all of a sudden at age 60, uh, before he gets it, gets the, uh, nod to come on, check this out. He, it took him not about eight or nine months to get a higher as a rehired annuitant. Because it's not in, it's not, it's not, it's not emotion. It's not emotion. So.

Chad Sowash (25:49.624)

Well, I mean it took you nine months to to get in in the first place. So it kinda you know, it kinda comes together. So

Jack McFarland (25:55.238)

He's psyched about it because he's making some good money. Some good money. Yes, sir.

Chad Sowash (25:58.306)

Good good money, yeah. But he's yeah, he's not on traders though, Jack. He's not on traders. so so let's talk about transition because they tap you on the shoulder and then I mean, do you go straight into retirement or do you look at that transition into a senior or I mean a civilian role? I obviously, you know, you have that opportunity, prospectively, to go into like a contractor role, kind of higher gun or whatnot.

Jack McFarland (26:02.638)

No, he's a good dude. He what he wants. No part of that stuff. He says no part of it, you know, no part of it.

Jack McFarland (26:27.791)

Yep, yep.

Chad Sowash (26:27.848)

Let's talk about the just the civilian side of the house. I what what's the what's the process? Is it just pretty much tap on the shoulder, you're gone? Is there literally cause I know in the military they've got a tap program, transition, you know, assistance program. It's shit, but still they have a program. Is there a program for DEA agents who are who are getting

Jack McFarland (26:40.27)

Sure.

Jack McFarland (26:46.63)

There's no, there's really, you know, I hate to say this, but it's a word of mouth. It comes down to word of mouth, who your buddies are, who your contacts are, who guy who's in, who's in Deloitte hanging out in Deloitte, who can, who can bring in a Deloitte and give you a, you know, a buck 50 a year or khaki or whatever. And I can go down to the list of companies, but, do you want to be that guy that your buddy says, yeah, come over? I don't want to not be disrespectful. They're great businesses.

Chad Sowash (26:52.352)

Okay. So it's really nothing.

Chad Sowash (27:06.283)

yeah.

Jack McFarland (27:14.703)

But that's where some of our people go, but it's word of mouth. Like how did, how did Joe get the job with Las Vegas MGM Grant as deputy security director? Because his buddy is this fricking security director out there. So he's going to be the number two guy underneath them making 250 K a year. Boom. I mean, LinkedIn is another fascinating, mean, I'm on LinkedIn. That's great. And I've gotten some work from LinkedIn as well, but it's also, it's, it's, it's that combination of

Chad Sowash (27:32.066)

Are you getting hit on LinkedIn though? I mean, because you're on LinkedIn. Okay.

Jack McFarland (27:45.072)

Who is your friend? know, mean, okay, so networking, Joel's got this and Chad's got this and could you get me involved with this? Yeah, sure. I've been offered stuff and I'm like going, no, I don't want to go work for the State Department over to Dominican Republic of Congo and teach over to Dominican Republic of Congo how to handle weapons over there. No, I'm not doing that. You know, I don't want to go into Cape Town, South Africa, get on the Exxon Mobil tanker and protect it.

Chad Sowash (27:46.7)

Yeah. Network.

Chad Sowash (28:07.488)

Special forces do that.

Jack McFarland (28:12.614)

and be a hired gun on a XMobile tanker and go up and fuel up, up in the, know, of course, straight from our moose and come back around. It's a 30 day trip and you get a thousand bucks a day and you're on a steel beach. I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that, you know, but there are people that will do that. I mean, God bless them because they have other opportunities, but I think myself, my wife, we were both, you know, career oriented people and we did our, children or whatever. We kind of invested there, invested there and

Joel Cheesman (28:25.661)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (28:28.158)

yeah, yeah.

Jack McFarland (28:41.795)

I'm not throwing shade on anything, but we live at the beach here in Delaware and we go down to winter in Markle Island, Florida. So we do our thing, boom, boom. no, try not to, exactly so. But that's a really good question. But I do think networking, being part of a team has helped that. Contacts?

Chad Sowash (28:51.512)

D doesn't sound like it sucks at all, no.

Joel Cheesman (28:52.316)

The the beach in Delaware. That sounds that sounds lovely.

Jack McFarland (29:06.992)

There's probably not a country in the world, not bragging, probably not a country in the world I can't pick the phone up and say, yeah, I know who's over there, the boss. I'll call him, get on WhatsApp and hey, you know, boom, hey, what are you doing? Long time no talk. What's going on? Hey, can you do X, and Z? Yeah, so networking, networking. That's a good point for your listeners who are coming on board. Exactly. That's a very good point.

Joel Cheesman (29:21.864)

Tried and true tried and true networking.

Chad Sowash (29:28.334)

That's what the kids need to know. They need they need to understand the whole networking side.

Joel Cheesman (29:32.36)

Jack, we we t we talked about sort of internal hiring, recruiting the the folks that you're that you're looking at. I want to talk about the human intelligence side, the network of people that you had tipping you off on things on the inside. I think that's a really fascinating world. Talk about recruiting f those folks and managing that that team. And when did you decide that the risk is too much to cut them loose? I mean, just sort of just talk broadly about the human intelligence aspect.

