Off the Rak
Walt Rakowich's passion to help shape a generation of leaders who lead with honesty, humility and heart inspired him to launch Off the Rak: Conversations on Transformative Leadership. Featuring rich and raw conversations with notable leaders across different industries, Off the Rak inspires curious leaders to embrace challenges, seize opportunities and become positive influences in their world.
Off the Rak
Channeling a Death Investigator’s Mindset for Purpose with Barbara Butcher
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Two decades-plus in the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner means hard-won insights many leaders can learn from: how to stay committed to the truth, find purpose, and build systems that last. In this candid chat, international forensics expert Barbara Butcher shares the high-stakes realities of being a death investigator, the ethical conflicts she navigates, and the crisis moments like 9/11 that tested her leadership. We explore how her investigative mindset (stay curious, rely on evidence, and remain open to learning) teams with humility, accountability, and gratitude. As only the second woman hired in her role as a death investigator in Manhattan, she reflects on surviving in a field where politics, gender, and pressure collide. And through it all, she explains how her work now — writing, consulting, and advocacy — is helping others understand both the science and the human cost of bringing closure to victims’ families.
About the Guest
Barbara Butcher is a former New York City Chief Medical Examiner, investigative leader, and author whose career unfolded at the intersection of science, service, and humanity. Over more than two decades at the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner, she led teams responsible for some of the city’s most complex and high-stakes death investigations—work that demanded clarity under pressure, ethical resolve, and deep respect for human dignity.
Beyond individual cases, Barbara played a key role in shaping systems. She helped lead agency strategy, inter-agency coordination, and training initiatives, including the creation of a federally funded Forensic Sciences Training Program designed to strengthen standards and prepare the next generation of death-investigation professionals nationwide. Her leadership was tested most profoundly during moments of national crisis, including oversight of recovery efforts following September 11, where steadiness, accountability, and humanity mattered as much as expertise.
Throughout her leadership journey, Barbara became known for cultivating resilient cultures in environments where decisions carry lasting consequences. She credits much of her leadership philosophy to an investigative mindset—staying curious, grounded in evidence, and open to learning—paired with humility, accountability, and gratitude. These principles shaped not only how she led teams but also how she navigated loss, adversity, and professional transition.After leaving public office, Barbara carried those lessons forward through storytelling, consulting, and advocacy. She is the author of What the Dead Know, a candid memoir that explores trauma, recovery, and purpose while illuminating the humanity behind forensic work and the lived experiences of first responders. Today, she continues to influence the field through teaching, advising, and media—modeling leadership as an ongoing practice rooted in service, curiosity, and the courage to evolve.
Links in this Episode
Official website: https://www.barbarabutcherofficial.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butcher.barbara
X: https://x.com/OCMEForensics
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BarbaraButcherOfficialPage/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BarbaraButcherOfficial
Learn more about Off the Rak and watch past episodes at waltrakowich.com/offtherak
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Our guest is Barbara Butcher. Her career has unfolded at the intersection of science, service, and humanity. She spent decades leading inside one of the most demanding public institutions in the country, the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. This was work where clarity under pressure wasn't optional and ethical responsibility carried real, lasting consequences. Beyond individual cases, she helped shape systems, building training programs, strengthening standards, and preparing others to lead in high stakes environments. Her leadership was tested most profoundly in moments of crisis, including the recovery efforts following 9 11. Along the way, she developed an investigative mindset. Stay curious, rely on evidence, and remain open to learning. She paired that mindset with humility, accountability, and gratitude, not just in how she led teams, but in how she navigated loss, navigated adversity and professional transition. Today, she continues that work through writing, consulting and advocacy, helping others understand both the science and, and the human cost of leadership under pressure. I'm Walt Rakowicz and I'm grateful you're here as we explore what it really means to lead when it matters most with death investigator and author Barbara Butcher. Barbara, it is absolutely great to have you on the show and we're going to talk a little bit about your book. I read your book. It's a phenomenal book. But I just want you to know how excited I am to have you on.
