Origin Stories: The Accidental Investigator

How did a summer job at an amusement park lead to running a private investigations firm? 

Let’s just say the path was not direct. 

Molly Donaldson has one of the most interesting and varied PI origin stories around. She’s done a little bit of everything. But her story is not about indecision. It’s about experimentation. Her way of finding a professional sweet spot is to try on lots of career hats. Think of it as an investigation of herself, her talents, and her fascinations. Each job gets her closer to finding out what she does best and enjoys most. 

In this episode, you'll find out why finding out what you DON'T want to do is half the battle, why "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is the wrong question, and what to ask kids (or yourself) instead.

Contact Molly Donaldson at her company site, Waverly Research.

FInd her on LinkedIn.

Host: Hal Humphreys 

Guest: Molly Donaldson

Music provided by Jason White, who composed our theme.

Special thanks to Kim Green, who produced this episode.

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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.

In this podcast, you'll find episodes that dive deep into the work and the business of private investigations. And at PI Education's YouTube channel, you can dive even deeper into the knowledge pool of this fascinating profession, with regular briefings and webinars. Subscribe to stay up to date!

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Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:02

How did a summer job at an amusement park lead to running a private investigations firm? Let's just say the path wasn't direct. My guest today has probably the most interesting PI origin story I've ever heard. She's done a little bit of everything, but her story is not about indecision, it's about experimentation. Her way of finding a professional sweet spot is to try on lots of hats. Think of it as an investigation of herself, her talents, and her inclinations. Each job gets her closer to finding out what she does best and enjoys most. We'll hear about it when we come back.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

To get more intel on the real work of Private Eyes, subscribe to our YouTube channel, readPursuitMag.com, and take classes at PIEducation.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to The Sound of Pursuit. I'm Hal Humphreys, your host. My guest today is Molly Donaldson. She's a private investigator who owns her own solo practice, Waverly Research, specializing in litigation support, due diligence, and workplace investigations. Her career took a lot of turns before she got here, but I'm going to let her tell you that story. Molly, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. It's good to see your face. Tell us a little bit about how you got here. And I've I've I've got some I've got some Kim Green, my wife, and our um executive producer here at the Sound of Pursuit, puts together a show sheet. So I'm going to kind of step through this because we've got a chronology to get through. But, you know, one of the things that that Kim and I talked about before we put this together is this notion of when you're when you're kids, uh, people say, what do you want to be when you grow up? Um and it feels like there's pressure on the kids to declare, you know, a fixed identity way too early. And it kind of tells kids that you are what you do for work, but who we are is so many things other than that. So did your parents ask you that question when you were a kid? And how did they guide your interests and ambitions?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me uh on today, Hal. I really appreciate it. And, you know, I always love chatting with you. So this is gonna be fun, and I'm looking forward to our talk. Um, you know, I always hated that question. I always felt like it was really difficult for me to come up with just one answer. But um, you know, I right now I periodically volunteer with high school kids through junior achievement. And uh, you know, I'm doing mock interviews or talking to them about career choices and things like that. And I always wonder about the feedback that their teachers get about the investigator who is like really emphatically assuring them that they don't need to worry about what they're gonna be at age 17 because it will probably change about 14 times. Um, you know, and a lot of kids just I think that they feel this pressure to to decide. I think I did for sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Um do you recall what you said when when people asked you that question when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, it was, I mean, I I had my answer. Um, you know, my initially when I was a kid, I really wanted to be a marine biologist. And then I really wanted to be a doctor, and that was always my answer, and that was sort of the path that I was moving through. So growing up, um, I grew up in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and um my father had his own landscape architecture firm, and so he uh had his own uh employees and his office was out of the basement of our house. And I just never really thought about that being for me. I figured that I would take a very traditional career path. Um, and my mom was a teacher and really encouraged me to explore careers as much as I could from an early age. So when it was you want to be a marine biologist, okay, the Minnesota Zoo has a zoo teen volunteer program, go do that. Do you want to be a doctor? Okay, well, go volunteer at the hospital. And I did a really interesting mentor program in high school. I got to like shadow doctors and watch a kidney transplant at the U, and it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Oh, that's crazy. Um, did did you ever think about moving to Woods Hole at any point as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

