[Music] [Applause] hi folks this is a sheriff lamb with we're here with the piece ESL podcast where we talk about everything Pinal County we talk about businesses in Pinal County politicians in Pinal County we and primarily we focus on law enforcement in Pinal County I've got my co-host novena she's our public information officer and we are very happy today to have a couple cool that I guess we've got Gena and we've got Nick from extract so tell us a little bit about the business extract I was formerly in a cosmetic company for about 20 years was starting to get a little bored with that decided to expand my horizons and learn permanent I heard you say it was Mary Kay yes so how many cars did you have I had 13 13 cars 13 free cars so I drove free pretty much for 20 years which was the best car the pink Cadillac of course you know and at times I took the money instead of the car my husband's in the car business so I got some pretty nice cars and they would give me the payment for that but it was amazing I grew a lot in that company which really led me into doing permanent makeup it was just something in the same field it was something different learned the permanent makeup start doing that and was up in North Scottsdale and the salon owner one day said hey Tina there's this new removal process it's not laser come check it out and I said okay so I went with her and I saw this procedure and thought I can do this so flew off to Vegas a few weeks later got trained in it and just thought this was another service income helping people and all these stories start coming in whether it was some a woman that was abused or someone that was divorced and they had her husband's name on and as these stories start coming in I talked to my sister one day it was telling her of these stories and she said have you ever thought about doing removal of brandings on sex traffic victims and I said oh my gosh I didn't know that was a thing so long story short that became a thing for me I start researching and start getting into a lot of the charities and organizations here in Arizona before you get started on the charity because we're gonna talk about the charity but I want to let's talk to Nick for a second now so how do you how do you come into play in extract and how did you get to know Gina okay so well I was I was tattooing on my brother-in-law training means very number one in the nation for Polynesian art and like after I had got a prison I wanted to pursue full-time like tattooing so I started my own shop and I was looking for seven forms of income and my wife was like oh she get certified permanent cosmetics I'm like oh like that's women's stuff you know seven forms of income yeah I know about this that like all millionaires have seven forms of income right okay so this is one of the forms of income yeah so tattooing and then I was you know I was thinking like alright you know I got to do it just to have another one under my belt right so I met up with this lady Helen right that's enough and I went his gods Dale to get certified that's when I met Gina and Gina started telling me about this tattoo removal process well I was in like I was gonna do a cover-up on my wife cuz she had her name on that orange got it when she was really young you know and they did a removal under that date as a model and I was like really impressed with how much came out so I was like you know what like and then she had you contact me what like three months later right and um she was asking me like oh if I would be interested in doing this and I really was like I really was but I was so busy at the time and I'm like once once we connected she came down I got trained everything with Tina right and I was just really impressed at the whole like process and the fact that they came down and I was taught like well you know wasn't just Exim online or box that they sent with a sheet or anything like that so I learned a lot you know and then that's when she started asking me if I would one be a trainer and I was like sure like I'd love to do this he's not easy thank you yes so that's how we connected with that you know even like at that time it just worked out because I was doing ministry of my wife we had a 501c3 is called spoken Arts and we're hosting poetry events across Tucson but their Christian based you know and I'm like I got this company called this charity called soul no more got a hold of me and asked if like I would do a cover up on this traffic victim and I was like sure you know as long as somebody's around so like nothing like nobody could say anything you know just yeah keep everybody safe and I'm so she came out and like during that time I like listening to her story and everything that she had been through while I was trying to figure out how to cover up the tattoo on her it was it was very emotional you know and um and so like I was drawing on her and she was talking and she was crying and I'm like what had happened was she had a brandy she went to a garage they try to cover it up and they really just damage your skin like it was just bad and then she went to a tattoo shop and they try to cover that with like a huge black star and like the skin was just got a worse yeah we're and by the time she got to me I'm like oh I'm like what do I do you know like what I do um and like I do a lot of dainty stuff like 86 percent of my clientele is female so I'm constantly looking at how to do make it look more like more female or that just me I've been more dainty yeah so um I started drawing on her and I did like a forest you know around her tattoo and whatnot at him she was super emotional crying a lot and like she was just so happy you know like she was so happy but when she left I wasn't because it looks so masculine you know and just because I had to do that huge cover-up but like after that I realized you know what like at this point tattoo removal I'm doing something else would be like so great another Foreman income as well you know so I linked up and she shared her heart with me and how she was doing I was just super interested at the time and that's how we got connected so you transitioned extract you have the business and then you set up sole survivors how easy was that to get started well so when we were doing the tattoo removal we knew that we needed a better process and more better products and that's actually how extract came about because I was a couple other companies prior to that so with sole survivor I was doing this all along but again I wasn't seeing as good as