Barbara Butcher:Thank you, Walt. It is a pleasure to talk to you, especially since you're a CEO, business advisor, major business guy. You're not my usual audience. It's usually cops.
Walt Rakowich:I get that. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to alter this just a little bit and just ask you before we get started. You're obviously a New Yorker. Are you a Yankees fan or a Mets fan? A Giants jets fan? You know what? Are you a sports fan?
Barbara Butcher:I don't know anything about sports. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. However, any team that comes out of New York is my team. So Mets, Yankees, Giants, Nets, whatever they are, fine, as long as it's New York. I love it.
Walt Rakowich:Oh, I love it. New York, New York.
Barbara Butcher:Yep.
Walt Rakowich:Well, it's. I've spent a lot of time in New York over my, over my career. And so I, I think it's a fascinating place and I don't blame you. It's. It's really an awesome place. For sure, it is. So let's get into you. You worked for, I think, 23 years at the New York City office of the Chief Medical examiner. As you said in your book, you were the eyes and ears for the medical examiner. You basically investigated deaths all throughout the city. And I think you also Said that you investigated something like 5,500 death scenes, 680 homicides. I mean, man, that is a tough job by any measure of the imagination. And yet you wrote in your book that in the land of the dead, you felt alive. Tell us why.
Barbara Butcher:Purpose. Absolute purpose. Now, I'm not going to lie and say that this was a tough job. It was a wildly interesting job. Can you imagine going into the homes of people or into the woods or over to the rivers and investigating the death of someone who you don't know? But if it's in their apartment, you're going to learn a lot about them. You learn about the living through the dead. And you get to see things that no one else sees, for better or worse. And normally it's for worse, if I. If I could be quite honest. So I was thrilled to have this job. And that can carry you just so far. Eventually it's going to wear on you. But if you have. For me, if you have purpose, if you have a drive, if you have a goal, then it makes everything worth it, I think. Well, I love to learn, Absolutely love to learn. And what could be better than learning about the way people live? From hoarders to plastic surgeons who. Who stack the mail four feet high in their apartments because they couldn't open it. It's an actual case. NYU neurosurgeon. And he died in his apartment. I don't remember how. I think it was a suicide, but just to see that a neurosurgeon, I have to climb over his mail to get to him. Just funny things. There's hoarders. There's people who live in elegant townhouses filled with art, and yet they're stingy to the ultimate degree. And people who are very, very poor but have big families and are happy. So you see people, you learn about people. And my purpose in that job was to determine the cause and manner of death at the scene and do an investigation. I'd take photographs, I'd document everything. I'd examine the body, figure out the time of death, the mechanism of death, and how that death arose, the context. The body belonged to me. The scene belonged to the police. But of course, that body is what makes it a scene. So as far as I'm concerned, it's all mine. And I love doing that. My purpose in finding that was to get justice. Get justice for people who were wrongly killed. Yeah, there's no such way thing as rightly killed as far as I'm concerned. But the other thing that did bring me some comfort was I got answers from families. And, you know, what is the worst day of your life? Someone you love is dead, Gone forever. If someone can tell you the truth of what happened, help get justice for that victim and comfort you a little, not by being all petting. And, you know, I'm not a. What do you call that? A mushy type, but, you know, I can talk to people. And that gave me great satisfaction just being able to help that way. I like having a purpose in life. I like being relevant.
Walt Rakowich:And the purpose was not just for the victim. It was many cases, really. For the family?
Barbara Butcher:Oh, absolutely. I always thought of it as that I work for the families.
Walt Rakowich:Right.
Barbara Butcher:I'm there to get justice for them and give them knowledge of what happened and why.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah. So let's go. I want to go back in time a little bit before. Before you became this death investigator. And we'll come back. We'll come back to your job. But in your. In your. In your book, you were in a very dark place, and you've been open about how alcohol addiction nearly cost you everything. Can you tell us a little bit about that chapter in your life?
