Our guest: John Burke, Executive Director IHFDA
Healthcare facility drug diversion affects patient safety, employee well-being, and community health. Few people understand this better than today’s guest, John Burke, who has dedicated his career to combating this critical issue. As one of the founding members and current Executive Director of the International Health Facility Diversion Association (IHFDA), John has been instrumental in shaping how healthcare organizations address drug diversion.
Since its establishment in 2015, IHFDA has grown into a pivotal organization under John’s leadership, bringing together healthcare security, pharmacy, nursing, and law enforcement professionals to tackle the complex challenge of drug diversion in healthcare settings.
As John prepares to retire from his position as Executive Director at the end of this year, we have the privilege of sitting down with him to explore not just the origins of IHFDA, but the personal journey that led him to become such an influential figure in healthcare diversion prevention. Today’s conversation offers a unique glimpse into the experiences, challenges, and insights that have shaped both John’s career and the evolution of healthcare diversion prevention.
Transcript
Terri
Welcome back, listeners, to Drug Diversion Insights. Today’s interview is with someone who is a familiar face to many of you. I’ve had him on the podcast before. John Burke is the executive director of IHFDA. John is officially retiring from IHFDA this year. So I decided to do something a little bit different. We are going to spend some time getting to know the man John Burke, and in the process, we’ll learn a little bit more about IHFDA as well. So ihfda, and I’m going to ask you this, John, how did you guys come up with that name? IHFDA rolls off the tongue, but I always have to like, do the, you know, someone will think I’m either lying or just thinking, depending on which way my eyes are going, which we know that’s not true, really, but International Health Facility Diversion association.
Terri
That’s what it stands for. So I will ask you about that and that name. But first, let’s start off with a welcome and tell us a little bit about what led to your law enforcement career. We’ve spoken before, we’ve filmed a podcast before, we’ve gone over some of your history and what your background is. So some of this might be a repeat, but I think we need to start there to move forward with getting to know you a little bit better. So how did you pick law enforcement?
John Burke
Well, first of all, thanks, Terri, for having me. It’s kind of something that it’s really kind of sounds like familiar thing, but I always wanted to be one, be a cop. And so that was kind of the way and I was able to get into a of unique program in Cincinnati in 1968, was a police cadet. So and you, what you did, you co op, you went to University of Cincinnati for a quarter and then you worked for a quarter and then after three years, you basically had finished your associate’s degree and you came into the next recruit class. So that’s how I got started. Always wanted to do it, got an opportunity. I had messed up my knee, but I got it fixed up and they still let me come on. And that’s how I got started.
John Burke
And I was thrilled to death, obviously, to be part of it.
Terri
Yeah. Did you have something in your family history? Did you have officers in your history? I mean, what was it? Was it just a desire to always be a cop or did something in particular happen when you were younger that made you want to go in that direction?
John Burke
No, there was no one in my family to be a police officer. I now have two sons and a grandson who are. But I had nobody that. When I came on, and so I can’t now. You know, the standard answer you always give, too, and it’s true, is you wanted to help people. But also, let’s face it, when you’re young, it looks like an exciting career and something that I wanted to do. I was just always very much focused towards trying to be a police officer.
Terri
Okay.
John Burke
Yeah.
Terri
Great. And active. I mean, some people don’t want to behind a desk or sitting or that kind of job. They want to be out in the field in some way.
John Burke
The other thing that always intrigues me about police work, every day was different. There was no repetitiveness, as you said, like sitting behind a desk. Every day was different. You really didn’t know what was happening, but you knew that there were going to be some challenges and things you needed to fix, and so all that appealed to me.
Terri
Right, right. Okay. Were you ever injured on the job?
John Burke
Yes, a few times. Had some stitches, Got hit on the head with a bowling ball, if, you know, those little bowling balls and those that they use in the arcades. I don’t know if you’re familiar with those, but.
Terri
Oh, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you mean.
John Burke
Yeah, Yeah. I had a guy come up from behind me and hit me several times with that and ended up having to shoot him, actually, so.
Terri
Oh, my.
John Burke
The only time I ever fired my gun. But. So, yeah, I got injured a few times. Some other things, stitches for know, got cut on some glass or whatever, but nothing more than beyond the bowling ball thing.
Terri
Okay. Yeah, yeah. How did that. How did. Do you remember how that played out? If he’s behind you hitting what. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Those balls that you’re throwing into the rings.
John Burke
Yeah.
Terri
At the arcade. Yeah.
John Burke
They’re very hard. Every bit as hard as a bowling ball. They’re just much smaller.
Terri
Smaller.
John Burke
Put them in your hand and. Yeah, he had me down and was wailing away at me, so.
Terri
Okay. All right. So some excitement there was that early in your career or a little bit later.
John Burke
Yeah, that was. I probably had about four years on, and I was in old clothes, so I was. It was stupid what I did, frankly. I went into a bar, didn’t have my radio with me, and found him back with a girl who’s underage and she was drinking beer. Took the glasses away and went up to. I had no cell phones in those days. Went up to use the bar phone, and after I hung up, he came up behind me before I turned around and started hitting me on the head with the ball. So it was. It was a dumb thing on my part, really.