So, you know, you you you get through that process, you're a kid, you're about to head off to college. You apparently you had this really specific idea, this path in mind when you get to college, but when you went off to college, but you know, that changed. What happened?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So I was pre-med. I was convinced that I was going to go into family practice medicine. Um, and my freshman year, I joined a number of other pre-med students. We all kind of had this idea that maybe if we received training as EMTs, we would be, you know, uh better candidates in applying to med school and in applying to uh jobs uh that would potentially get us there. So uh I received my EMT certification and went to work at a local amusement park, Valley Fair. Uh, it's the one big amusement park here in the Twin Cities. Um and so my goal, I really wanted to work in the first aid station. That was all I really wanted to do. I had run a ride there before and I knew all about the park and what was going on. But they filled that slot with some guy who was going into the Coast Guard. And so they told me that if I wanted to be an EMT in the park, I also had to be a security officer. So I was this 19-year-old who just wanted to be a doctor, and then they gave me an aspeton in handcuffs and told me to arrest people.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

That is so awesome. So so you you in and in my host intro, I talked about the fact that how did a a job at an amusement park lead you to a career in private investigations? Um, you get out of college, um, your first job in New York, what was it and what did you learn there?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

So that that amusement park job really uh got me interested in criminal justice. I changed my major and um, you know, I I ended up uh going through grad school and studying uh criminal justice there as well. Um my first job in New York, I had just turned 23. I my first time to New York City was my job interview. Um, and I was terrified, but I had decided all along in looking at uh at potential careers that maybe I wanted to do investigations. The thing for me is that I had studied use of force, I had studied law enforcement policy and ethics, and um I just I knew that carrying a weapon and being an armed law enforcement agent was not for me. And so I felt that that was really limiting. So I landed in a position that was one of the few investigator roles in the city that wouldn't require me to be a sworn law enforcement officer. So I was a civilian investigator with the civilian complaint review board.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Um yeah, and that that role was really appealing to me. Um, and it was probably the best learning experience and the way to really jump into investigations than I that I could have ever imagined. Um at the time, so this is like 2000 is when I joined. So I'm dating myself. But uh at the time the agency was really expanding. It was filled with investigators who are mostly these 20-somethings just out of college, um, which is a really interesting dynamic when you've got uh a really young investigative uh group looking at these seasoned NYPD officers and analyzing their conduct and and running the investigations. Um, each team was managed by a retired federal agent or a detective. So I actually learned a lot from a former SAC. Uh he was with the ATF for his whole career. Um and so that was the best, really the best opportunity. So there were a lot of mornings, the interview room area was filled with police officers and union representatives and attorneys, and we would go in and do our own interviews on our cases. We would I would second seat as many as I could so I could see other investigators and their interview techniques. Um, we were routinely out at Rikers and uh talking to folks out there. We did field work, and so it's probably not an exaggeration to say that during my three years working there, it's probably in almost every neighborhood in the city. And I mean, what better place to learn?

SPEAKER_02 9:43

How amazing! And I'm sure all of the police officers were very happy to see you guys and be there.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

They loved us, yes, especially, you know, some 23-year-old girl from the Midwest. Um, and I you I really I use that to my advantage. Yeah, and they didn't know my background, they didn't know anything about me. And um so it was it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