Barbara Butcher:Sure. Oh, well, I thought I was just going to get to talk about the glory. Look, the things I learned being an alcoholic helped me somewhat. I learned how alcoholics die, for one thing. Usually cirrhosis causes clotting disorders, and they bang their head and then bleed out from it because they can't clot their blood anymore. But anyway, I digress. Yeah, it was a dark time. I was a periodic heavy drinker. When I was a teenager, I drank heavily. And then I stopped for a bit, and then I picked it up again. And then there came a time in my life when. When it took over everything. I had a very good job as a director of a hospital, and I was fired. And I thought, fire me. How can they fire me? I'm so good at my job, Barbara. No, you're not. You behave erratically. You're hungover. You're disinterested, you're grouchy. And that really upset me. And then my landlady liked what I had done with my apartment, did a little renovations, and she said, I'm going to take it over for personal use. And then my relationship broke up. So what should I do about all those terrible things? Drink. Drink a lot. That'll help you relax so that you can figure this out. No, it doesn't. So it became an intermittent thing throughout my life. Whenever things went badly, I drank more. And when things went well, I drank to celebrate. So I'm not going to lie to myself, but finally what happened is I had reached such a low point in my life. I had gone from this great job, great home, all these things and the loss of it all. Let's see, I worked in a button store, part time, off the books. So much for my board of directors. And, you know, I lived in a tiny little studio on the Upper west side, so I wasn't really doing anything in my life. I didn't even go to the movies. I ate takeout chicken fried rice and a cheap but delightful wine called Concha eToro 5.99 the half gallon. And I drank that half gallon.
Walt Rakowich:You drank it all?
Barbara Butcher:Oh, yes, indeed. Very delic. So, you know, there came a time when enough was enough. I hit my bottom. And you know, God, I even hate to say this, but let me. Let me be perfectly frank. As a. As a grown woman, as an intelligent, educated woman, I found myself falling down on the street, on 72nd street at Amsterdam, in the intersection. That's. That's low. That's really low.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah.
Barbara Butcher:So after that blackout night, I went to an A12 step meeting the next day. And then life opened up.
Walt Rakowich:Amazing.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah.
Walt Rakowich:Sometimes adversity builds your character, doesn't it? It sounds like it did for you. I mean, you almost had to reach that dark moment before you can reach for something else.
Barbara Butcher:Absolutely. I think sometimes we have to hit a bottom no matter what part of our life that is. And that's happened to me several times when things just fell apart. But resilience, getting up and improving things, that's a gift I thank God for every day.
Walt Rakowich:Amen. So I just want to show this book what the dead know. I mean, this is. This was amazing. This is a tremendous read. And when I read your book, what struck me was your first of all, your investigative mindset and your enthusiasm for your work. You're reading this and you're going, wow. I mean, this person's really enthusiastic about a difficult job. Most people would probably cringe at the thought of encountering death every day. And yet your book really feels upbeat. And it's kind of funny in places, I'll be honest. I mean, you're really a funny person. So that mindset and that energy come through again and again. And I think there are leadership lessons there. Can you talk a little bit about those traits of yours?
