Latest / The Wilmac Wire / Nick LaMontia | From Dispatcher to NENA Board, GIS, & Leading 911 in the Southeast

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Nick LaMontia | From Dispatcher to NENA Board, GIS, & Leading 911 in the Southeast · The Wilmac Wire

• Emily Miller: All right, we'll get started by introducing our guest today for the Will Mack Wire. He is joining us from Kerrville, Texas. He's been rooted in the public safety space for nearly 30 years, starting his career as a dispatcher in Colorado. He made the trek to Texas, where he spent the last 20 plus years working in public safety. Besides being a manager in his own PSAP, he's also stepped into national public safety leadership. through NINA, the National Emergency Number Association, where he spent seven years on the NINA Institute Board, including two years as president. He now currently is the GIS manager at Kerr Emergency 911 and serves as the Southeastern Director on the NINA Board of Directors. Welcome to the Will MacWire, Nick Lamontia. Nick, thanks for doing this. Okay. Nick LaMontia: Thank you very much. I will correct one thing though, and there's no way you could have possibly known this, but last month I actually had my 30th anniversary in the 911 business sphere, whatever you want to call it. So it's been a long time. Emily Miller: 30th. Wow. Congratulations. That's wonderful. Steve McDonnell: Congrats, that's impressive. Nick LaMontia: you still happy, still motivated. Emily Miller: I was gonna say, we'll dig into that, don't worry. All right, Nick, before we dig into kind of today's question topics, we always like to start with a brief icebreaker that we call this or that. So I have three questions for you. I'm gonna give you two options to choose from in each question and then you can explain why. Very easy, very lighthearted. So. Nick LaMontia: Yeah, Ken. Are they easy to remember or do I need to take notes? Okay. Flyer wind. Emily Miller: No, you should not have to take notes. And if you need it repeated, I will repeat it for you. Don't worry. Okay. First one, Texas summers or Texas winters? Nick LaMontia: Texas winters, hands down. Only because I was raised for a long time in Colorado and I'm much more comfortable in the snow and the ice and the cold and the wind. So even though we don't get that a ton down here, I do savor the brief moments we do get it. So hands down, Texas winter. Steve McDonnell: That was a quick answer. Nick LaMontia: Yeah, oh yeah, I didn't even need to think about that one. Give me a tough one. Emily Miller: Yeah. Okay, all right, I don't know if I'll have any tough ones right now, just to warn you. ⁓ Okay, next one, more Nina related, but 911 goes to Washington event or the Nina Annual Conference. Nick LaMontia: I would have to say annual only because it's more of a well-rounded event, guess you could say. GTW is so ⁓ target-specific. You're there for one purpose. National not only touches on legislation and GTW kind of stuff, it's also about education. It's also about wellness. It's also about... ⁓ Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. news. Nick LaMontia: all the items that are important to Nina, you get to touch on all of those as opposed to being ⁓ so specific about what you're after. So I'd have to say annual. Emily Miller: Yeah, that makes sense. were just chatting before the call that we'll likely see you in person at Nina 2026 soon. So excited for that. Okay, last one. I pulled this specifically from your bio. So it's a little bit more personal, but ⁓ going to a concert or a quiet night with a puzzle. Nick LaMontia: ⁓ absolutely, I'll be there. Steve McDonnell: Ha ha ha. Nick LaMontia: What did I put on there? Okay. Okay, so once upon a time it would have been concert and this is, I'll even tell you a funny story related to this. I have been a musician for years and years and have been to a million different concerts to the point where it has ruined my hearing. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Nick LaMontia: Now, and that's actually part of why I'm not wearing a headset now is because this ear is shot and I can't dedicate just one ear to hear the rest of the room. Never wore a headset when I was in dispatch for that reason. But the funny part was when I finally went to go get my hearing tested, I think it was before I went to HPD, the frequency that they found I couldn't hear was, it fit perfectly with the timber of a woman's voice. Which... helps out tremendously at home to this day. Because all I just need to know no no I didn't hear you say that or I have no memory of that happening Whether it actually happened or not so these days Not to mention I'm not a huge fan of the crowds and the noises and smelling everybody's hot dogs and all that other kind of stuff At this point I would much rather be at home doing a puzzle cranking my own music than sharing that moment with 500 to 5,000 other people that's the very long answer you probably weren't expecting Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Emily Miller: Yeah, fair. Steve McDonnell: in Emily Miller: completely fair. No, I love it. like the explanation. I always want them to spur conversation. that's a good one. That's a really good. Nick LaMontia: I'm sorry, did you say something? couldn't hear. No, you guys are cranked up pretty high. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Emily Miller: Awesome. Well, thanks, Nick, for humoring us and doing our icebreaker that we like to call this or that. So hopefully our audience knows you a little bit better now. ⁓ OK, we're going to kick things off with kind of our first theme that we always like to hit on with our guests, which is on career journey. So we'd love if you'd tell us a little bit more about your background and how you ended up in emergency communications. And then on top of that, how you ended up specializing in GIS. Nick LaMontia: Well, those were two completely separate accidents. Where 911 started for me, I had no intention to be a dispatcher. It wasn't what I dreamt of being as a kid. Everybody wants to be a fireman. Actually, I think I wanted to be a stuntman as a kid. Police were never across my mind. But I started in ⁓ a very small town in Colorado called Esses Park, Colorado. 5,000 year round people at the time. Excuse me. And ⁓ I was a housekeeper. But I was planning on getting married soon and I was looking for a job that paid well and had benefits. Those were my two criteria was all that mattered. had no aspirations other than that. And in a small town, you've got very few positions that will afford you that. ⁓ So I applied for the position and here's another story since I've already overshared. Years before that, I was a radio DJ. And when it came to apply for the PD job to be a dispatcher, rumor was the only reason they hired me instead of the person I was running against is because I knew I had been a DJ, so I wasn't going to be afraid of the microphone. So that... just spur the moment decision on their part is still playing out 30 years later, which I find astounding. But fortunately for me, once I got into the dispatch fear, I ended up loving it. And I realized that that was what I was meant to be. There was problem solving, was helping out, was the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself. ⁓ And again, that's carried for 30 plus years. The GIS portion of it was another complete accident though, because at the time, I had been in dispatch for pretty close to 20 years. ⁓ This was here locally in Kerrville. And our emergency 911 network was going to be doing some organizational reshuffling and needed a GIS guy. Well, I had no experience at GIS, but I had had enough contact with them through their coming in and servicing the equipment and updating our maps, that kind of stuff. They must have seen something in me. I'm assuming a potential to be a blank slate and they could teach me how to do their stuff, but they also specifically wanted somebody who would have that dispatch perspective. They knew that they wanted somebody, well, they realized the dispatchers were basically their clients, their customers. So the way they were presenting the GIS component needed to make sense to dispatchers. So they knew they wanted to bring a dispatcher to do the GIS thing. Oddly enough, they offered me the job in August and I had to keep it secret until February when I was actually able to come on board. So again, I had no intention of being a GIS person, ⁓ but it was, I think at the time, it was important for me to step away because I still love dispatching. ⁓ I really felt like I was going out at the top of my game after being almost solely on night shift and Emily Miller: ⁓ my gosh. Nick LaMontia: missing the birthdays and missing the weekends and the holidays and that kind of stuff. It was time to go to something as long as it was still dispatch related, which the way they presented to me it was. So I really lucked out and got the best of all worlds by being able to come over and do this and learn something new in the process. Steve McDonnell: So going back to the beginning, Estes Park, you're in the mountains there. Like the legit mountains. was that? And there's gotta be different types of calls coming in versus when you were in Houston or even Kerrville. Nick LaMontia: ⁓ absolutely. Alright. ⁓ it was an entirely different animal. There would be shifts where nothing would happen, and then there would be shifts where everything would happen