I can't think of a better way to learn how to do this work that we do now than being a young person in an environment like that where you get to you get to witness other people doing the work that have experienced that kind of stuff. That's that's incredibly cool. Was there a specific case that that that hit you um that that you think of still to this day that that that you know taught you things you still use and rely on today?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah, that really there was one that that was early on in my career there. Um, I probably had been with the agency for less than a year, maybe even less than six months. Um, and uh that one I was assigned to this case. It looked like it was a pretty easy stop and frisk complaint, and which is probably why it landed on my docket. Um, and so one day after all of the union reps had gone home and the lawyers were gone for the day, um, I was told that this officer was in the lobby waiting, waiting for me and asking to be interviewed. So this was really unusual. And my supervisors and I chatted about it and um agreed that I should interview him, even though uh it wasn't, I didn't have the documents back. I wasn't ready to do the interview. But since it was such an easy open-shut case in our minds, they sent me out to do it. So um he had brought paperwork with him, he had all the right, all the right answers and a really plausible story. Um, but at that point, something really nagged at me. And uh I was working closely with another investigator, and we both just felt like something was was up. And so I waited a couple of weeks and we got the 911 call tapes from the NYPD. And back at that time, I mean, we're talking about cassette tapes, we're talking about uh, you know, we would send investigators out to get information from internal affairs and from NYPD directly, and it would be two investigators would go out a couple times a week and get information for a hundred other investigators. Um, it was it was really antiquated and uh, you know, so I'm sitting there with the police uh 911 call cassette tape, and I listened to it and I immediately recognized the voice. And this caller was using police jargon. It just was such a familiar voice to me. So we started playing the tape of my interview with this officer against the 911 call tape, and it was so clear to me that it was the same person. It wasn't as clear to other folks, and it took a lot of convincing of uh, you know, my supervisors that that's what it was. Um, but this was also at a time when we didn't have IDI and TLO, we didn't have the ability to send it out for analysis. We were working on kind of a shoestring city, you know, agency budget, and we had to get really creative. And so for me, that was really a huge uh a huge point where I was able to learn and I was able to uh to sort things out. And so at that agency, we had a weird mix of ways that we could get information. Um, like I said before, we would wait weeks for for some of our documents. Um, but we also had administrative subpoenas, we were able to get phone records, we were able to piece things together um that way. So it took a while. Um, but eventually I was able to uh to bring it back for interview, and we were able to piece together that he had uh actually made the call from a cell phone that he had access to. It wasn't his own cell phone.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

And the the thing that that's you know in the back of my mind is why?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

What what happened? So yeah, and and what we figured out was that he had been trying to bolster his numbers, he was really gunning to be part of a specialized unit, and um, and that was what was driving that. There were also some other factors, probably personally, um, but you know, and even today, so this case happened so many years ago, but it sticks with me. And I was I was speaking with one of my colleagues uh yesterday about a case that seemed really straightforward, and the ones that seem straightforward just uh the ones that never are.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

When things when things when things fit together too neatly, it it makes those of us who are skeptics kind of think, wait a minute, something else is going on here. So um I that's an incredible story. I I love the fact that that happened to you young in your career. Um, we've we've talked about we Molly and I have spent a decent amount of time together discussing our various work, and and I came to this work relatively late. Um, you know, I was probably 35 when I started my PI career. Um, and I made some massive gaps along the way. And the the ability to kind of get into it at a younger age and and learn from people that know what they're doing, that is incredible. Um so you you spend time in New York working with the civilian complaint board, you do that thing, and apparently that's just not enough to tickle all the things you want to be tickled. So you go to law school. Why did you decide to go to law school? And what was the plan for after law school? Did you want to practice law?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I thought I did. Yeah, so so I was at the CCRB during a really interesting time. Um I started in 2000, and of course, right after I'd been there uh just over a year, we had 9-11. And uh, you know, so it was it was a really strange and difficult and crazy time in New York. Our office was a couple of blocks away from the World Trade Center. Uh, so we, you know, New York changed so much, the perceptions of police changed so much during that time as well. Uh, so the investigations that we were doing really had to change also. Um, a lot of the people that I worked with there, uh we had made a commitment to stay a couple of years with the agency when we were hired. I mean, that's not that unusual. And uh people were starting to think about their next move. And a lot of folks were moving on to grad school and to law school or to other investigation roles. So um I really thought that I wanted to be a prosecutor and um, you know, started off at night going to night school and working during the day as an investigator. Um, and then eventually went to school full-time. And I got a job working at the DA's office as a paralegal. So at one point I was actually sitting in Robert Morgenthau's office explaining to him why I wanted to be a paralegal in his office and why I wanted to eventually be a prosecutor and this kind of idealistic rant of mine. I I mean, that was what I believed at the time. Um, but law school also taught me that I didn't want to be a litigator and I didn't want to have to stand up in court every day. That just isn't me. Um, I really like the research, I like talking to people and doing the writing, but I didn't want to have to argue a case before a judge. Um, and then I also found that working at the CCRB in the DA's office was a little too much. I spent six years meeting like some of the best cops in the world, and then I also met some of the worst, and I was really concerned about making a career where um, you know, so many people had been talking to me about what they had done, and they were either trying to stay out of trouble or they were just trying to make their case, and I had a really difficult time trying to reconcile that.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