Barbara Butcher:Yeah, I think endless curiosity is a good trait for anyone in any job, but especially for someone who wants to lead. There were times when, you know, I was director of investigations Director of forensics, chief of staff, what have you. As my career went on, I got promoted several times and I felt like, good, now people will have to do what I say. And I know a lot, so I can say a lot. That's not the way to lead. That's order giving, that's not leadership. I soon learned that if I wanted my team to do something that they had to be included in the decision process, in the discovery process. So first discovery, what are we working on? What's our goal here? What do we want to achieve? And so the first thing I learned to do is stop talking, take my hands off my ears, put them over my mouth, right? That way I would listen. And at first I was impatient, like, you know, this is too slow, we're not getting anywhere. But then I learned the value of really listening, not just waiting to react or waiting to say, no, that's wrong. You know, people will surprise you with the depth of their ideas. And once I learned acceptance like that I'm not always right, that I don't always know what I'm doing. And I could accept that other people might be better at this than me and have a way of doing things that might be more effective. So that was probably my first lesson, was, you know, stop talking and start listening. And then I think the second thing I learned was that we have a fact based science. In my job, I'm looking for facts, I'm looking for DNA, I'm looking for time of death measurements. And I thought that technology and just recording my observations was in some way going to solve the problem. And that goes for any project, whether you're investigating a death or trying to launch a new product. It's not just about the statistics, it's about the. There's an inner drive, an inner drive that engenders an enthusiasm and opens our minds toward being more intuitive. So when I've looked at all the facts, when I've seen all the data, the fingerprints, the DNA, the position of the body, now I have to open my mind to all the possibilities that surround that data. What was the person doing before they were killed? Were they talking to someone? Were they walking around? Were they at a club last night having a great time and took somebody home with them? I have to imagine things that I cannot see in life and open my mind to them. So I think the same thing happens with any project. You lay out the facts and then comes imagination, then comes the desire to put yourself in something. And I think my being enthusiastic helped those around me to also be enthusiastic. With any project we were doing, we were trying to put together a Mass. After 9, 11, of course, great disaster of just unbelievable proportions. We had to put together a mass fatality management plan for the country. And then leaders of other countries were asking us for help. I taught in Hong Kong, in Norway. How do we do these things? And that took the enthusiasm of a team. And it took me listening to people from various sections of the job. Not just the death investigators or the forensic pathologists, but the engineers, the maintenance people. I learned to listen to them because when they said to me, barbara, do not stack up sawhorses to use as, you know, mobile autopsy things with trays on them, it's not going to work. Why not? We can't clean under them. You're going to have blood on the floor, you're going to have bone matter, you're going to have all kinds of things on the floor. Don't do that. Okay. Oh, wait a minute. He's right. That stuff, that's. That's biohazards. I can't be walking around in blood. No, we've got to keep things on wheels, always. We have to be able to move, we have to be able to clean. So you never know where you're going to get a hint from. And the secretaries, they taught me all about record keeping, rapid record keeping, like they said. Barbara, why don't you use barcodes to label people? Label bodies. Wow. So making people a part of the project, a part of the part of the problem and a part of the solution, I think it just engenders so much enthusiasm because now we all have a stake in it. If I went to any death scene, a homicide, and worked by myself, I'd just be recording data. I need the police there, I need the crime scene unit there, because we're going to bounce off each other. We're going to do theories, we're going to talk, we're going to discover things together. And even though we had separate investigations, like when I examined the body, I'd call crime scene unit over and I say, hey, guys, let me show you what I'm finding. Notice the abraded angle of this bullet entrance. Must have come from below the guy. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Walt Rakowich:And.
Barbara Butcher:And then I'd hold it so they could photograph it. We work together and teamwork engenders enthusiasm when it's real.
Walt Rakowich:I think that is just great. I think what you're. What I'm hearing from you is that enthusiasm part and parcel comes from curiosity. And that curiosity comes from putting yourself aside and listening to others and, and, and valuing the very things that other people say and, and, and, and using that in a team kind of situation. I, it's so much of what you do and did are leadership lessons, whether you be doing what you're doing or whether you be in business doing something. I think it starts with listening, doesn't it? It starts with curiosity. It starts with, you know, putting other people around yourself and surrounding and listening to them and the things that they had to say. That's a wonderful, wonderful answer to that question.
Barbara Butcher:Thank you.
Walt Rakowich:Throughout the book, you speak often and fondly about a gentleman by the name of Dr. Hirsch, who I think hired you and became your mentor. He seems to have played a very significant role in your development. What, what was his leadership style like? And why did he mean so much to you?