because you'd get a multitude of accidents, or you would have some kind of medical call that would, ⁓ you would need to ⁓ implement specific apparatus to get to them. would have, as this is weird in the sense that, I think I said the year-round population at the time was about 5,000 people, but during the summer because it's a tourist town, the population grows to the thousands upon thousands. Especially during a big event like the 4th of July, there's, I may be guessing here, but I'm assuming 100,000 people, if not more, in town. So you have to stay pretty flexible. But going to an HPD or a Houston PD or- Every agency obviously has their own specific things going on. What I loved about SS was it was very isolated, it was very quiet. And I don't think I did puzzles at the time, but if I did, I would have had fun doing them because nobody would have bothered me. Emily Miller: Yeah. Steve McDonnell: Did you grow up in Estus? Nick LaMontia: The important years were in Estes. I actually was raised before that in Omaha and moved to Estes my sophomore year, before my sophomore year of high school. So all the important growing up was done up there and then moved away after my son was born. all the important stuff happened while I was in Estes. Steve McDonnell: Okay. ⁓ so not to get too specific, but it's very, for me, it's very interesting. What about when calls came in? I'm sure you'd get lost people hiking or skiing where they shouldn't be. How, how was locating them and getting people out there? I mean, that's gotta be a whole different dynamic. Nick LaMontia: ⁓ that's cool. The only difference to your perception, and I don't know if this is anything you could possibly know. But the bulk of at least the popular hiking trails in that area actually belong in Rocky Mountain National Park, which SS Park butts up against. They're always referred to as the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. So if there was ever a lost hiker, generally it was happening in the park. And they have their own dispatch. would actually, we used to call it masking, but we would cover for them at night because they would go home. And this was before, or at least at the very beginning of the cell phone prevalence. So it wasn't, I don't want to sound ⁓ prehistoric, but honestly pre-cell phone somebody got lost on a mountain or got snow blind, whatever the case was, they were kind of out of luck because they had no way to contact anybody. So it was a slightly different dynamic back then. That's not to say that the park wouldn't ask for ⁓ Steve McDonnell: Yeah. They're done. Yep. Emily Miller: and Nick LaMontia: SS Parks help on something like that, but it wasn't as common because there was honestly no way to get a hold of us. If you were up there and lost, you were stuffed, Yeah, I would hope so. Steve McDonnell: It is what it is. You know that going into it, but yeah. Emily Miller: Bye. Steve McDonnell: So that's interesting that the parks have their own PSAPs. Do you think they're larger now that they have cell phone, that everyone has cell phones and people are actually calling into them? Nick LaMontia: I wouldn't think so. ⁓ I actually still remember their radio. We call them Romo, for Rocky Mountain National Park. They were, honestly, I wouldn't have an idea. This is a complete deception, but I wouldn't imagine that their footprint has gotten a lot bigger, because there's no addition of trails that I know of. It's been the same for years and years. I would assume they could get along just fine running a two-person show. ⁓ Now you've got me curious. I wouldn't mind going up there and just knocking on the door and seeing how they run things these days. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Emily Miller: Hahaha Yeah, what's up? Nick, let me ask you. You touched on this a little bit, but what prompted that move from Colorado to Texas? Nick LaMontia: The first one was for family reasons. ⁓ My wife's whole family had moved up there. Actually, my wife's ⁓ father was law enforcement. He retired from Houston PD and then moved up to Colorado and was a sheriff's deputy up there. And I was actually one of his dispatchers after I met his daughter and we got married. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Nick LaMontia: And then he retired and the whole family kind of gravitated back down here. We started in around Houston and then all ended up back here in Kerrville. And from a dispatch point of view, as long as you're fairly decent at your job, you could probably find a dispatch job anywhere. So I could be a dispatcher wherever I wanted to be. Emily Miller: Okay, that makes lot of sense. And you touched on this a little bit kind of when we were introducing you, but what keeps you coming back to 911 emergency communications every day and staying in that field? Nick LaMontia: Part of it is, and again this is going back to what I was saying before, part of it is about being part of something bigger than I am individually and being able to help people and being able to make a difference. Very specifically... And I kind of wish you could see around the room around me because it's covered in monitors, it's dark, just like dispatch used to be. That's part of the many things I loved about dispatch, but a big part of what it was, was I could come in, do my thing, help out, and then disappear. I love the anonymity of it, especially because I've made a habit for some reason of working in very small municipalities. I know that the officers can get recognized in public. go into the store and somebody's going to recognize them and harass them or thank them. I don't want to say it's all bad stuff. But I've always enjoyed the man behind the curtain thing. I'm making things work. I'm solving the puzzles. I'm making the connections. And then I can just disappear and nobody has any idea what I do. Emily Miller: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it is kind of funny because in our emails back and forth prior, you were like, we'll have to work on my lighting when we hop on here because it's dark. It's dark. Nick LaMontia: Well, and don't get me wrong, I am and always have been very proud of what I do, but I also like, there's a division for me. It ends at five, it picks up again at seven or eight. I have to have those divisions no matter if I'm in dispatch or GIS or doing board stuff, I need to have those divisions because the bleed over just drives me nuts. Emily Miller: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, completely fair. Steve McDonnell: Before we move on, I know to the next theme, I just want to ask a question. you, so you had been in Estes park, which you said could be slow or it could be fast, but it's definitely smaller than Houston's like one of the biggest cities in the country. So you went into like, what I would assume is pretty chaotic environment with calls constantly 24 seven in Houston. How was that? Nick LaMontia: ⁓ absolutely. ⁓ A couple of things about it. Number one, it was a beautiful place to work. was the Houston Emergency Center. It had opened not long before I got there. Beautiful facility, state of the art. The people were uniformly ⁓ gracious and it was just a great team to work for. The issue I had, well guess I'll do the good part first. Coming from ESSIS where, as I said, nothing could be happening or something could be happening. Steve McDonnell: Nice. Nick LaMontia: What they did at HPD, which is common to all or most dispatch centers, would think, is the new kid always has to work the busy mics. So I'd be on West Side or I'd be on... trying to remember what else was busy. It's been 20 years, Southeast, something like that. But you were moving the entire time. You were busy the entire time. That place taught me speed. It taught me ⁓ recognition. The downsides to it for me were, it was only police dispatch. And I came from a background of a vertical Tricom. You do police, fire, and EMS. You do all of them. ⁓ I felt Like I could have been doing more in the sense that I was only doing police dispatch. The other and more important part for me was, and again, it's part of the smaller agency thing, is we were very much a family. I had a ⁓ vested interest in my guys. We barbecued with each other. We went to each other's weddings. We worked on each other's yards. You were invested in your people. at the HECC Center and if I've heard correctly, they've actually changed this since then. But it was a secure facility and no officers could come in. So I had no idea who I was dispatching for. I could communicate them or with them over our terminals, but I had no idea who they were. I couldn't pick them out of a crowd. They had no idea who I was. That doesn't mean my concern for them was any less or that I cared for them any less, but my ⁓ vested interest in them wasn't as much as it would be if I could actually meet them face to face. So when the opportunity came to ⁓ go to League City, and I will say this was HPD's fault, it was their own fault, because they sent me to a training ⁓ and somebody stood up in the middle of the training and said, hi, I'm Russell with League City PD, just wanted to let everybody know we've got an opening. ⁓ If you want to talk about it, come talk to me after class, which I did. And not only was it a smaller agency, but they They were also a Tricom, so they did it all. And I'll be the first to admit the money was pretty good. So I went ⁓ and worked for League City and that was an amazing