Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Music 0:35
Come on, tell

Music 0:42
me what's going on. Great

Dave Washington 0:49
day, Las Vegas, great day. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I have retired fire captain Nathan PAJAK, that'll be our guests here in the first segment, and I'll get to him shortly. So hang on there, Nate, I hope you're doing well.

Nate Pechacek 1:08
Doing well. Thanks. All right, great. Yeah.

Dave Washington 1:11
I just wanted to, as we always try to do, express condolences to anyone who may have lost a loved one since we were on air last week and announcement, I must continue to announce this for my 75th birthday, I'm doing a party fundraiser for three nonprofits. Look back calls which I know Nate's familiar with. That's April's nonprofit, Dr Bill and Cherie Sullivan. They have a foundation here at UNLV, and then also the Carl Holmes executive development institute. Those dollars will go to their endowment fund. And once again, just want to say thank you everybody for for your prayers. Give you a quick report my as I mentioned last week, and I'll mention again, I did do well in terms of my medical evaluation in Houston so down in MD Anderson, so I want to thank everybody and continue praying for me. Nate PAJAK, how are you, sir? Just fine. Doing great. Dave, great, great, great. So Nate, you retired from Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. How many years? How many years ago now, I've been retired for five years, five years. Where were you born and raised? Nate, I was born

Nate Pechacek 2:29
in Oklahoma. We moved to Las Vegas in 1964

Dave Washington 2:32
what part of Oklahoma?

Nate Pechacek 2:35
A lot in Oklahoma, my dad was when the army there and we moved here. I was four years old. Okay.

Dave Washington 2:40
All right, yeah, okay, when I was three and a half from down south. All right, that's great. And you say you've been retired from Las Vegas tower. How long? Five years now? Five years, okay, all right. Well, something that you did, I don't know if you was the initiator, the founder of it, but I know the burn foundation, you spent a tremendous amount of time with them. So give us some history on that, if you would. I would.

Nate Pechacek 3:06
I took it over in 2003 it was called the Clark County burn fund. Okay, Joe plank is a Joe plank who is a chief for the county at that time, Joe plan coming off. Yeah, I'm Joe plank was coming off. I was coming off an injury, and I had, I need something to do. And he gave me something to do. Gave me something to do, and I took it over. But then after I took it over, I renamed it the firefighters of Southern Nevada burn Foundation, and I made it a nonprofit, a, 501, c3, and then I got Nino involved and Greg Sibley and Mike Wiseman. I got people from different departments all over the valley, and we got Creech Air Force Base and Nellis involved, and I got all these fire departments involved, and I was the founder, but I got reps from all all the departments, and then we started doing what we do.

Dave Washington 3:51
So it was existing under a different name, and then you change the name, and then just made it more of a cooperative among the various fire departments throughout the valley, correct? Sure that I did. Man, that's great, because I I knew a little bit about the history, but I think this is important to share with our listening audience, because we do have a number of firefighters who do chime in. So now, one of the things that I'm well aware of is the fact that not only the Byrne Foundation and the work that it does in terms of assisting with those who have been injured, but also tell our listening audience when and why did you initiate the toy drive?