Barbara Butcher:There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him. In fact, his picture is on my desk. He's long dead, but I, I have his picture there. He inspires me. And plus, he's the only man I ever really loved. And I don't mean that in a, you know, physical relations way. I mean that I loved who he was. He was a gentleman and exquisitely well mannered, but not stuffy. He was funny. He was wildly intent, intelligent, but mostly he was humble. I'd see him, you know, he'd walk through the halls and he'd see the students who used to come and, you know, follow us, and we'd mentor young people from colleges, and he'd stop and say, hi, I'm Charles Hirsch. Would you care to go see an autopsy with me? And these kids are like, oh, yeah, sure, whatever. They don't know that this powerful man in New York City who is the father of modern forensic pathology has just invited them to learn from him. He is Dr. Charles Hirsch, Chief medical examiner. But his humility was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And he never gave orders. He made suggestions. So there were times when we were training new forensic pathologists, and we'd go down there to look at autopsies and figure out what was going on for the day. And he'd come upon a physician who'd say, well, the bullet seems to enter the left side of the chest just above the nipple, and the exit is over by the right shoulder blade. So, you know, I think it just went straight through. And Dr. Hirsch would say, how many shots were fired? Not certain. What do you mean, one bullet? Dr. Hirsch said, Are you going to track it? Are you going to place the metal rod through that wound? Well, no, it's in this way and out the other. He said, oh, you might want to look at some of those things. I think that will help you in your diagnosis. Yeah, that's what I would do.
Walt Rakowich:And then he moved on. A suggestion.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah, Suggestion. Yeah. So he was pointed in his suggestions, but he didn't say to someone, that's wrong, that's wrong. You have to do this, you have to do that, because that just humiliates people. Why not invite them to try your way rather than ordering to do so? So he was a very funny person. And, you know, in that game, in that career, we had to laugh all the time, because otherwise you'd be crying all day and you're no good to anyone. And he made us laugh. He made us feel warm and part of the team. Yeah, he taught me a lot. You know, just sayings that. Things that he said, we used to call them hershisms, they still ring in my head, like, you can't go wrong if you do the right thing.
Walt Rakowich:Right?
Barbara Butcher:I can use that every day, you know. You know, should I walk past this stuff on the sidewalk or, you know, somebody's going to trip. Here comes that old lady. Or now I'm busy, Barbara. Do the right thing. Go move that box of junk. You know, you can't go wrong.
Walt Rakowich:It's a great reminder.
Barbara Butcher:It is. It is. And on truth and honesty. Oh, my God, he was so honest. I remember a family came to me. Their son had died in a house fire, and they said, did he suffer? And I was like. I said, would you excuse me for just a moment? My boss is calling. I went into his office. I said, Dr. Hirsch, what do I tell these people? You? He said, well, the truth. What else would you tell them? I said, no, but you know, it's going to be horrible. And he said, barbara, whatever you tell them is so much better than what they're imagining. Just think of it. They're seeing him in flames, dying in a screaming, horrible death. And that's rarely the way that one dies in a fire. Just tell them the truth. And the other thing to remember is that the first time you lie to anyone, everything you say after that is suspect. They can never trust you again. So I went out and I said to them, yes, he did have burns on his hands, second and third degree burns, and no doubt they were very painful. He died, however, of smoke inhalation, and that would cause him to cough and choke, but the gases cause you to go unconscious very quickly. Carbon monoxide. And so he died within minutes. Mostly from the smoke inhalation. And they're like, thank God.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah.
Barbara Butcher:Right? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. What a comfort that was to them. But what a weird thing to have to say to somebody. Right?
Walt Rakowich:Yeah. So, you know, it sounds. It also sounds like he just cared. He cared about people.
Barbara Butcher:Oh, yeah.
Walt Rakowich:This is thinking about, you know, the story you told about him going up to the interns or whatever it was that you described. And, you know, the great, best leaders just show that they care about the people that they work with.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah.
