New Year: New Beginnings

Frank Borelli Editor-in-Chief Officer.com With every New Year we each enjoy the opportunity for a fresh start; a new beginning; the chance to change something we’re not 100% happy with in our lives. For Officer.com the New Year enjoys a literal new beginning: the start of a new era with a new Editor. Tim Dees is a friend of mine. He gave me a chance to contribute to Officer.com and I’m proud to have done so for the past two years. Now, as Tim explores new beginnings of his own, I explore a new opportunity: Good day. My name is Frank Borelli and I’m the new Editor-In-Chief for Officer.com. Hopefully some of you know my name. I’ve been writing equipment reviews for the industry for almost ten years now. For the past five years my equipment reviews have been distributed via the Internet through various outlets reaching more than one half million readers each month. I know people have read my reviews because I’ve received the emails from those who disagree with my opinion – and emails from those who have thanked me for pointing them toward good kit. When I was first approached about the possibility of becoming the new Editor I thought twice… and then some more. I’d seen how hard Tim worked to make Officer.com what it is today: the leader in online information distribution for our nation’s law enforcement professionals. Quite honestly I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task of maintaining what he’d built. Then I realized that I had contributed to that growth across the past two years, and I knew Tim would always help me if I screamed out for help (as if I were drowning). I took on this new challenge and I’m looking forward to it with the kind of energetic nervousness we all experience in new beginnings. I look to you, the readers, to help me. How? By providing me feedback; by not hesitating to post blog responses; by participating in the forums; and by pointing me toward potential new contributors to keep our content new and fresh. I look to you, the readers, to keep me in line and let me know when I start talking like I’m from Jupiter – or at least a different reality. I look to you, the readers, to not always agree with what I’ve said, and to debate the finer points of our profession in an adult mutually beneficial fashion. Yes, I said “our professionâ€. I’ve been a police officer for more than two decades and I’m not ready to completely leave the work yet. I’ve been a police trainer since 1989 and a published police writer since 1999. I may find my bottom half planted more often in front of a desk now, as compared to being comfortable in a patrol vehicle, but I go at my work with no less enthusiasm. Help me maintain that as you can. Welcome to 2008. A New Year. New Beginnings. Stay Safe in the New Year. Accept my wishes for the New Year to bring you nothing but health, peace and prosperity. Look for my next blog entry to be a more in-depth introduction of myself and my outlooks. I’m sure some of us will be on the same page; others not so much. I look forward to ALL of the conversations that those differences of opinion will generate. To Tim Dees I offer my thanks for the opportunity he offered two years ago, and what it has grown into today. To Officer.com I offer my thanks for their faith in offering me this new challenge. To you, the readers, I say – STAND BY…