Nate Pechacek 4:32
I started the toy drive in oh three. I was doing some stuff with my mom at the church, and I took her, I just started, and I got the burn foundation involved, and we talked to Walmart, and they started letting us Park trucks out front. So we parked in front of one Walmart and 203, and we got toys for 800 children on a weekend. And then after that, it's just, it's just snowballed since then. Now I've got all the fire departments and everybody does a different Walmart in town three weekends prior to Christmas, we collect toys. We separate the toys in our warehouse, and then we divide those toys out. And this year, we did 70 nonprofit organizations got toys. And we did 12 elementary schools here in town. They got toys for a couple grades in each school, and we showed up for the fire trucks and passed the toys at the schools and our nonprofits, they come to us and we give everyone we can. We just keep giving it out. And then we'll keep some toys for the year. So when the family gets burned out, we'll, we don't go to the house with the bag of toys for the kids or something, just to lighten the load, because they just had a, you know, a tremendous experience. So I just want to lighten the load and give them those little cheer for a little while. And this is, this is my this is my thing. Is a toy drive. This is my ramrod. And I enjoy doing it. And I got an old fire truck that I drive around and collect toys in. And we also do the bastrox, and we have a calendar with the calendars and stuff. But we also send nurses, the UMC burn nurses. The nurses are staffing the burn center at UMC. We send them twice a year to schooling, and they get CEUs, and they keep their stuff upgraded, and we pay for that, and they get twice a year. We send a dozen or so of them to different CEUs things they need to do to keep their education up. Wow. So we send, we send children, kids, kids to get burned. We send in the burn camps. We got burn camps up in, one up in Tahoe and one in Big Bear. And we send twice a year. We send some kids, anywhere from a dozen or so kids, or wherever we need to send. And these are kids that have been burned. They don't mind going to camp. And other kids that are burned because they're not afraid to show their scars. Right? Kids are scarred too then, right? You know, they have a good time and just let them unwind for a four day, or we do a four day a week, and then that's kind of things that we do with our with the funds we collect, we are not paid at all, right, and these guys collecting toys and the weekends don't get paid, and it's like a nonprofit. And we just, we just give back to the community. And we, we've helped people here. We helped a little bit out at Indian Springs. Sometimes, sometimes we've done prompt a little bit in Boulder City, but it's all Southern Nevada. We make sure all of our stuff gets passed out, or the Shriners come in, we give them a bunch of stuff. Our toys are toys are tots, when the Marines run out, we give them some or they give us some safe nest CPS. We pass out toys, everybody that calls or everybody that gets a hold of us early on, we can do and we tried. We just try to fill orders and

Dave Washington 7:29
man, God bless you. I hadn't. I had no idea about the about the nurses for their continuing education. So how are you guys funded? How are you guys funded?

Nate Pechacek 7:40
It's all, all that. It's all self funded. All we do is all of our events. We just save the money from the events and pay our own bills. And just, we take donations, we just, we just collect and all the, all the money that we raised during the Christmas season. And, you know, yeah, we just, well, keep going, and we have a little warehouse.

Dave Washington 7:58
And so, so you raise money through donations as well as your you say, a calendar. And there was something else you

Nate Pechacek 8:06
mentioned, bachelor auction that we do. Bachelor auction and all our, our date packages for our bachelor auctions are around town here, local events, you know, Grand Canyon, skydiving and shows different, you know, go out to the lake and do that ferry ride out there, and just boat ride out and just all his local stuff. And right,

Dave Washington 8:30
we just, man, I thought we raised our money. I thought I knew the burn foundation. Man, I know you guys helped out nurses and, you know, I was familiar with the calendar. But beyond that. I just, you know, I didn't recall it, man, but this is outstanding. I think it's certainly worth you being on the show to to share with us and Nate, you know whenever you want to come on, to include when you start your activity for 2026 December, you know, come on, man. Because I, you know when God gives you a platform, and I know I won't go into your medical issue, but I know you had something to happen to you, seriously, a few years back, and seems like God just touched you on your shoulder. Go do this, young man, and you've been, you've been knocking it out the park. Man, that's

Nate Pechacek 9:12
25 years ago, last September, and, well, I was out and at this time, you know, yeah, God spared me for a reason, and I helped on that burn foundation and took him by the wings. And, all right, okay, a lot of good, good help. You know, good folks helping me.

Dave Washington 9:29
And once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more just had retired fire captain from the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue and the president and long term, long time activists, with respect to the Byrne Foundation, thank you so much, Nate, and like I said, you got a seat or telephone call away. Sounds good. Take care. Dave, Veterans Affairs. Signing off once

Dave Washington 9:57
again, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus some. On 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I got two dear friends on the line that's going to give us some indication about insurance, why it's important, etc, etc. So with that, I'd like to certainly welcome his wife, Christy, the wife of Lamar. And then Lamar is a fire service profession, a retired fire service professional, I should say Lamar Lucas and Christy Lucas, so Lamar, what department and how long did you work?

Lamar Lucas 10:32
Hey, Dave, how you doing? Yeah, I'm with the I was with the Clark County Fire Department. I was with the Clark County Fire Department for 30 years, where I worked in a different areas of the fire service. Okay, 30 years.

Dave Washington 10:48
Okay, all right. Christy, give us a little bit of background on you, please.

Christy Lucas 10:52
Well, thank you for having us, Dave. As you mentioned, my name is Christy Lucas. My background has been in finance and education for most of my career. I'm a mother of three daughters and a bonus mom to three more, which is why this work is very personal to me. I'm passionate about helping families understand protection and money in a clear, practical and empowering way.