Terri
Well, lessons learned. Were you on duty?
John Burke
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I was. I was working. I was working. Oh, yeah.
Terri
Okay. Yeah. Well, lessons learned. We have a good friend whose son is a police officer. And during, I think it was during his probation period, actually, he ended up on a car chase through LA area. On the news, you know, choppers caught everything. And the whole. The whole thing was. Is. Was quite interesting and, you know, comical in a way, where something like that can be comical when you hear the whole story. But yeah, the friend of ours was like, look, it was on TV during his 90 day probation period. Everything ended fine. They caught the person they were trying to catch. Kind of a funny story along the way, but yeah, that was very early on in his career.
John Burke
And imagine doing that. I was involved in many car chases and I can tell you that even though I’ve. I’ve seen a policeman on TV say that it’s a cop’s worst nightmare, to be honest with you. It’s actually exciting. And it’s. It’s not your worst nightmare. I mean, you hope it all ends with no problems. They’re very dangerous. Very dangerous. But catching the person is very satisfying too.
Terri
Right, Right. Wow. Okay. All right. How did you get involved? So I know that Natty was an organization for drug diversion, very law enforcement, kind of focused. So I’m guessing that’s kind of how you got connected with that. But walk us through how you got involved with NADI originally, which then eventually led to starting ihfda. So let’s talk about the original involvement.
John Burke
Well, towards the end of my career, I was assigned to Internal Affairs. You know what internal affairs is? I think everybody knows where you basically investigate police officers. And I did that for two years. And when you’re done, they try and find a job you want to go to because they’re looking for some other schmuck to replace you that maybe has some thought of. At least I’ll get a good assignment when I’m done with this one. And so I got offered to go back to Homicide, where I’d been as a detective, go as a sergeant. And I turned that down. They had a new job with six investigators and a secretary and myself called Pharmaceutical Diversion. And it was a grant that we had gotten from the State of Ohio, the Ohio Pharmacy Board. And so I thought that sounded a lot more appealing.
John Burke
And a big department, a sergeant would Never be able to run and make decisions in your own agency. And I was able to do that with this. So that’s how it started. I had some experience on the street with prescription drugs back when were on the street. And heroin was big. Prescription drugs were also big. And I got to know a lot about them. Oxycodone was the primary drug at the time and how they used them and abused them. And so for some reason, prescription drugs always had a little bit of interest in my mind from that work on the street. And so we started the Pharmaceutical Diversion Squad at Cincinnati Police Department. And it was something we did. I picked my people, got some great investigators, that only one had a little bit of knowledge about pharmaceuticals. The others did not.
John Burke
But it was. We got started. The other thing that we did in there, after were there not too long, we came up the issue of diversion inside healthcare facilities. And actually, this really attracted my attention, as you can imagine. That’s why I’m involved in IHFDA because of the nature of healthcare diversion. And we actually. They. Actually the city had a case they got sued on where two officers who weren’t experienced had arrested a nurse. And it was horrible. And they lost quite a bit of money. I made sure we got briefed on that. But so we started that, and to do that, we coordinated. We were so blessed. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy had 12 pharmacists that were all had hospital pharmacy experience, and they would go around. They were in different parts of the state.
John Burke
And so there was a couple of them assigned to us, and we started to use them. So they took our investigators into hospital, showed them, you know, all the things that go on with controlled substances inside a healthcare facility and the forms that are used and the estate, the violations and all the things. So they were with us, kind of held our hand until we got to be more and more experienced. And I have to tell you, it’s not an easy thing. It takes about a year to get good investigators. I mean, they were already skilled at interview and interrogation and how to follow lead. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was learning about what health professionals do inside healthcare facilities and how they divert drugs. So that was an enormous help to us.
John Burke
We also ran into problems that we got some pushback by a couple of the hospitals, and they were able to help us immensely. Ohio has some great laws addressing drug diversion, so
that’s kind of how we kicked this whole thing off. And before you know it, were arresting a nurse a week for probably eight or nine years. So about 50 nurses a year. And then we throw a pharmacist or a physician in there also, for one reason or another. And nurses. It’s not because nurses are bad people. It’s because nurses represent the largest number of healthcare professionals, and that’s the reason for it. But. So we got to be very experienced very fast in this area, very specialized. But prior to that, even before we really got much into healthcare diversion, I sent one of my investigators in 1990 to a natty conference.
John Burke
Was in. I believe it was out in Colorado. And then there was one indianapolis. The first one I went to was either 91 or 92. There was one down in Florida. And after that I was. I got involved and eventually brought them to Cincinnati. We were averaging about 60 people a conference and brought them to Cincinnati, and we jumped it to 160 for a lot of reasons. There’s a lot of interest in diversion in the highway, Indiana, Kentucky area. And then after that, of course, the numbers rose and stayed pretty steady. So I was. I had a great time in Natty, you know, helped them build that organization to what it is today. And they’re doing a great job, I think, with it now. And we. What happened was probably. I don’t know the exact year, but were doing a. So I started to.
