Strategic advisor  ·  Public safety ecosystem

Anyone can tell you what you want to hear.
I'm interested in the truth.

I work with a small number of companies in the public safety ecosystem — on retainer, over time — helping them see clearly, plan honestly, and execute using the right people and resources.

Jon Whirledge — stipple portrait

"I'm not a typical consultant. I diagnose, build the plan, and connect you to exactly who you need to execute it. Then I stay in the room."

Most growing companies in this space don't have a strategy problem. They have a clarity problem and a connections problem. I fix both.

My background is operational. I've been a CFO, a VP of Strategic Development, and a founder. I've been in the room where the decisions get made — and I've seen what happens when the wrong people are in that room.

I work on retainer with a small number of clients. That means you get real access — not a junior associate running your account and a recycled framework dressed up as insight.

Retainer & advisory engagements only

01

Business operations

Find the friction. Fix the process. Build the systems that let your team scale without you being in every decision. Most operational problems are clarity problems in disguise.

02

Business development

Revenue strategy, partnership structure, market positioning. Who you should be talking to, how to get in front of them, and what to say when you do.

03

Strategic connections

24 years of relationships across the public safety ecosystem. When you need a resource, a partner, or an introduction — I know who to call, and they pick up.

I spent a year asking the wrong questions. Then the right one revealed itself.

After 24 years inside public safety — as a CFO, a VP, and a founder — I started pulling a thread. It began with a failed startup, an unexpected exposure to blockchain technology, and a simple question: where else does the integrity of a record matter?

The answer kept coming back to public safety. AI is already inside the 911 ecosystem — triaging calls, generating dispatch recommendations, initiating contacts without a human in the loop. And every one of those systems is acting on data with no verified chain of custody. Nobody can prove what actually happened. Nobody can defend the decision.

That's why I founded the 911 Trust Ledger Foundation — an open protocol for data integrity across the emergency communications ecosystem. Not a product. Not a startup. The prerequisite infrastructure for fixing how public safety gets funded and governed in America.

911trustledger.org →
THE PROBLEM TODAY PSAPPSAP CADCAD PSAPAI PSAPCAD PSAP custom point-to-point integrations
240M+ 911 calls placed in the US each year
6,000+ PSAPs with no shared data standard
n²→n Integrations replaced by one connection
0 Verifiable cross-system audit trails today
All essays →

Operations

Vendors are grading their own homework

When AI vendors control the data their systems run on, there's no independent measure of whether the system is working. That's not a technology problem. It's a governance problem.

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Funding

Federal 911 funding rewards the wrong things

The current model funds technology adoption, not outcomes. Until we can measure what actually happens when a call goes in, we're flying blind — and spending accordingly.

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Capital

What venture capital actually means for public safety

Axon spent $1.5 billion acquiring Carbyne and Prepared. More capital than ever before in this space. The question nobody's asking: what does that mean for the agencies that depend on these systems?

Read →

Working together starts with a conversation.

I take on a limited number of advisory clients. If you're in the public safety ecosystem — in the $3M–$30M range — and want someone who will tell you the truth, let's find out if it's a fit.

Send a note →