Dave Washington 11:16
Sounds like you? On top of things, as far as finance is concerned. Well, wonderful. So I appreciate you guys as hospitality when I come down to to Houston and go through my medical evaluation and thank God that everything came back well this year. So I am happy, happy, happy.

Lamar Lucas 11:37
So yes, sir, pleasure to spend time with you, absolutely.

Dave Washington 11:42
So please share with us, each one of you, your idea, your thought in terms of why insurance and getting insurance should be important to people.

Lamar Lucas 11:53
Okay, the main reason why I say it's important because, you know, we've all worked for a fire department. We all work for a fire to serve fire service or any basic job. When people leave that career, they often lose group or union or employers provide Life coverage for that person, but when you leave that life insurance policy is gone. So what we try to do is educate individuals and families to get a policy prior to leaving a job. And one of it's important that you want to something happen in your family. And now you gotta do Go, Go Fund Me, bake sales, car washes, asking friends of what relatives for help you know the proper code will help you to protect income, reduce financial stress, preserve privacy, dignity and stability, doing the spouse and the children, grandchildren and even extended family members you support aren't left carrying the financial burden. Excellent.

Dave Washington 13:00
Yeah, I know insurance man here, Don Marquez, and in fact, he has a show on 91.5 as well as 88 and he talks about, you know, it's really shameful that, and it's unfortunate because, but for the grace of God, go one of us. But he said, when he see people out there washing cars, got bake sales, as you mentioned, come on, y'all, you can do better. It's a matter of, what are your priorities? Because we spend a lot of money, and sometimes people just don't properly prioritize things that's important to them and their families. What's your what's your thought on that?

Christy Lucas 13:33
Christy, Well, Dave, you and Lamar both have hit the nail on the head. It's really, you know, families, you know, it's not something that we want to sit at the table and really, you know, have this conversation. So together, we help families and individuals really understand life insurance, understand the finance, especially during major financial life transitions, such as retiring, as Lamar said, or leaving a long term career, or becoming self employed, really just helping families understand, supporting and being properly prepared and educated, learning the importance that he said, it's bad when we go to services and family members are asking for gifts and having to do to go fund me because information That was provided. So we try to have these conversations, and they're definitely near and dear to our hearts. Excellent.

Dave Washington 14:26
I'll tell you that one radio show I listened to, and it's a commercial. The guy says, Look, you need insurance. My dad died when he was in his early 60s. And you know what? A lot of this is something that we don't like to talk about. I don't care if you're black, white, you're male, you're female, people don't like about what's going to happen, and that is, we're all going to die. And when you leave here, you should not leave your family in a strain, because you didn't have the thought process. Us to to do what you need to do to ensure that they can maintain a comfortable life. So your points are well taken look. So you guys have your own business that you you've been doing this and or getting ready to embark upon it, and I trust that ultimately, when you have a website, you share that with me. I'll make sure it gets out to folks.

Lamar Lucas 15:22
Oh, and that's perfect, Dave. We appreciate that. But right now you can contact at 702-271-4352,

Dave Washington 15:32
okay, all right. So 2714352, okay, great. So what else is going on with you guys? And again, me and Marcia appreciate you guys hospitality when we come down and always making time to go to dinner with us. I tell people these types of things. When you're recovering from any kind of injury or sickness or illness, or however you want to frame it, having that kind of support group is encouraging to your spirit, and it just makes you feel that you're a worthy person, that people would think that much of you to be with you.

Lamar Lucas 16:10
Thank you so much.

Christy Lucas 16:12
Yes, we totally agree with you, Dave, and we just as you said, standing strong in our faith and being available to our family friends. Just as you just said, it seems that as we're getting into this space where we have more behind us versus in front of us, you know, seeing our families grow, our grandchildren, our friends, those milestones are beautiful things, and we love to attend and hear those things. And we also want to make sure that we're all really fully understand it and properly taken care of. So we've been here, and we're thankful. We'd love when you and Marcia come down, because we get a chance two beautiful faces. We get great conversation. You know, I always hog you up. Take you for because I love your books and your background and your research and your historian and your stories, I love that about you, that you keep yourself knowledgeable. You're a student of life, and that's so wonderful. And then I get a chance to talk to Marcia, and I always say, Marcia, have you read this book? And she goes, Christy, I'm in Bible study. I go, okay.