John Burke
Myself and Denny Luke and Denny Lukin came over. He was the treasurer for Natty, national treasurer. And we. I started to do some healthcare diversion seminars, and we would do them in places, just do healthcare diversion. Columbus, Indiana, and some other places. We did several of them. We were doing one in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and I got a phone call from this lady named Kim New. And I didn’t know Kim at all, and she didn’t know me, but she said I. She was. She was the diversion person in a large hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee. And she was a nurse. And she says, hey, I see you’re having diversions conference. I’d like to be a speaker. So again, I didn’t know her, but I looked into her a little bit and said, sure.
John Burke
And so we brought her into this kind of regional conference that were doing in Gatlinburg. And of course, she was great. And Kim and I became really good friends and eventually formed. Formed ihfda.
Terri
And as they say, the rest is history.
John Burke
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Terri
Yeah. Yes. So, shoot, I had a couple of questions. When you were talking about, oh, when you started getting into the healthcare diversion piece in Ohio and you were arresting one nurse a week, did you. Was your. Were the hospitals already looking or Was it because of your program that you kind of partnered with them and then assisted on their investigations? I mean, how did all of that play out?
John Burke
Your latter one is more correct. It. They hadn’t been doing a lot of it. I think when they. When they stumbled on it or caught it, they would basically fire the person. There wasn’t much beyond that. So, you know, we. We included them, the hospital, usually the security people, but obviously the pharmacy and nursing folks. I mean, we did investigation. They were, you know, these people helped us. Obviously, this wasn’t something went in and just did on our own. So. But so. And, you know, in those days, they didn’t have diversion teams yet. And so you, a lot of times dealt with head of security or you deal with head. Head of pharmacy. And so, yes, and once we got in there and they saw the program, all but one hospital group actually were very cooperative and they would assist us.
John Burke
And then we had one hospital where the head of security was kind of running all that, and he decided that he wasn’t going to cooperate. So we had a lot of legal stuff behind us. It was a crime not to report it in Ohio. It still is. And Christmas, over Christmas, I remember he. They caught somebody. They didn’t call us. And somebody dropped a dime. That’s going way back. Dime for a phone call. Somebody dropped a dime on it to us. And we. I had a little chat with him. And the chat was basically, if this happens again, you’re. I’m going to lock you up. And, you know, that’s not something we wanted to do. Can you imagine locking up the security head of a. Of a major hospital in Cincinnati for not reporting criminal activity? But he decided, fortunately, to go my way.
John Burke
And he started reporting. And then we had pretty much all the facilities in line. So if they would discover something, or pharmacists or whatever, they would. They would call us. We also had a tremendous group of pharmacists that, as you know, I think there was three major companies in greater Cincinnati that covered nursing homes. And we had one lady at one of the companies that I would have loved to hired her. She was incredible. She would go into a. To a nursing home and go through the records and she could spot diversion. And we worked a lot with her. She would call us. So we got to be pretty good, obviously, to do all this. And this was. Terri pretty much, you know, there was no software in those days. It just. It wasn’t there.
John Burke
I do remember one time, one of the most egregious nurses we had was a Part time nurse. And they knew they had diversion in the swing. And so they, I said, well, let’s do a check, let’s do a run on their administration records for the past month. And so all the other nurses were full time and they’re sheet would go, let’s say halfway to the floor. And then there’s this other nurse that was part time and her, her thing would go to the floor and then halfway out the door. And so again, you didn’t have to be Dick Tracy to figure out that there’s probably a problem here. And she was diverting enormous amount of drugs. So that’s how we did things. We didn’t have software to rely on.
John Burke
And things have gotten so much better, I think, to have having that tool in your toolbox.
Terri
Right, right. So it’s interesting. Does Ohio still do it that way? I mean, I know a lot based on my experience. Law enforcement doesn’t often get involved. They’re just like, well, don’t call
us, you know, call the DEA or that amount isn’t big enough or you know, you can’t really prove it if everything is documented. And so we talk about calling law enforcement, but they’re certainly not involved to the extent that your group was back then in Ohio. Do they still do it that way?
John Burke
Well, I would hope so, but not long after I left and probably within five years of the time I left, they pretty much disbanded the Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit. It’s, you know, when departments have budget issues, they look for something that maybe is the first thing they can cut and they cut us out. And I don’t know if there may be one person today and there’s no way she can be handling everything, especially diversion inside healthcare facilities. So it’s kind of sad law enforcement’s not doing their part. It’s an extraordinarily, as, you know, important part. It’s not only you get the patient issue and of course you’ve also got the nurse issue. Finding recovery, finding meaningful recovery.
John Burke
Getting them as soon as you can so that they can better rehab than when you get them, when they’re almost, you know, almost dead or you don’t catch them in time and they overdose and die or they commit suicide or. I mean, there’s so many important issues that I know you’re well aware of and your viewers, I think are too. So it’s shame that. But the focus is not there like it was when were there.