Chad Sowash (29:48.999)

it is.

Joel Cheesman (30:01.928)

of the DEA.

Jack McFarland (30:03.095)

Sure. Well, two sides, but one when I was a working agent, a street agent, special agent, senior special agent, you had to really focus on your group supervisor, your supervisor, your special agent to really make sure you're doing the right thing so you don't get yourself in trouble. Informants are nasty business, man. Got to have them to do your job. We call them confident. Back when I came out, I confidential informant, then it went to confidential sources, CSs.

Chad Sowash (30:20.738)

Yeah. See eyes.

Jack McFarland (30:25.989)

You've got to have them to do your job. If not, you're not going to get you're not going to do it. You're going to sit there with your hands on your, you're to be sitting on your hands doing your job. So you had to have the right management management to make sure you're focusing correctly. Had some interesting characters. I was like, can tell you Muppets. They're like Muppets, man. You got to go interesting people. You could have people that are. Want to walk into the office and they want to, they want to, they want to rid the world of drugs. Well, how are we going to do this? And who are you? Because it coming in or they're.

They're liars. They're habitual liars. You gotta get rid of them. Boom, you gotta kick them loose. But then you get some people that do it for money. And they're the ones you gotta be really, really careful about, the mercenaries. So the mercs are the ones that come in and they will tell you that it is freaking snowing dope in North Philadelphia right now in the middle of July. And you're like, and really it is, huh? Let's do something. What can we do?

Chad Sowash (31:06.677)

Uh-huh.

Jack McFarland (31:19.236)

So man, you talk about learning interviewing interrogation skills and speaking skills and oral communication skills with people like this. They know the streets and they will run a game on you. They'll look you right in the face. They'll win traders every freaking time because they have no conscience. lot of these people don't. And if you get sucked into this, you're done. You'll be fired. You'll be actually, it's not fired. You'll be possibly, you know, throwing a penitentiary. So different type of people, have to get there. You have to vet them.

Chad Sowash (31:23.704)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (31:34.723)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (31:48.879)

You're listening to my now what vet means you got to corroborate what they're saying You got to make sure they're exact above board first a person comes into your office. They want to hire hire for job Yeah, I was the top salesman and you know General Motors for a number number of years. I look I do my do I do a call over to jump? This guy used to put lug nuts on the cars over and over in the Dearborn flat, you know, you're like, okay, bye, know you're so we had to make sure that T's were crossed eyes were daughter. They said earlier another subject

Chad Sowash (31:53.89)

Multiple sources.

Jack McFarland (32:17.899)

You have to make sure that you are protecting not only yourself, but you're protecting the brand of the DEA. Cause the worst thing that can happen is something goes left and the news gets hold of it and bam, it blows up. And what happens is now we look like a bunch of cowboys, a bunch of knuckleheads. And it's been happening. We've had people that get sucked in with the confidential informant or confidential source because of the fact that they're offering them.

X, Y, and Z, and they just forget what they're doing. Management, you're talking about management. I know you use the word management a lot, Chad. Management is definitely, definitely important. I'm not talking about just someone just sitting at a desk. You're out there in the field. Heck, you gotta say a confidential source and you're using them in the full off your field divisional office. Obviously you get a call that midnight or say three in the morning. And it's like, just a special agent check my phone. Yeah, yes it is.

Chad Sowash (32:54.136)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (33:16.099)

Hey, do you know a Jimmy Smith? I don't know who you are, brother. Give me a number. Give me a number. Give me me a number. I'm with the FBI. So give me that. I have to verify who you are. So I do all the verifications real quick and that is why call him back. I said, so you're Squad 3 and you're FBI, Squad 3. OK, what do you got? Yeah, I know a Jimmy Smith. Well, we just picked him up here on a control delivery of five keys of coke. You're like, oh, great.

Chad Sowash (33:30.552)

Uh-huh.

Jack McFarland (33:45.207)

Boom, now he's finished, he's done. I said, lock him up, get rid of him, lock him up, we don't wanna deal with him. And you're like, great, you know? So it's such a game that if you don't follow the game properly, you're gonna screw things up. You're gonna screw things up, it really is, so, but.

Chad Sowash (33:59.406)

You gotta get a Jimmy Smith.

Joel Cheesman (33:59.528)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Jack, you you talk a lot about actionable intelligence and staying away from bias. And I would imagine that in your line of work, bias is a huge issue. and fighting that and and j it staying to the fa just the facts, ma'am. Like what does our intelligence tell us? Not not let bias creep in. And and we talk to a lot of companies obviously, and it's a big it's a big issue in our space around hiring being unbiased hiring.

Right, just looking at the resume, not the person, their skin color, their age, I mean, all the things that come into play. Talk about how important actionable intelligence was and how you how you were able to effectively keep the team off of a biased lens and keep them on sort of the intelligence and the data.

Jack McFarland (34:31.199)

Bye.