a result as we would want these women and these folks you know in prison have been through enough that we wanted it to be a a quicker process with less treatments so we came up with extract almost two years ago and then so survivor we just became a 501 3 C a little over a year ago although even doing this for over four or five years of leads did become a 501 3 C because it's wrong so much and we had to to be legit and we had to well it's clear both of you you can see your passion for wanting to help people and wanting to help them I mean we we talked a little bit about this earlier when we were just sitting down and chatting about how getting tattoos and many for many people is an emotional thing sometimes they're they're hiding something sometimes they want to reveal a piece a part of themselves to other people so there's so much emotional that goes into a tattoo being able to remove something that is a negative emotion for you that's got to be a kind of a cool experience for you guys to be able to help people do that yeah and for me like I specialize in Polynesian tattoos every symbol so what do you do that [Laughter] process are you Polynesian I have Polynesian family okay I'm a huge month so right when we first met you told me about a woman who had been branded I came and just having that removed from her it was almost like closure talk to me about her story it's huge so a lot of these girls they get sold numerous times and pimps will brand as a form of ownership so I'm your so they'll have four or five girls with the same branding some of the girls will say it physically hurts like they can sometimes around there is sometimes throw their heart and their back that they can be anywhere but they say it physically hurts to see it because that's a reminder of that person that did this to them and when it's removed it's like this weight is lifted there's so much healing to that they don't have to look in the mirror and see this man or this code or symbol ever again so it's extremely healing so if we have somebody out there listening today that saying they fall into this they want to have a tattoo removed especially if they are a a survivor of sex trafficking or human trafficking how can they go about this they can contact extract obviously what is the what's the average cost for that um well so survivor we have a nonprofit so in that end there's a form that they would fill out and often it's free for the survivors and the Endocyte it just depends on the size of the tattoo it can run from $100 to $300 per session now a lot of people are gonna ask is it painful it's not painless but I'm not gonna say it's painful yeah most people we can get from us from I 1 to 10 we can get them to a0 to a3 afterwards it's annoying I mean it's a wound and it's a scab and it can be a gene annoying and it's not painless but it's fine but it's so much better than laser I can tell you that a laser is a whole different beast now can you take a tattoo off in one treatment or what's the problem how long have many treatments does it usually take average is 3 to 6 I've seen it in one but that's not typical and I've also seen it take 8 to 10 yeah and it really it all depends on like how old the tattoo you how thick it is and the cover-ups and whatnot how damaged the skin is also because we have to take all that in consideration during the procedure and we talked a little bit about what they used for the ink as well some of these Prison tattoos they're using whatever they can get their hands on to create ink yeah and so some of that may not be removed as easy as well as yes so does the scar does it leave a pretty good scar on there there's a risk of scarring but we have a fantastic aftercare and we have virtually in the last 18 months have not had any scary but it is a risk it depends on the person's skin type of 3rd darker skin they're more likely to scar so we know that going into it we're very cautious and we do we tell them how to take care of it now for those who aren't a victim or a survivor but they have bad memories they want to be removed they can come to extract you boxes all over Arizona we do we have four or five you know different of facilities in Arizona so where is your wear of some of those offices ok we have Phoenix of course with me we have Tempe Scottsdale surprise and Gilbert are there areas we so for you guys out there who got your girlfriend's name tattoo on you I no longer with you you know why correct extract can help you get rid of that for vice versa girls out there that want to get rid of a guys that we can't necessarily remove completely because sometimes there is that occasion is they can do a cover-up it's light enough where like Nick was just explaining he's gotta go dark and black and big and bold to cover up when old had to we can get it light enough where it can be green and red and pretty colors so that's also a pro so I'm super excited about this we just finished a meeting with the county attorney's office and obviously the sheriff about partnering with you to help some of our juvenile victims that have been trafficked and our jail so shares more time but what we're gonna be doing in our facility yeah I mean I think it's a great opportunity and we just talked about it as we're excited as I think this is a good program when I became sheriff I realized there was a need to not just house these inmates you know our first when I came in I was kind of like that hey let's give them bread and water and lock them up 23 hours a day I quickly realized that I have a responsibility to return these people to the community to give them the best opportunity to be successful as possible so I'm always looking for programs and I loved when we sat down today I think this could be a great program but our idea is to have the inmates be able to sign up and bring you in to our facility and start to remove some of these tattoos for some of these inmates we talked a lot about it when they're in the facility that's their their lowest time usually in and they're usually off the drugs and it's an opportunity for them to reevaluate and decide oh you know what I don't want to be part of this anymore it's hard to catch them once they leave the facility so I'm excited to try to get something put in place with you to be able to remove tattoos while they're in our facility that's to not be seen that's because we have done prison and ex-gang removals outside a prison and like we were explaining in the meeting that the warm gentlemen amazing man he can't be found he