It seems like you've got this moral compass that kind of points you, not just moral compass, but kind of a life compass that points you in in different directions at times. But there's a there's a true north there that says something feels wrong about this. Um, so you you you get through grad, you get through law school, you take the bar. You you thought you want to be a prosecutor, but you decided you didn't want to do that. What did you do next?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, so I ended up, I mean, I didn't get too far from from law enforcement. So I ended up in the NYPD's legal bureau. Um, and to be honest, I was really miserable there. Uh I had some fun projects and cases, but a lot of my work was defending FOIA cases that had been filed against the department. And that was definitely that was not my jam.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

That seemed mind-numbing.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

It was. It was. I mean, we had some fascinating things. I got to the point where where there were a lot of days where I felt the opinions I was writing, the things I was doing was just to tell people no all the time. And if I was going to be a lawyer, I didn't want to be that type of lawyer. I wanted to be the kind of lawyer who had the ability to come up with creative legal solutions and not just say no.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

So I was sitting in my drab cubicle one day and I got this really odd phone call out of the blue. Uh, and it was from Tom Willingham at Griffin. Um, so he was the founder of Griffin Strategies, and he had found this is how old it was. He had found my resume on monster.com. It had been sitting on monster.com for a while, and um he called wondering if I was interested in private investigations.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

And for for those of our listeners that are out there in the world of private investigators and are paying the attention at all, you'll you'll recognize the last name Willingham. Um, is that where you met Brian Willingham?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

That is where I met Brian.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

So that, you know, the time microphone was really great. Um, suddenly I was able to do all of this interesting work. I was doing Martin interviews, I was working with some really interesting people. Um I, you know, for the first time I was exposed to a lot of the online tools that I hadn't had as an investigator for the city. Um, and I was able to uh I actually ended up bringing in one of my old CCRB buddies, um, an investigator I'd worked with pretty closely there, Eric Naraki. And so he joined me at Griffin also. And we worked with Tom on um pretty fun insurance fraud cases. Um and I worked on on some class actions cases as well. And so um, you know, on one the it were some days I was learning all about credit default swaps, not so fun. Um, and then other days uh I was running up and down the east coast. Um, we were working on a really interesting case about a possibly dead palm reader. And so at one point it it I mean it it culminated in Eric and I is standing in this old cemetery debating grave locations with this really connected detective and his uh informant. Um and it was great.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

That's the thing about this work of private investigators. There's so many avenues down which we can go. Um, you did bring up an interesting thing that that I have noticed in the private investigative world. Um I worked on a case several years ago that ended me um in handcuffs in a police interview room because I had recovered some stolen goods and I tried to call the police before I did it. I called the police immediately afterwards, they answered the phone. Then, long story short, um we were trying to, once they undid the handcuffs and we got to have a conversation with the detective on call, he was trying to locate a good address for this suspect. And I had enough information that he allowed me to log into TLO on his computer, and I found some stuff, and he's like, What is that service you just used? I'm like, You guys don't have this? Um it's interesting the way resources are kind of spread out over different areas. On the private side, we know a lot of bizarro resources that we can go to. Um, on the public side, a lot of times they are constrained with what they have to work with and and they're not allowed to go to outside sources and that kind of stuff for very specific reasons. Um, but I I love that story. And so you go from um an amusement park to college to working um with with the New York Civil Complaints Division to law school. You get out of law school, you work for the NYPD for a while, doing some research and stuff like that, not thrilling to you. You get this random call from uh Tom Willingham saying, Hey, I'd like you to come work with me. You do that for a while. We're up to about 2009 by my calculations. Um, and around this time you made another big change. What did you do after you left Griffin and why did you do it?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah, yeah. Um, and Griffin was so much fun, and I I really enjoyed it. But I had the opportunity to move back to DC. And um I had always enjoyed law enforcement policy when I was in grad school. Um, like I said, I was really interested in in um the use of force, and so I got the opportunity to work for the police executive research forum. Um, and so that is a group comprised of uh police chiefs, law enforcement executives from uh throughout the country, actually they're international members as well. Um they have very specific requirements, and uh, you know, you have to have a certain level of education, and it's a really thoughtful place. I was able to work with some really intelligent folks when I was there, and um, it gave me the opportunity to visit police departments and crime labs across the country. I even Canada and the UK. We hosted meetings and published reports and guides for uh the industry. And so I was able to travel a ton um and really sit at a few tables with folks that I never would have met otherwise. Um and so uh I was able to keep keep busy at that job, but I also really wanted to still be doing some of the investigations, and I was able to continue to do that. I did some due diligence projects, I did uh a lot of interviewing, I continued to do some of the class action interviews on the side. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

So I yeah, it was you you you you land yourself a job in policy research and a side hustle of PI work. That sounds pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Pretty much. It was fun. It was just me. Um, you know, I my now husband stayed up in New York, so we were busy and going back and forth all the time, but uh I had a lot of extra time.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Now, are there any specific things you learned in that time frame? You're there for about three years, plus or minus.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Yeah, I I I really learned a lot of time management, which for me was something that that I had always done. I'm not good at sitting still, and I usually have about three, four, ten things going on. Squirrel. Um pretty much. I mean, at the time, so I was I I was working and traveling and had my PI side hustle, and I was also training for traplons and uh did an Iron Man. So that uh that took up a lot of time.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Wow, time management. That's gonna come in handy downstream when we get to running your own business. But in the meantime, yes, um you're now married, your husband gets a gets an assignment overseas, and you decide to go with him. What did you do when you were overseas? Number one, where were you and what did you do while you were there?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yeah. So we were in Italy. I I bounced back and forth for that year between Italy and New York, but spent most of my time in Italy with him. Um I quit my day job and decided to just focus on kind of trying to relax a little bit and also work on um on the investigations. I just was working freelance. I didn't have my own company at that time. I was working under uh other folks's licenses. Um and uh but it did teach me a lot. I learned a lot about VPNs that year, being in Europe and trying to uh to access a lot of the tools that we use. Um, and it was really a chance for me to regroup and try and figure out what I wanted to do at the end of that year and if I wanted to go back to a firm full-time, or if I wanted to try and uh try and make a go of it on my own.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

And the ultimate decision was to try and make a go of it on your own. Um 2014, you found Waverly Research. Tell us that story.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah. So that was that was challenging for me. Um, I I grew up with my dad having his own business, but I really never thought that I would uh do it myself. I also, you know, when your folks are doing that, I saw how my parents struggled through some of uh some of the lean times of that business. And I didn't really want that, but I was in a really good situation where we had um we had a second income and a full-time income, and I had that buffer as well. So I really did it less because I was driven to do it and more because um it was becoming more and more difficult to freelance without having an LLC and without incorporating. Um, and also by having my own license, I knew that I wasn't going to necessarily have all my eggs in one basket. I'd be able to open up more opportunities and work with more clients. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Um, so you do that, you start your own firm. Um, and Molly, one of the things that you know, people like you, people like me, people like most of our friends that we know in this business, um running the business is a lot more difficult than investigating cases. We know how to go out and interview witnesses and gather information to those things, but how did you make all the tough decisions about growth, hiring, bringing on partners, specializing, marketing, pricing, those kind of things? It's brand new stuff to think about.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, it could be really hard. Um, one of the biggest challenges for me, I think, was that I was never a manager at an investigative firm. I think a lot of the folks that we know, especially, they they moved up at least a couple of levels in in a firm before they went out on their own. And they did it very deliberately. And so for me, I never had that period of time where I was doing the proposals and the budgets and the scoping of work on a regular basis. I was just doing the work. And um, so I I trained other investigators, um, but I was also afforded the time to do that by uh the agency or the organization where I worked. So the business side of it all was really challenging uh to me. Um, at the beginning, I had a couple of really great mentors. You talked about Brian Williamham. Um, Brian had also gone out on his own um before I did. And so I was able to uh to pepper him with plenty of questions, and he was just so gracious and sharing a lot of his lessons learned. Um, one of the other challenges for me, though, is that at that time in particular, I really felt like I didn't have a lot of female role models. Um, there weren't a lot of women in the business. There weren't a lot of women in the business with small children. At that time, I had I had um one and was on the verge of having two small children. And uh, you know, I didn't have those role models. I wasn't sure that I could um I could really juggle everything. So um it's probably that that led me to really subcontract for firms and find a comfort level in doing that. A lot of folks, that's not really um something that they like to do, but I enjoy being able to collaborate with other investigators and um have those clients that really get it. And with that, I'm not having to do uh management of the final end client.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

You know, at the same time, I've worked, I've worked uh up to having a good roster of my own clients and my own uh, you know, law firms and folks that I work with routinely. Um and but that's taken me probably a little more time to get there and to have that comfort level. Same thing with bringing on employees. I'm just not at that place yet. I really um there are a lot of days that I think that it would be great to do and I probably should be doing it. Um, but I want to make sure that that that decision is made very deliberately and that I'm at a place where I can maintain the work and also give that attention to someone who needs that help.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Yeah, and I think for for a lot of people in the PI world, a lot of us work by ourselves. We're solo practitioners. We're we're out there hustling doing the thing. Um it, you know, you you feel like you're in a in a in a cave working by yourself sometimes. I I like the process of subcontracting with other investigators. You know, Molly and I are both part of a mastermind group where we get together once a year and we share ideas and talk about those things. Being on this podcast is another way to share information with other investigators, a way for people to kind of learn what the business is like and those kind of things. I think it's important that we do that. You know, one of the things that that Brian Willingham has done uh over and over is he shares his his knowledge, he shares his uh notions of how to run a business and how to do investigations. And I think that's critical that we we you know stay up to date on those things. Um let me ask you this. Take us to the present. In your estimation, how would you say it's going? What are your days like? And have you found the perfect job for Molly Donaldson yet?

SPEAKER_01 34:59

I think so. I think so. I mean, it's really a lot of days are challenging. And um right now I found that I've been, I I've created more of a niche for myself uh on doing the interview work. I do a lot of a lot of uh litigation investigation, a lot of due diligence work as well. But um the interview work I love the scheduling for that is really hard at times. Um and it can be really exhausting, particularly when I'm working on workplace investigations. Yeah. So I try to have a decent mix of the type of work that I'm doing, um, and and work that I can definitely do at odd hours. Um, because really I'm at a place right now that I still find it really hard to balance everything. And I'm drawing on those lessons learned from from time management not always well. Um, but I mean, it's the same for all of us, right? And so many of us are being pulled in a zillion different directions, and um, I'm trying to keep up with clients and colleagues and continuing education. Uh I still maintain my law licenses, so I have more continuing ed credit due to various states than I would ever care to admit.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Um, and then at the same time, family commitments and the kids, and I'm on some nonprofit boards and volunteer leadership teams and things like that. So it's overwhelming at times, but I don't think I would change it at all.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Yeah, and thinking about changing things, you know, looking back, um, are you glad you went through all those different phases in your career? Is there anything you wish you'd done differently?