Walt Rakowich:And his humility, I'm sure, really came out. Oh, yeah. You know, I want to take this story that you just said, though, about the fire is in your book. You. You describe the case of a young girl who was assaulted and then burned to death.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah.
Walt Rakowich:You. You. You wrote that her death affected you more deeply than others. You. You prayed that she had died before she was set on fire. You. You wanted to unsee what you had seen. You described that as a crucible moment. How did you process that? How do you. How do you compartmentalize things like that in your job and continue to do the work?
Barbara Butcher:Emotional detachment. Severe emotional detachment. Now, this is one of the negatives about the job, and that is that when I come upon a scene that jarring when I see a young teenage girl, burned and horribly burned, just charred, it just. It's a shock to me. It's a horrible thing. Not only do I see this terrible thing in front of me, but I can identify with it, having been myself, a young teenage girl. And it just hit me very, very hard. But what I had to do was drop, bang, this Lucite shield in front of me, and I was going to block all my emotions, save them for later, and do my job. I was no good to her if I was crying, if I was upset, if I was distracted by thinking about her pain and sorrow. I couldn't do any of those things. I had to be like a machine, get the forensics, get everything right, do everything you can think of to gather evidence of this poor young woman. And I did that. But that evening, I went home from work and I took off my clothes, jumped into bed, and pulled the sheets over my head in an effort to get away from myself somehow. I didn't want to be in this head, in this body, seeing what I had seen that day. And there were other things that day, too, that really threw me for a loop. Especially when children are killed. That's another one. So how to deal with that? How to deal with horror, with death and despair and destruction? And yet still live and enjoy life. When I was in training, I remember one of the first autopsies I saw was an 8 year old girl who'd been raped and smothered and then tossed in a garbage heap in an alleyway. I was watching the autopsy done by this forensic pathologist, Dr. Jackie Lee, and I said, how do you do this every day? How do you watch this, this tragedy and still how do you do it? She said, barbara, when you leave this place every day, I want you to surround yourself with things of beauty, art, music, food, love, literature, nature, everything. Just absorb all that because it's the way you're going to survive this horror is to keep reminding yourself of the beauty, the goodness of life. Well, at first I thought, well, that's some hippie trippy nonsense. But you know, as the, as the, the stresses started piling up on me, I realized she was right. I bought myself a little shanty of a house up in the Catskill Mountains and it had a stream and I got, and had a lot of trees and I hugged the trees, literally, I loved those trees. And I got a dog and two cats and I fished and I mowed the lawn and planted gardens and it helped a lot. Now over time there is an accumulation, however, where you've shut down your emotions so many times that you can no longer access them. So any relationship I had was falling apart. And then when 911 happened and I was so horror struck, I became like a robot. My partner couldn't stand me, no one could stand me except the people I worked with. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to stay there with the people who understood me, who were part of the mission, who felt the way I felt and. Yeah, so, you know, one relationship after another kept breaking up and eventually, because of 911 and the severe PTSD I had, I got a very good form of therapy called DBT that has helped me to not just compartmentalize those things, but to understand them, observe them and face them so that the sting of them is gone. I don't have to cry every time I pick up a newspaper and it mentions 9 11, you know, so I learned to live again after that. It was, it was amazing.
Walt Rakowich:So. Anyway, it's, it's very difficult for someone like me to even understand how you process that and how you deal with that. So I wanna, I'm gonna just shift a little bit, please. Just workplace dynamics just to kind of get off of that and kind of get on to. But you know, there's a lot of people that feel that politics play a major role in promotions and hiring and firing and decisions don't always feel fair. That happened to you. I want you to talk a little bit about workplace politics and how they also affected your role.
Barbara Butcher:Well, you know, we have sexist politics starting out with that. Back in 1991, when I started this job, or 92, rather, I was the first woman hired in Manhattan that lasted more than three months.
Walt Rakowich:Three months. Remember reading that?