wasn't it wasn't the right time if it was done in the prison I believe that that healing would have taken place then you're out and you're a new person just like the girls that we were hurt the survivors and it's hard to really get that follow-up once they get out of prison or even sex traffic victims you know they might come for one session but who knows what happens in the six-week period and you got to figure of Transportation the cost everything to get there and here they're here we just come out of them it's gonna be very different we're excited yeah we're excited - yeah I mean we're always looking for things like I said to help these these inmates out we always try to stay it's hard because a lot of these inmates that are in there there's victims out there of their crimes as well and so we have to be really careful as to make sure that we don't violate any victims rights as well but we want to make sure these people don't go out and have more victims as well so we don't want them going out committing more crimes we don't want them to fall back into the gang activity or in the traffic you know or the prostitution or whatever it is that is there you know has been their issues we want to help them out I think this could be a great partnership they did - let me add - I love what you said about when you became sheriff it get him in there and get him some bread and water and boy does your eyes open once you're actually into the world or that group of my eyes open hugely when it comes to sex trafficking you'd go down in Vegas and say nice job that was my thought when I would go to Vegas but the girls hand out their flyers I think that's nice now I go there only can I help you there survival time - or they're being trafficked no no that's they're not there to prostitute on their own free will so are I spoken just like yours did so and everybody goes wow you were talking to me earlier about your childhood and it was almost in the system a lot and then being in prison how are you able to break away and do you think that the tattoo removal for gang members especially would be effective and keeping them out of the game yeah definitely I think really ultimately like it's gonna be up to the individual but I think once they like start seeing like some of these some of these memories like we're talking about earlier like diminishing like they'll slowly fall back into place as well for me like my it was sheer will you know obviously like you know I have a religious background you know Christianity is like my first thing and that's where like it all started for me but I grew up without that so I think this tattoo removal and just being able to like talk to them and give them like a word of encouragement as well during the process like I I think every inmate needs that and a lot of them come from broken homes and a lot of them come from like just bad backgrounds and toxic environments you know and like once you give them encouragement and they believe it and they see it and they're there and they're willing you know they're off drugs and they could think clearly like though I think they'll pursue I think there's a lot of people don't realize that a lot of the people in our jail they didn't have parents that positively reinforced them some of them a lot of them came from single-parent homes or no bands I grew up in the system and you know they've done the best they can to survive and it hasn't been good but they've done the best that they could do right and we we're constantly trying to yeah I want to get in there and do some motivational stuff for some of the inmates and just let them know that they can do this when they get out it's gonna be hard you can do it I'm so down for that yeah I'm so down for that too I think our nation is like really in need of an encourage they do encouraging word you know our youth need mentorship our our adults need mentorship you know life coaching has become a big thing in this country it's because people need it it's life stuff so I think it's great that you you guys are out doing what you're doing I think it's a great business and I think parlayed that into a 501c3 that allows you to actually help the people that can't afford it which are some of the people that need it the most day I think that's awesome thank you so kudos to you for doing that yeah so for sure you want to give a website or do you want to give a phone number that people can get ahold of you if they're wanting to get some tattoos removed its extract their ink extract at times i NK x TR a CT calm and both the sites linked to each other so that was gonna be my next question yes so survivor Inc i NC you know calm they both lee and a phone number do you have fun okay the New Age right hopefully you'd rather just leave it at the website what about on social media social media we have our Facebook pages we have Instagram Oh makes getting it so now on social media do you post before and after pictures not of survivors but yes of regular clients yes yeah and I can completely get yeah that the survivors want to stay away from that she has an actually at your office she has a really cool survivors to me with the handprints of all these survivors that have come by and it's grown it is it's called my freedom tree you know when we started just three years ago it was branches with maybe a handprint or two and there's it's full of leaves so when I look at that part of me is sad that oh my gosh so many these people we've had to help with another party that is like we are so grateful real but be able to help some of you and Nick I know you're a tattoo artist what is your business in case somebody doesn't want to tattoo what do you mean what do you have a business do you have your own about it right now yeah it's spoken art tattoo spoken art tattoos calm so um SP okay and arts plural and then tattoos plural calm and then your ministry you still do that yeah well that I turned that into an LLC so um but if you're looking on see like poetry or anything like that you can go to micron on YouTube and look at some of the stuff that we're doing before we need a lot more people like you to in this world so thank you for coming in and talking to us today and thank you for what you're doing and I look forward to the partnership yeah let's do it yeah alright folks so we've had Gina nick here today from extract and sole survivor Inc thank you for coming in and if you're needing tattoo removal or anything else contact them and look forward to seeing what you do all right thank you