Dave Washington 17:19
Oh yeah, yeah, Marsha, she goes religiously, if I can say it that way, to her Bible study class, she goes to Bible study, and then after church, generally, she goes to Sunday school. So she's well versed. And unlike her heathen husband, you know, I am not as knowledgeable about the Bible as I should be and need to do more reading of it, to be honest. But man, I really appreciate you guys. And again, I think that you sharing with the need for people to have gaining or or getting life insurance as a priority is something that people shouldn't take lightly, and that's why I wanted to get you guys on the show to, at a minimum, at least, just talk about it and put it on people's minds. Because, you know, when this show airs not this Saturday, it'd be the following Saturday. I make sure that I send it out to all of my friends and, you know, relationships, and hope that you guys will as well, because we got to spread the word, because it is unfortunate, because I think a lot of times, people just don't think about the fact that, as I mentioned on this one show I listen to, we all gonna die and see and a lot of people, they have the financial wherewithal to purchase insurance, but they don't, because They everybody thinks you'll be here forever. Ain't the case, man, not the case by a long shot. But I really appreciate you guys and what you're doing, and just continue to do, as they say, continue to do the good work.

Christy Lucas 18:52
And you know what? You just said, something that just really sparked something for me, because we get this question, if you hit the nail on the head, who should actually consider insurance? And Lamar, we this all day, every day. I would love for him to just, you know, share that.

Lamar Lucas 19:08
Well, here's the deal, but everyone should consider being properly prepared. It's especially important for young adults. You know, young people that are starting out, parents, grandparents, even helping out their children and grandchildren, caregivers, anyone else who depends on anyone financially or emotionally being you know, being prepared is expecting the worst. It's about loving well and making sure support is already in place when it's most needed. So saying we that we can't wait till the person passed away and then have a GoFundMe, and then expect everybody to fund it, when you can have it already, for a few years already, and then you just go right into taking care. Your family, and you leave a little legacy for your family that you leave behind, or a big legacy, depending on what you're doing, right? So you can buy a large policy, a small policy, depending on your age. We figured it, you get it when you're younger. That way you can get more at a lesser price. That is kind

Dave Washington 20:20
of what, yeah, that's a that's a great point. In fact, in retrospect, I wish I had got the insurances that I do have when I was much, much younger. I got policy. And I don't care if the world knows. I want them to know. In fact, because I had some guys that, man, you crazy. They might use it on drugs. I don't care what they use it on. I won't be here, but I tell you what. Got one for all four of our children. Got one for my wife and for our 12 grandchildren, they all gonna get some when grandpa leave here. Now, what you do with it? I hope you do well. I hope you put it somewhere. In fact, let me tell you guys, and this is to the entire listening audience. My son in law, Nathan and I did a four every Wednesday for four weeks, we met with by zoom, with four of our grandchildren, two in college, two one in junior high school and the other ones Middle School. Anyway, we did a class on money, and it talked a lot about insurance and why you should have it compound interest, all this stuff. And one of my uncles said, you know it probably we shouldn't be so hard on our on our parents. No, not hard on my parents. I know this stuff, and wish I knew it earlier, but now that I know something, it is my responsibility to share it with those who I love. Now what they do with it? It's up to them, but all we also told those on the college campuses. They know you ain't got no job, but they're all credit card. Come, I see a man because, you know, I'm down at Dillard. We're down there every year where we run our car homes, our EDI executive development institute down there. And you see them around there, man with them, you know, come get a credit card. Yeah, right. And you know, they didn't have a job. You give them a car and then try to crowd their parents to get paid. But anyway, man, I really appreciate you guys. I think this is going to be very, very helpful to people, to to at least, well, they can't say they didn't know. Go ahead. Go ahead. Christine, oh, I

Christy Lucas 22:14
was gonna say no, we appreciate you having us, and we're all on the same page. And I feel like most people just want the information, and so that's what we're here for, to help people make sure we review policies for free as well. Dave, we you know, we actually try to get that information, so we're willing to look at someone's policy to help them make sure they feel confident with what they may already have in place,