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Yeah, I don't think I I don't think I would have wound up where I am today if I had had a linear path. There's no way that I would have gotten here. Um, you know, each of those different experiences is a really important piece to to that foundation. And it's just taught myself a lot about not only what I want to do, but I think it's just as important in having a you know a college internship or having you know a job to learn what you don't want to do. And you know, why spend your time doing that if you don't want to do it?

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Yeah, I think um for me, one of the most entertaining things in life is to say, hey, this isn't doing it for me. What's next? Um, and it yeah, the the the reason I wanted to walk through kind of um your past and kind of take take this path through how you got to where you are today is I think it's informative for people out there that are maybe mid-career thinking, what might I like to do? And I think Molly and I would both say if you're curious, if you're um inquisitive, if you like to get to the bottom of things, you might consider a path that would lead you to private investigations. Um I it it is we we've had this conversation a number of times with with our friends group. Um this is quite possibly the most fun way to earn a living I can think of. Uh there's never there's never a boring day. Um there's always something entertaining going on. So let me ask you one final question. Um, if you could talk to a young person who's dreaming about what they might do one day, what question would you ask them instead of what do you want to be when you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yeah. I think it boils down to really what kind of work do you enjoy? What do you what do you enjoy? And then figure out a way to make that fit into a role that you think might work for you. So for me, it really boils down to I would like to dig for that information. I like to research, and I like helping people, and helping people can take so many different forms. Yeah. And so, really, I mean, that's what we're doing. We're we're getting information for folks. Yeah. And it incorporates both of those.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah, I I feel the same way. Absolutely fantastic. Um, Molly, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Look, I do this to everybody, so forgive me, but we're gonna we're gonna do a real quick round of questions. Um I've I've truncated it from the normal five to four. Um, did you by chance have and and answer quickly with the first thing that comes to mind? Did you have a fictional detective that you thought was amazing when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Yeah. Uh Claudia and Jamie Kincaid from uh The Mixed Up Files, and this is Basile Frankweiler.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, I want to give you a little bit of the Met.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Is there a private detective um or favorite fictional detective now that you think is a really cool example?

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Yeah. Probably any Andre Brouwer detective uh I enjoy, but uh probably uh Frank Pembleton, but Raymond Holt would also work too.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Okay. Um do you have a favorite classic mystery novel or series that you enjoyed when you were younger?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Definitely Nancy Drew. That was one I got into.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

And I'm gonna admit this: I have some Nancy Drew books on the shelf that were my grandmother's, and I'm actually gonna go back and read them again. Um let's see here. Last question book, show, or movie that gets the closest to showing how real investigators work.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

Probably a toss up for me. Uh uh working by Robert Carrow really touches on research. So that one I love. Um, but also, I mean, The Modern Detective by Tyler Moroney. It was the first book that really uh really resonated with me and what I do on the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Yeah, and and Tyler's way of telling the story. So for those listening that don't know the name Tyler Moroney, Tyler is an amazing private investigator. Um, he used to be a journalist, which a lot of us in this field have dipped a toe into journalism waters at some point in our career. Um, but he he's not only um a dogged investigator, he is an incredibly talented writer. So um the modern investigator, is that what it's called?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Modern detective.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

The modern detective. Um if you have not picked up a copy of it, go pick up a copy of it. Really good stuff. Molly, um, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Sure. Either my website, Waverly Research, uh, or through LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Waverly Research or through LinkedIn. We'll have links to both those underneath this podcast. Molly, I can't wait to see what you do next. And thank you so much for being here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Well, thank you so much for having me, Hal, and thanks to Kim and Stephanie as well.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

They do a fantastic job.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

They do.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

And since we have nothing else, that is your Sound of Pursuit for this week. I'm Hal Humphries. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

You've been listening to the Sound of Pursuit, a podcast by Pursuit magazine and PI education.