Jack McFarland (34:47.894)

I treat it all crooks equally, man. You're the bad guy, I'm the good guy. That's what we're gonna do. I'd say, don't care what they look like, I don't care. You can't imagine what some of the people we pick up. 70 year old grandmother carrying 10 keys of coke, what? Okay, of course you're going. Or some 18 year old snot nose with another 10, you're going. So I don't believe in that. I was totally averse to, I don't believe in that kind of stuff. If you're bad, you're bad, you're going down. And my guys knew it. And same way when I was a young agent.

And I was told by my senior par was a great guy, great guy. He us that we keep in contact. He was a former New York copper and he came on to DEA and that. And he says, just keep it simple, man. Just keep it simple. Actual intelligence, let's go and keep it simple. Don't get caught up in the minutia of things. That's when people start getting hurt and injured. And in our job, I'm going to give you an example. I know I might be on a little truck. Excuse my mouth. I might be off on a little tangent here. Joel and Chad, major league baseball player.

Chad Sowash (35:28.173)

Yeah.

Jack McFarland (35:47.074)

Okay. love, I love giving this one. I've said this before in some other podcasts. They go out and get to the bat, up to bat 10 times. They hit the ball three times. It's 300%, 33%. They're hall of famers. We go on the street 10 times and we blow seven deals of those 10. Dude, you're done. You're finished. You're gone. Suitability, suitability review protocol or whatever. You're fine. You're fine. You're finished. If I was, Oh my God, Jack.

He loves to go after these certain certain group. There was none of that. No, no, we go after organizations, man. There's no certain type of person that wears green shirts that I'm to go after every time they wear a green shirt. You're a dope deal. You're going down. you must be a heroin addict because your pants are purple and your top is, you know, graffiti. you must be a heroin guy. No, never. Other guys?

They used to be called profiling back in the day. There's no such thing. That's it. once you get my mouth gone, that's that's long gone. That's that's a long gone. Has to be because the courts have appell. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can't. I know for us, we I was driven in our heads daily or not so much daily, but for, know, taking your quarterly test or whatever. You had to take a test. And the government's serious about that, man. But I will say this. You're a bad guy. We know you're a bad guy. You're gone.

Joel Cheesman (36:46.13)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (37:05.071)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (37:10.183)

yeah.

Jack McFarland (37:13.365)

You're going in. You're going in.

Chad Sowash (37:14.178)

Did you hear that, Joel? It is the KISS method. Keep it simple, stupid. That's exactly what we do here, Jack. We keep it simple, stupid. that's the kids, this is this is this is

Jack McFarland (37:17.889)

Yeah, I like...

Joel Cheesman (37:20.082)

Well, too many employers aren't learning what the DEA knows, unfortunately.

Jack McFarland (37:25.573)

It's so easy in life if you just keep it simple. It really, really is. I mean, my goodness, guys.

Joel Cheesman (37:28.776)

Keep it simple.

Chad Sowash (37:32.3)

Jack McFarland, kids. Jack McFarlane. Jack, if somebody wants to connect with you, I don't know. Maybe they wanna maybe they wanna put you on their their soap opera. I don't know who it is. How did how do they actually connect with you?

Jack McFarland (37:42.291)

Absolutely. Okay, if you don't mind, got a couple different things. I'm on Instagram, course, JackMcFarlandDEA. I'm on LinkedIn. It's going to be JackMcFarlandDEA again. And I got my own website, believe it or not, www.JackMcFarlandDEA.com. And like I said, anyone wants to bring me out to speak, talk about motivation, teamwork. You want to talk about...

Chad Sowash (37:47.416)

Go ahead, hit it.

Joel Cheesman (37:54.184)

Mm-hmm.

Jack McFarland (38:06.481)

War stories we can, know, I got from, you we just had Memorial Day yesterday. Thanks for all those that were, it gave the ultimate sacrifice. I can talk about different people that I know. Of course, my roommate, Nkabby McCarthy, and just, just, was a great opportunity to come on here and speak and totally out of my, my, my arena here. But yet being a boss, I should call my, one of my friends and say it was in HR and everything.

Joel Cheesman (38:24.85)

Comfort zone. That's what we do. Yeah.

Jack McFarland (38:33.536)

Say, I just talked to HR for like 30, 35 minutes to the guys from Chad and Cheese.

Chad Sowash (38:36.386)

They're gonna say, why in the hell would you do that, Jack? Why?

Joel Cheesman (38:39.844)

HR sprinkled with a little coke, crack and and grass, everybody. Chad, that's a another

Jack McFarland (38:42.016)

It's cold cracking grass and I hope I answered your questions gentlemen, I really do. And I said thank you very much and it was something different that I did and I really enjoyed you guys. I like humor man, I like humor, I like laughing, keeping it light. And as I said, it's life man, just have fun, just have fun doing things.

Chad Sowash (38:49.378)

Good to go, man.

Joel Cheesman (38:50.492)

Thanks for joining us, Jack.

Joel Cheesman (39:07.804)

We we appreciate you, Jack, and we appreciate your service. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out.

Jack McFarland (39:13.204)

Thanks bro, I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Chad Sowash (39:13.346)

We out.