Dave Washington 22:39
right, well, that is greatly appreciated, and I trust that there will be some members who probably make contact with you or someone else, but at least you have put it on their minds that is something that is absolutely essential to leaving a legacy, some generational wealth to your family members, whatever it is, If it's 5000 10,000 so once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and Moorhead, Lamar and Christy Lucas on the show. And we appreciate what they've had to share with us. And I'll be looking at Wes to see if you give me a time indicator. Otherwise, I'll just ask you guys give any closing Oh, we got lots of time. We got six minutes. So anything else you'd like to share, to include just in general,

Lamar Lucas 23:23
yeah, Dave, you know, I like to share a personal story with myself. You know, I was on the fire department for 30 years, right? And that's me dealing with a lot of stress, waking up to three o'clock in the morning, working all day with the people at your station, dealing with life by self, right? You know, so over here is that 30 year period. I didn't know it. My wife didn't know it when I got we moved to Houston, you know, we got married, having some heart palpitations like, what? What is this? Right? So when it checked, and the doctor found some things going on with my heart, and put a pacemaker in. Once I got that pacemaker, they had to do another surgery, and they had to get the fatty tissue off the colon ablation. Right? Had to get that ticket. So with that, just imagine if I didn't have an insurance policy prior to leaving the fire department, right? So I wouldn't even qualify for a life insurance policy at this point in time, right? So I did years ago, and that's why I try to help families and friends understand you have to have enough for your family prior to leaving the job. That way being something happens to you, you don't have to worry about not having anything to leave. That's why it's so important that Christian, I'll sit with you and show you exactly what you have. How can you help you, not only in the. Insurance level, but also saving money and put money for your retirement along with that, that's the avenue caveat that we do. And when you give us a call, I'll tell you about the rule of 72 something that the banks about we have that we can share with families regarding that, that'll basically blow their mind, like, what? Okay, I see how that. Let me get started. So that's the whole purpose of going to try to help families out.

Dave Washington 25:30
That is great. In fact, in that training program that we did, they we discussed the rule of 72 go ahead, Chris, okay.

Christy Lucas 25:38
Oh no, I love it. Go ahead, Dave, because you and I had that conversation the rule of 72 and you said, when you were training your grandchildren, you and your son, you guys were it was just pretty fascinating on what you guys were sharing and what they knew and what they learned,

Dave Washington 25:52
and yeah, you know, I just hope that I told them, we're just scratching the surface. I hope they will take it upon himself to do a deeper Dave and how money works, and all those different things. Because if you don't know, you don't know, but if you've been given just a little bit, and that's what we we couldn't do it all. I said, we just got to feed them a little something, and hopefully they will gain enough appetite to go pursue further and certainly not get themselves in trouble. As it relates to credit cards in particular, because they they will give them to you. And you can pull up, pull out that plastic anywhere you want to man, and you look at more like what, yeah, is going on. But yeah, I think this is important. What you guys are doing for sure.

Lamar Lucas 26:34
It's funny you talk about credit cards, the rule of 72 work for that too. So what it can do for you in the future. This can take you down in different ways. 72 when you have those rates of return, right? So, all right,

Christy Lucas 26:53
I want to tap in really quick on what Lamar had just spoke about his personal experience. And one thing I can that I was so very happy that he's a very knowledgeable person that was very prepared. You know, a lot of times, you know, you hear the wife may be the one that takes the lead, or the husband takes the lead, and then it's like everything's up in arms, because no one knows what the right hand is doing. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. But I say that to say he had us very well prepared. We had information. We were able to work together as a team. We were able to sit down see what we had. So that is why it's important for families to have that conversation. Like you said, if it's not with us, it can be with anyone, but have that conversation, especially families, husband and wife, with your grandchildren, with you know it is very important thankful that he

Dave Washington 27:45
absolutely well. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more, just wrapping up with Lamar and Christy Lucas. Appreciate you guys very much, and we'll be in touch. And hopefully you will hear from some folks from our listening audience.

Lamar Lucas 28:00
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dave. My pleasure. Once

Dave Washington 28:04
again Las Vegas. As we close out, I just want to very quickly say April, 8 and ninth, we're going to have the Jones and clayey golf event here in Las Vegas, where we raise funds for our EDI scholarship fund. And also, in May, celebrating our 35th anniversary of the Carl Holmes executive development institute, we will have a golf event in New Orleans, Louisiana. Those flyers will come out soon. So once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. And I appreciate my engineer, my producer, My director, Wes. Thank you all very

Music 29:02
much. All the smoke in the air, till the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai