Our Team
Pete Genovese, Co-Founder
Pete has 18 years of police experience, 13 years of K9 experience, and is a K9 Master Trainer with the United Police Work Dog Association. He has trained hundreds of entry level police dogs in the disciplines of Patrol, Narcotics, Explosives, Gun Detection and Electronic Detection. He has been assigned to many entry level Police K9 Schools as the head trainer to meet an independent 3rd party Nationally Accredited Certification Standard.
Pete is also the President of the United Police Work Dog Association and has handled 2 Dual Purpose Police K9’s and 1 Single Purpose Kinetic Gun Detection Dog (GDD), which he continues to handle today.
He has run his agency’s Police K9 Unit for approximately 11 years and is also the K9 Coordinator for his agency. He was assigned to his agency’s Special Response Team for 9 years and assisted as the only K9 SWAT Operator for his agency.
Pete served 8 years in his agency’s Drug Enforcement Unit and another 4 years on the Street Crimes Unit, deploying his police canines thousands of times in different disciplines and operations.
Pete is one of the co-founders of Optimum Working Dog Solutions and is the Owner of another K9 business where he manages and is responsible for multiple Police K9 Units within the US.
Miller Yackovich,
Co-Founder
Miller has been a sheriff’s deputy since 2013. In 2016 he was selected by his department to be one of their dual purpose canine handlers, where he remains active. Miller has completed and assisted with numerous patrol/detection schools. He and his current partner have over a thousand patrol/narcotics street deployments, which have led to numerous apprehensions.
In 2018 he and his partner were responsible for a number of track & finds resulting in the arrest of armed/violent criminals. As a result of their efforts, they have been recognized by their department and county chamber of commerce.
Miller’s former partner retired in April, 2023 and he is currently handling his second dual purpose canine. Miller is one of the co-founders of Optimum Working Dog Solutions
Brandon Smith, Co-Founder
Brandon has been a police officer for nine years. For the past seven years he has been the canine coordinator/handler for his department. When Brandon started, the canine unit was not active for many years and he reimplemented the program. Brandon has worked two narcotics detection dogs during his career resulting in hundreds of deployments and narcotics apprehensions. He currently is an active Task Force Officer with local federal agencies and regularly assists them with deployments. He routinely assists local trainers in the areas of patrol and detection. Brandon brings a well versed knowledge of modern day detection training techniques to OWDS.
He has imprinted and trained numerous detection dogs in the disciplines of narcotics/explosives/gun detection and electronic storage detection.
Brandon is one of the co-founders of Optimum Working Dog Solutions.