Terri
Yeah. And the, you know, the interviewing part too. Right. We Talk about that. You had said that it took you guys a while to learn the medical side of it, which is very true. I mean, you have to learn how to recognize when something doesn’t seem right. Yes, this page is. Her pages were three times longer than a full time person. That doesn’t take a dick greasy or a medical professional to figure that out. But other things do. It’s like, well, that is weird. It’s like, really? Why is that weird? Because you don’t have that medical background. So it takes time to learn. But it’s the same way on the flip side, for the medical professional to learn how to do an interview is also extremely difficult. And especially if you’re not doing them all of the time.
John Burke
Exactly.
Terri
So that partnership is very important for that reason as well. To take advantage of where your skill set is.
John Burke
It’s very important. Plus, people could, you know, we could do things off the facility. I mean, we did garbage collections, we did surveillances, we did things that the hospital is not going to be able to do. You know, you think about it, these people take their drugs home on the last day in particular, and where did they get rid of them? They throw them in the garbage and we would do garbage pickups and get some really good evidence. So yeah, it’s a team thing. It’s no question.
Terri
Yeah, absolutely. And for those, if you have a healthcare professional that you call in to have a conversation with, right. And they’re like, you know what, I quit and they leave and it’s all done and it’s like, okay, nothing came out of that. Do I report? Do I not report? We think so, but we never had a conversation. They’re gone, we’ll never get it back. You know, I mean, that is a good time to have law enforcement then take over.
John Burke
Yep, exactly. Right. And that’s a scenario that was pretty common. Pretty common when they knew that they were caught and they said, I quit and now what? And yeah, you’re right.
Terri
That makes sense. Yeah. All right, so back to the origins of ihfda. So you guys decided that you wanted a little bit more healthcare focus. Is that the reason that you held that first meeting?
John Burke
Yeah, we, as you know, Natty is primarily law enforcement and there’s nothing wrong with that, but law enforcement, as we just discussed, had minimal interest in healthcare facility diversion. And really where the interest is and where the most of the work is with healthcare professionals. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is. And so we decided, Kim and I decided that be nice to Start something. I was getting ready to retire from Warren County. I’d been there almost 16 years, I guess, and I was getting ready to retire from there, and I had some extra time. And so we decided to go off along with Denny Lubin and even Marsha Stanton, who came a little bit later. We decided to go and get involved in this thing called ihfda. And, you know, there were. There were pitfalls.
John Burke
And Kim and I put up a fair amount of our own money to get things going. We had to get it registered in the state of Ohio. We actually hired a guy to help us, which made it a lot easier. But it was. It was. And don’t get me wrong, we greatly encourage law enforcement to attend, and a little. Few of them do, but it’s. If you look in the room and I usually ask how many are. Most of them are pharmacists in the room and then nursing a second. So, but. So anyway, that’s why we left Natty and started this own endeavor.
Terri
Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I do know that. I think Nadia is trying to get back a little bit more into the. To healthcare and to include that because it is a nice. It would be nice if there was that combination. But again, I mean, so many times, you know, people say, call law enforcement, and then the local law enforcement, they’re just. They’re not interested, probably because they’re not qualified, they’re not trained. Nobody set up that kind of task force like you had the benefit of doing and learning. And it takes time for that partnership. Right. You’re going to invest all that time.
John Burke
And it takes money. And we had a grant. We restarted on a grant. Now the city picked up our expenses later, but you need that initial thing where somebody’s willing to put up. And we started that whole thing on $400,000. It would probably be a million dollars today, and that
has to be there. And the Ohio Pharmacy Board, I can’t give them enough credit. They’re the ones that secured the grants and they’re the ones that came in and helped us. So it was a great partnership.
Terri
Be a nice idea with all of the money that’s out there now from the lawsuits, the opioid crisis and stuff. Yes, that’s an idea of something to do. Yeah. Okay. So how’d you come up with the name ihfda? Do you see I’m sporting IHFDA wear? This was the jacket that we got at the last conference.
John Burke
Yes. By the way, you’re an incredible speaker and presenter, and you’ve done many years, and I really appreciate that.
Terri
So thank you, John. Thank you. Yeah, I was thinking, I don’t remember the first conference. IHFDA conference. I went to the very first one. I don’t remember what year it was, but I want to say I have not missed a year since.
John Burke
First one. First one was in Cincinnati.
Terri
Okay. Have you had it in Cincinnati more than once?
John Burke
No, that was okay.
Terri
Then I came to the first one.
John Burke
Then you’ve been to every one of them.
Terri
Okay, then I’ve been to every one of them.
John Burke
Wow. Yep. Yeah. We started in Cincinnati, obviously, because, well, Danny and I both lived there and we just. It made it a little bit easier that we didn’t have to go out and scout out, you know, a spot and everything. That’s why we started there. We. We only had, I think, two corporate sponsors at that time, and now we have, I think, close to 20. And we had a very small exhibit area, maybe three or four exhibitors. So. But we had, I think we had like 150 attendees. So it wasn’t real bad for the first one.
Terri
Right.
John Burke
And.
Terri
Yeah.
John Burke
Yeah, that was the first place.
Terri
Okay. And I. I don’t know if it was that year or the next year, maybe that I ended up having dinner with your team, which was fun that night. Got to know you guys a little bit more.
John Burke
Was that in St. Louis or where was it?