Barbara Butcher:Yeah. The woman before me, she ran out, I mean, I don't know, from the horror of the work. Were working with these guys who did everything they could to make it difficult for a woman. Like, hey, look at this. Look, this guy melted, you know. Oh. So I came in and they're trying to upset me with showing me all these things. And I'd say, wow, interesting. During my informational interview there with Dr. Hirsch, you know, they took me to meet the investigators, and those guys, they took me down to the autopsy room, see if I could handle it. And there was a man with multiple stab wounds on his chest. And I said, oh, let's see. It looks like the perpetrator was right handed, since the knife wounds are clustered mostly around the left chest. And the pathologist said, oh, yes, very good point. Notice the angles. And the guys were like, okay, impressive, impressive. Instead of crying or going, ew, she's getting into it. And I did get very into it. So the first time, I did a couple of months training on the job and FBI Academy for Scene investigation and all that stuff. My first homicide on my own. I go up to the door, and the detective is standing outside, and he says, yeah, honey, how can I help you? I said, oh, well, I'm Barbara Butcher from the medical examiner's office. I'm here to examine the body. He said, no, no, don't worry about, honey. Crime scene will cover it. They got it. I said, no, this is my job. I have to go there and do that. He's like, all right, all right, come on. And I thought, this is some bullshit right here. This is some bad nonsense. And I kept my mouth shut and did my job the next time it happened. Excuse me, honey. No, it's a crime scene here. How can I help you? I said, oh, I'll tell you what, I don't think you can help me, but maybe I can help you. I'm the death investigator. I'm going to go in there and examine that victim. I'm going to tell you how he died, when he died, and maybe even who did it. And then when you're in court testifying. And the judge says, well, Detective, how do you know all these things? You can tell him, Barbara. Butcher told me. And he went, whoa, come on in. And that helped establish my reputation as an assertive, strong nut. I was a little weird. I was a little weird. I made it a point of out. I don't even know how. What the word would be, but nothing was going to bother me in front of these guys if they were like, oh, oh, the smell. I'd be like, come on, man up. Get used to it. It's just, you know, nature returning to nature, and, you know, so it didn't. It didn't hurt that my father was. Was a cop. So I knew the NYPD culture, but I pretty much gained a reputation quickly as someone who loved the job, was very enthusiastic and very much wanted to cooperate and share knowledge with each other. And so I was. I was welcomed after that. Hey, look, Butcher's here. Come on in, Doc.
Walt Rakowich:Yeah, right. You had to. You had to prove yourself. You're a woman in a man's world.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah.
Walt Rakowich:And you had to prove yourself and man up, if you will. And it sounds like. It sounds like you did.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah.
Walt Rakowich:And I know. I know based on everything I read that you were well respected in your job.
Barbara Butcher:Thank you. Thank you. You know, there were other politics there, too. Sorry. And that was that. Over the years, I had risen up through director of this and director of that until I became chief of staff for the agency. A lot of fun, very political work. Worked with the mayor's office, with Bloomberg, a man I loved and respected. And that was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. We got what we needed to do the job. We got the budgets, we got the ideas. It was great. And then when the next mayor, de Blasio, came in, he has the right to remove the top people, each agency, and put his own people in. And moreover, I had upset some of the people on his appointments committee because I had fired a scientist to whom several of them were close friends. So when I was told that it was time for me to go, I was like, wait a minute. What are you talking about? This is my agency. I know so much. I have so much experience. I've worked Tsunami, the London bombing, the nine, 11 aircraft crashes. I know this job inside and out. Who else are you going to bring in? They were like, oh, that's nice. Bye. Bye. And so I went. Politics, right?
Walt Rakowich:Yeah.
Barbara Butcher:And I actually had a breakdown over that. Without my job, who was I? I was my job. I didn't know my role in life anymore. I felt irrelevant, and it really, really crashed me badly. But again, I got up from that. I got up, started my own company, Investigative Consulting, and then wrote a book, then had a TV show, and then, blah, blah, blah. And here we are today, where I've got everything I've ever wanted. I'm enormously happy, and I call that a God shot. I never would have let go of that job. I love that job so much. But now Dr. Kirsch had died, they didn't want me there anymore, or at least the mayor didn't. So called me, never mind, let me not get political. All those things were crushing me. You know, you can't work in death and destruction forever. And I feel like that was a God shot. He said, geez, you're never going to leave this place, despite the damage it's doing to your emotional life. So I'm pushing you the h*** out. And he pushed me out. But then new things came along, new opportunities. And now my life is all about the fun of talking with people like you, of teaching people things, of creativity. It's just. It's a joyful life.
Walt Rakowich:Now, you said to me, when we talked earlier, you said you called a God shot. Something like, rejection is God's protection.
Barbara Butcher:That's right. That's right. If the mayor is going to reject me, that's God's way of saying, this guy's no good for you. You don't want to work with him.
Walt Rakowich:This is better for you. You may not know it, but this is better for you.
Barbara Butcher:Yeah. I mean, did you ever start having an affair with someone and it's so wonderful and fun and it's sexy good and everything else, but, like, eventually they break up with you, and you're like, what?
Walt Rakowich:What?
Barbara Butcher:What? Everything was so wonderful. You find out two months later that, you know, they're doing cocaine or something. So that's the rejection. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Walt Rakowich:Barbara, I just. I just have one final question. It's just kind of hitting me now. Do you have advice to someone who is perhaps struggling to find a career or even struggling to be purposeful in what they do?
Barbara Butcher:You know, everything can be of service in this world, whether you want to work in sanitation or be an artist or be a doctor or. Or own a store? Own a candy store? No matter what you do, if you do it with enjoyment, with purpose, and you be. You just try to be really good at it. No matter what job I had, I always wanted to be good at it so that I could, you know, please the bosses or whatever. But I learned to compete with myself. Let's see if I can do more, let's see if I can do better. And I think that applies to every job in life. If you're going to do it, do it well and do it joyfully and then the results will be purposeful, the results will contribute to the thing. Whether you're the guy that owns the candy store with the neighborhood, you know, kind of gathers there and you become someone who facilitates interaction between people. If you want to be a sanitation guy, be the guy who makes everything spotless, who makes a neighborhood feel good. I always thank people from the BID business improvement districts and they're sweeping the grounds and picking up trash. Thank you for making my neighborhood look nice. It helps my day, makes me feel good. So thank you. No matter what you do, do it with joy. Do it well.
Walt Rakowich:Well, I can tell you that you've done this podcast very well and thank you. And you did it with joy very much. You did a great job. Barbara, I just want to thank you so much for joining me on this episode of off the Rak. I'm really grateful to you for being here to talk and actually leading with humanity under pressure, in crisis situations. And I love some of your comments about humility and listening and those sorts of things. They are leadership lessons for everybody that's out there. And so I just want to thank you again for being on.
Barbara Butcher:Thank you, Walt. It was a real pleasure for me. Thank you.
Walt Rakowich:I wish you the best and wish your book, you know, the best out there in the marketplace and boy, your shows, I mean, it's just amazing what has come of this whole thing and, and the things that you talk about are just so interesting. Difficult sometimes to hear, but so interesting. I just wish you all the best in everything you're doing. So thank you again.
Barbara Butcher:Thank you Walt. I'm filled with gratitude for this good life.
Walt Rakowich:I'd just like to also thank all of you who tuned in. You can always find more insights from our episodes and off the Rak Rak plus our newsletter and follow off the Rak on your favorite podcast platform. Leave a Review if you share this episode with someone else, I hope you would share it with someone who needs a little purpose filled inspiration. And until the next time, I'd encourage all you to be human with one another and find a way to be a positive influence on somebody around you each and every day. Thank you.