Terri
I don’t know. I can picture the restaurant, but I can’t tell you what town it was in.
John Burke
Yeah, I think it was St. Louis that we. You went to dinner with us over there. Yes. Yeah. And that was, like I say, we’ve always appreciated your support. Yeah.
Terri
Well, that was fun. It’s a fun group. You had a fun group that started all of this. Okay, so back to the name. Did you agonize over the name or did it just come up?
John Burke
Well, believe it or not, the HF DA Was settled. What came into play was, is it going to be American? Is it going to be national? And frankly, I probably leaned towards National Health Facility Diversion Association. But what Kim said, and she was right. She said, hey, we need to try and make this an international thing. And so that’s where the international came in. We have people from Canada. There were some people from Europe, but they never actually joined. But you do have some Canadian people. But the vast majority of our membership is the United States.
Terri
Yeah. Well, now that you offer virtual options.
John Burke
Yes. You could expand that, right? Yes. And this. Yes, we’re real excited. This new collaboration with ASHP too, by the way. But.
Terri
Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and talk about that a little bit?
John Burke
Well, we. We got approached by ashp, and I’ve been to ASHP meetings many times, as I’m
sure you have, and there’s only like five cities in the country they can hold them because there’s 30,000 pharmacists there. And I’ve done presentations there, and I’ve always been impressed with ashp, and when they came to us and asked to do a kind of a basic program that they wanted to promote, I was. We were actually absolutely thrilled. I mean, it’s just like the big leagues come into the minor leagues and asking for. Asking for us to help them. So we’re in the process of doing that. In fact, I think most of it’s almost done. I did my recording the other day, and I think it’s going to be showcased at the December meeting that they have, I think, in New Orleans.
John Burke
We’re going to be down there with the booth, and then I think it’s going to be ready for people to subscribe or purchase, I understand, maybe like in February or March. So we’re really excited about it. Really excited.
Terri
Diversion is the focus, but what is the healthcare facility?
John Burke
Diversion. So different speakers from IHFDA tackling different subjects.
Terri
Is there intent to offer it as a certification so that people can be trained in how to.
John Burke
You know, I forget. I think there’s. I forget I wasn’t involved in that part.
Terri
Yeah.
John Burke
But, you know, if ASHP is going to do it, though, it’ll be first class.
Terri
Yeah. Some sort of training anyway, to get. Yeah. Which is good because, you know, when you start from scratch and try to train somebody that it would be nice to refer them. Do this first look at all of these educational modules and then we’ll connect.
John Burke
Yeah, I think.
Terri
Yeah.
John Burke
I mean, they took our. We did a basic diversion thing that we still offer, and it’s not. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s. It’s kind of mirrored off of that. That makes sense, right?
Terri
Yeah, makes sense. Okay. All right, let’s get back to a little bit more about John. So how did you meet your wife?
John Burke
Oh, what? I’m sorry?
Terri
How did you meet your wife? Tell us a little bit about her. The woman behind the scenes.
John Burke
Yes. She’s an incredible lady. I met her. I was obviously in the police department, and she worked in the police credit union.
Terri
Okay.
John Burke
And I volunteered to be on the credit committee, they call it. So we would decide on whether somebody would get A loan or not. And she was the person that we talked to, so I got to know her pretty well. Unfortunately, I went through a divorce just before that. And anyway, we eventually started dating and got married. So that was 38 years ago.
Terri
Wow. 38 years ago. Congratulations. Yeah. That’s a long time.
John Burke
Thanks. Yes.
Terri
Wow. You must have been married young the first time around if you’ve been married.
John Burke
To her for 38 years. I was 19 on the 18 on the first one. And so, yes, it was. I always say I’ve been married more than 50 years, just not to the same woman. So she said, credible wife. And as you know, I have some issues now with walking, so she’s kind of a semi caregiver, too. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I’m totally blessed having the wife that I have.
Terri
Yeah. In good times and in bad. Right. I’ll take care of you.
John Burke
Absolutely. And we have 15. We have four kids, 15 grandkids, and six great grandkids.
Terri
Wow.
John Burke
All of them, but four of them live within an hour of me, so.
Terri
That is so fortunate.
John Burke
It is. That’s why I live in Cincinnati, to be honest with you. I would probably live in Florida or South Carolina or maybe Wyoming, who knows? Rather than here. But when your kids and grandkids are all right here, families, as you know, I’m speaking to the choir. As you know, family is everything.
Terri
Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. So how many great grandkids?
John Burke
Six.
Terri
And how old is the oldest? And what is the youngest?
John Burke
The oldest? Yeah, no, the oldest is probably is either four or five.
Terri
Okay.
John Burke
And then they go down from there. So we have six. And obviously we’re going to have more. That’s the.
Terri
It’s the.
John Burke
Probably. Yes.
Terri
Probably.
John Burke
No more grandkids.
Terri
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. A lot of little ones. How often do you guys all do some holidays occasionally together?
John Burke
Oh, yeah. We do all the holidays and we do all the holidays. And then some things in between, too. Maybe not everybody in between, but different, you know, groups who’s ever
available or maybe an event’s going on. Yeah. Everything I have here at the house was meant for grandkids. We have a swimming pool. We have a pond. We have 24 acres. We have a walking path, everything. I don’t use any of it. It’s all. It was all done for four grandkids, so.
Terri
Yeah.
John Burke
So they still come here so far.
Terri
They love it. They enjoy it. I know exactly what you mean. Our house, when our kids were growing up, we tried to do that. You know, a pool table And a pool. And it’s like we want this to be the house where the kids want to come and bring their friends. And we still have that mindset as we’re planning here now in Wyoming for.
John Burke
What we want to do.
Terri
That’s great. That’s a lot of people on your property at one time for every holiday.
John Burke
Yeah, we had my one granddaughter got married here. In fact, I, I have, I’m a, I have a thing where I can marry people in Ohio. I married here on the property. So that was pretty unique and a lot of fun.
Terri
But that is very special. Very, very special. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned you have some law enforcement now in your family, Sons and grandson, I think you said.
John Burke
Yeah.
Terri
Anybody in the medical field?
John Burke
Well, yeah, I have that too. First of all, I have two police officers in one agency. And then I have a third one, a grandson who’s a sheriff’s deputy. And he received the Presidential Medal of Valor that President Biden put on his neck probably a year ago, which I’m very proud of. He saved a lady that drove into a pond to try and kill herself and he went in and rescued her. And so he ended up with the Presidential Medal of Valor, which is really pretty cool. But yes, I have, I’m trying to think how many. I’ve got several nurses. There’s at least two pharmacists. I have two granddaughters in college working on a nursing school. And the one wants to be a doctor and she’s got that ability, I think, if she wants to.
John Burke
So, yes, there’s a lot of them in medical fields that we have in the family.
Terri
Yeah. Do you ever have conversations with them about this whole substance use disorder, diversion? Give them the speech, the warning.
John Burke
Oh, yeah. I’m sure they suffer through some things that I tell them. Yes, the wonders. Chelsea, who’s at children’s, she’s been to a couple of the conferences. She was at the conference in Chicago, actually. And so she’s. Yeah, she’s, she’s gotten into it. Yeah, I, I talked to him a little bit about it. Like you say, the warnings and all of that. But yeah, whether they listen to me, I’m not put very sure. But anyway, and it’s a great group and the one, the. Well, the one pharmacist I had to. The two farm, one’s a grandson and one’s a. My daughter in law and featured both. I featured her in my. I used to write an article for Pharmacy times probably for 10 years, and I featured her in the Mug of the Month club.
John Burke
She made an arrest and we gave her a mug and everything. So they’re. All the medical people were well represented with medical folks.
Terri
Did you say she made an arrest?
John Burke
Yeah, she. She caught it. She caught a forged strip and she called him. They arrested him and her. Her husband. Her husband is one of the police officers. And I joked with him. I said she’s made more felony arrests this week than you have, which was true. And so we. She’s in the mag in pharmacy, Times magazine, holding our mug. We gave her the mug of the month, we called it.
Terri
So anyway, that’s cute. That’s fun. That is really fun.
John Burke
Yeah, I still bring it sometimes.
Terri
Yeah. So you don’t fly, Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So every conference that you’ve had and you’ve already said you’ve never been to the. You’ve never had a conference in the same place twice. So they’re not always close to home. You drive. You and your wife. Did your wife always go?
John Burke
Yep. Well, no, here’s the deal. I used to fly and I’d like. I’d like to tell you some story about how we, you know, went down in the fiery crash and I saved half the plane and all that, but that’s not the case. I was flying in, coming home from Atlanta, in Cincinnati, were. We had to circle the air, the lightning and all kinds. And I hated flying anyway, but I went. And so we. I told myself while I was up there, if I get down on the ground, I’m never flying again. And so
far I’ve kept that promise. So that. That’s it. Nothing. Nothing, you know, extraordinary happened to me. And I used to fly. I just didn’t like it. And I love driving. I’ll be honest with you. I love to drive. We just. We.
John Burke
We went to the Denver one that we all just went to. I went to. I’m kind of a western buff. We went tombstone, Arizona. And Tombstone, Arizona is where. Where the. The big shoot, the OK Corral shootout was at. And Wyatt Earp is from. And Tombstone’s got a lot of history. So we drove tombstone and then we drove up to Denver. But I love to go to all the national parks. We’ve been to a ton of them. Dry. There’s so much stuff you miss in this country if you don’t drive.
Terri
Right.
John Burke
Including Kansas, by the way. I love K. I love your state, too. Wyoming. It’s just. There’s just a lot of beauty and.
Terri
Yeah, yeah, so.
John Burke
So that’s. That’s the bottom line. There’s nothing.
Terri
Okay.
John Burke
I said, I wish I could tell you, fiery crash, They’ve saved a bunch of kids, but not the kids.
Terri
No. But you did have a harrowing experience that made you just like, I, why do I do this to myself?
John Burke
But I’m sure other people on that plane didn’t think twice about it. It was just me, you know, so.
Terri
Oh, okay. Yeah, not that harrowing.
John Burke
No, it was kind of my. It was my last straw, basically.
Terri
Yeah. From being stressed out about it. And you’re right about the driving. I mean, if you have the time and you can enjoy yourself. My son used to laugh at my husband and I
because he’s like, I will get there. I’m going to go, I have my snacks, I stop for the bathroom, and that is it. And then I am on my way. So he’ll do it, like, get up at three in the morning and, you know, try to make it in one day if it’s reasonable, but it might be a long day. Whereas we, when they moved, we drove their car between one of their cars between Colorado and California. And we’re like, oh, we’ll take Haley’s car, his wife’s car, we’ll come get it. He did it in however many hours to go straight, and it took us like four days.
Terri
And he’s like, you guys don’t know how to travel. And we’re like, oh, yeah, we do. We hiked in a couple of places. It’s like, this is how you do it. You don’t have to, like, get there. We’ve got time.
John Burke
We’ve completed most of Route 66 now, too. We’ve. We got down to Flagstaff, Arizona. So we. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the route that ends in Los Angeles. So when went to Tombstone, we finished another leg of it, so we’ve only got a few hundred miles more to go.
Terri
Yeah, yeah. No, it’s fun. It can be fun if you’ve got the time, most definitely. And, you know, I’d like to travel more. And of course it’s all time, but my husband and I talk about it. There’s so much in the US that we haven’t seen that, you know, let’s spend some time in the US Doing that travel. Everybody thinks, oh, Europe, which, you know, we’d love to go there as well. But it’s like, well, let’s explore the US a little bit. There’s. And we have done more of that after moving to Wyoming because we’re More in the middle.
John Burke
Yes.
Terri
You know, a friend of mine. Yeah. I have a friend of mine in San Diego as well, too. And they do a lot in their sprinter, and she’s like, we’re in the elbow of the US it’s like anywhere we got to get out of here first, you know. But now that we’re in Wyoming, we can.
John Burke
You’re relatively close to, like, Southern Utah, where Zion national park is. And Bryce. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but those are incredible places.
Terri
We’ve done both of those places. We’ve gone into South Dakota and.
John Burke
Yeah.
Terri
Yeah. Some beautiful places up in there, definitely. What was your favorite host city for a conference?
John Burke
You know, I probably have to say Nashville. We were at Nashville with Natty several times, and I just. I like Nashville for a lot of reasons, I guess. And then. But the Nashville conference that we had, I guess it’s been two or three years ago, was very nice. And sometimes, you know, sometimes when you’re talking about a conference, it depends on your experience at the hotel. In other words, was it a good experience or not? And that can make the difference. We had a good experience in Nashville. No question. The other place I like is where we just were, and that’s Denver, because there’s so much stuff right outside of Denver. Estes national park, or you go west to the mountains. And, I mean, there’s an enormous amount of stuff right around Denver, so. But if I had to pick, it was. It’d be.
John Burke
Probably be Nashville.
Terri
Yeah. And you’re right. Your perspective is different than the attendee because you. It’s logistics for you guys. And what. But that was fun. That was a fun conference. And you had the buses that took us to some places, and that was my. I think your conference there might have been my first time in Nashville. Yeah, I think so. Since then, there have been a couple other things going on there that I’ve had to go into Nashville for. But I think maybe the IHFT conference was the first time I’ve been there, and I really enjoyed it.
John Burke
Yeah, it’s a neat place. And, you know, what we did was we put a thing out about. That’s how we ended up in Denver. We put a thing out with, like, three or four cities and said, pick them. It was Nashville or Denver was by far the first choice.
Terri
Interesting. Okay. Well, I liked it. I could drive. There’s one. I could.
John Burke
Yes.
Terri
Yeah.
John Burke
I know it’s good for you, especially if you. Somebody drop you off. Right.
Terri
And I did.
John Burke
I know you did. I know you did. I remember.
Terri
Yeah. So are there any behind the scenes or bloopers with IHFTA that you can share? I mean, I’m sure that it was a lot of work getting things organized. You guys have grown tremendously. I know your board, the number of your board members is expanding, it
seems exponentially. And so a lot of growth there. But I can just picture you guys the night before or the week before just completely exhausted trying to organize logistics. But any bloopers or nightmares you recall?
John Burke
Well, you hit the nail on the head. Number one, we have an incredible staff now. The staff has gotten better since day one. I mean, it’s just an incredible bunch of people. And yes, the conference is probably the last few weeks. There’s always something going on as far as there’s a problem here or somebody wants this, somebody wants to register for half the classes and how much would that cost? And kind of. There’s just things that come up constantly. But, you know, eventually this hotel we had in Denver actually worked very well with us. And that’s the other part. Is the hotel flexible. That can make your experience a lot better if they’re willing to work with. Because things pop up and you forget things. I can remember one year we forgot to ask about having Internet in the room.
John Burke
Well, when you get to the conference and you haven’t put that in your contract, it’s $1,000 a day. And. Yeah. And so, you know, we eventually worked that out. A thousand dollars for the whole conference. But then eventually you learn in the contracts are really important because you need to get things in there like the Internet, which saves you a ton of money. And, and if you’re not.
Terri
Smart enough, which you would think was a given.
John Burke
Exactly. And you know, all that is they go over and flip a switch. It’s not like you gotta bring 14 people in to set up a bunch of wires. So it’s definitely a thing. But I’m sure they all love it when we don’t put in a contract. So we learned from that. So you learn things like that save money. And working with the hotels are. And Marsha is the one that works with the hotel on. In Denver. She did a great job. One I want to tell you about one time, and it was with Natty actually, and were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and were. We had finished the last full day and the next day was to be a half day and were done. And so that night we had. They had like a.
John Burke
Those days we had like a get together the last evening. And I can remember, well, were there and all of a sudden all the lights went out. And I mean, all the lights went out and the bottom line was they had a big ice storm. The hotel did not have a generator. And so what happened was. So you went back to your room and my room was pitch black. And the only way you could find the restroom is I had to. Took my cell phone and turn it on to find your way to the bathroom and.
Terri
Oh, wow.
John Burke
So anyway, the next morning it was cold, of course, and we got through it, but the lights
never did come on before we left. So we all left. Fortunately, it happened on the last night. It could have happened, you know, earlier than that, but that was a, that was one you don’t forget, that’s for sure. It’s, it was something else. When you got, I don’t know, we had probably 2, 300 people there that and the lights went out. They were all like on a, in a big conference area, just talking, socializing and all of a sudden the lights were gone.
Terri
Like, whoops.
John Burke
Yep, yep. And of course you think like any other time, well, they’ll come back on in 10 minutes. Know how some things are now. It was, it was a day and a half and they still didn’t go on. So that’s probably the blooperous kind of thing. But there’s a ton of stuff if somebody decides to do this. There’s just, there’s just a lot of. And like I said, the hotel, picking the hotel and the contract and doing some shopping around and doing some negotiating, you know, there’s negotiations you can do with them. They may say, hey, we’re gonna charge you. You need to spend $60,000 a day and no, we’re only going to spend 30 or 40.
John Burke
So there’s ways to work it around and somebody that I would suggest, if you have an organization that you probably find a person that’s good and likes it and then keep them so that they have that experience to do it year after year, if that makes sense. Putting new people in, learning every year is not a good idea. Doesn’t.
Terri
Right, right. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And the food as well too. You guys have done a great job. I am no longer a meat eater, so it’s like, oh, what options are you going to have? And I know there are others the same position too with those dietary things and so trying to kind of keep all of that in mind. Even if that, you know, it’s not the first nature for somebody who eats everything to kind of think about like, oh well, what are other options?
John Burke
Right. And a good hotel is flexible too. You come in and say, hey, I’m a vegan or a vegetarian or maybe I have other issues. They should be able to adjust to that. But you know, some places, that’s why I say the hotel, you pick. You know, we’ve always pretty much gone with brand name hotels, whether it’s Marriott or Hyatt or whatever and they’re usually the ones that have the space too. It’s not that you couldn’t do a different kind of hotel, but a lot of those places don’t have space for 2, 300 people.
Terri
Yeah, they’re more hotel.
John Burke
All right, exactly.
Terri
That makes sense.
John Burke
Exactly.
Terri
Well, you’re retiring at the end of the year, so. So do you have any other plans for what you’re going to do with the time you’re going to get back or are you just going to enjoy that family of yours?
John Burke
Well, I’m definitely going to join the family. That’s number one. But I have, I’m doing a series on farm Con now about pharmacy robbery. So I’m doing a little bit of stuff there. But that’s, you know, it’s not, that doesn’t take up a lot of my time and I go, My wife called, tells me that I have what they call, I call, she calls play dates. So about two times a week at least I have a luncheon with retired police officers and we sit around and tell lies and other stories and eat lunch.
Terri
Oh, they’re grown.
John Burke
But it gets you, get you out of the house and get you doing things rather than sitting and doing nothing. So I’m not a very good sit and do nothing person, so.
Terri
Yeah, I can imagine that. Yeah.
John Burke
Yeah. So, so that’s it. But as far as anything real involved and I’m telling you, the people, I’m leaving IHFDA in just incredible shape. I couldn’t be happier this last year. I should have probably left a year ago is the truth. I mean I’ve been kind of a figurehead. These people have run this thing. Any good thing there is to say at the conference is totally their deal, not mine. And I feel totally comfortable. I get guests and leaving it in their hands, if that makes sense.
Terri
Right. Yeah, no, they, things run very smoothly. They do really do a great job. Do you think we’ll see you at any conferences in the future?
John Burke
I think that’s possible again. We like to travel, you know, next year is in Frisco just north of Dallas where were once before. And that’s a great venue also. So, yeah, I might, I mean, I’ve got a lot of old friends there like you and a lot of other folks. So maybe, I guess the answer would.
Terri
Be if it works with your travel plans.
John Burke
Yeah, exactly. And of course I have to talk to the boss. You know, she has some input too, so.
Terri
Yes, absolutely. All right. Well, this was nice. This was nice. Some of this I knew, some of it, a lot of it I didn’t know. So it’s nice getting to know you a little bit better. Do not be a stranger. Stay in touch. And thank you for sharing this time.
John Burke
Thank you, Terri. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