few years. It was another family. ⁓ The workload was great. was, I mean, it still shift work, but I was really, it was really like being back home again. Steve McDonnell: So a couple of questions. I had heard, I've heard from talking and being around a lot of PSAPs that what you're saying hits home, that it's very good for the dispatchers and call takers and the PSAP workers to know the cops and the cops or the fire or EMS to understand what it's like to work in a PSAP too. Cause when the cops aren't allowed in there, Nick LaMontia: ⁓ sure. Steve McDonnell: and have no idea a face, they are thinking what they're doing is number one all the time and just trying to ask for help constantly from a PCF and not really understanding both sides and how it all works as one unit. So that makes sense when you say that these smaller places who get to know each other ⁓ work a little smoother. Nick LaMontia: sure. ⁓ absolutely. And from a personal standpoint, you... Emily Miller: All right. Nick LaMontia: you look forward to going to work more. I mean, I've still got guys that I worked with in Estes 30 years ago that I'm still friends with. And we still communicate, we still talk. And when you have those kinds of relationships, you do look forward to going to work more. Because those are your guys and you can joke and you've got somebody to bring you lunch maybe and you get tensed out if they're on a tense call. really does become, hopefully it becomes family for you. Emily Miller: and Steve McDonnell: ⁓ And obviously with the amount of hours people spend at work, it's good that you want to look forward to it and not the other way around. Emily Miller: Yeah. Nick LaMontia: absolutely. With Leek City, you know, we had, I can't remember the name of the hurricane that came through, you know, everybody sequesters together and I know you learn a lot about each other very quickly. And same with our ice storms that we had up here when I was in dispatch. I worked a couple of 24's just because it wasn't safe to go home. So might as well just stay put. I mean, you want to doze off in front of somebody, you find out who your friends are really quickly. Emily Miller: Yeah. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. When you went to Houston, is it like you said it's fast? Is it literally rapid? Like you get off the phone and boom, you're just on it again. Emily Miller: Right. Thank Nick LaMontia: Well, and the phone part, it was a unique setup and maybe one of the reasons I left again. But I was rarely on the phone. I was purely PD dispatch. So there were call takers and then my pending queue would fill up and I'd have all these calls. And some nights, and this sounds ridiculous to me in hindsight, but it was true. Say in SS Park, I might have two or three units on a night. Steve McDonnell: You get them. Nick LaMontia: On a Friday night in Houston on West Side at the time, I would have upwards of 100 units on. And depending on what was going on, the extent of your radio traffic, unless it was some kind of in-progress call, would be a unit saying, okay, give me 1234. You'd look up 1234 in your pending queue, you'd send it off to them, to their MDTs, and that was the extent of your involvement. And that's what you were doing all night. Give me 1234. 10-4. Give me 5467. 10-4 and that's what you were doing all night and you would still have calls left over. It was crazy but it was probably the most intense and productive learning experience I've had in my entire career. I wouldn't be where I am now without it. Emily Miller: Now. Steve McDonnell: It was, is League City and Curville pretty similar type of environments? Nick LaMontia: Not so much. Leek City was more, ⁓ I suppose you could say urban in the sense that it's kind of sandwiched roughly in between the south side of Houston and Galveston. A lot of interstate traffic, a lot of affluent areas, ⁓ very busy. ⁓ Learned a lot there. ⁓ Again, I can't say that I've ever had a bad experience at dispatch. was a wonderful experience down there. out here in Kerrville much more rural. ⁓ Similar population maybe, I think League City maybe takes the edge. But definitely more rural here, not as, ⁓ and this isn't a dig at all, but it wasn't as technologically advanced. There was actually some resistance to technology, anti-MDT, anti-card readers, that kind of stuff. They've since caught up and they're definitely running with everybody else now. But it was also a different type of call. You would literally get livestock calls, cattle, goats. in the road, ⁓ lot of interdiction type stuff on I-10 because we're, know, ⁓ I-10 comes right out of Mexico and all the issues that are involved with that. So I would say that the traffic levels were similar but they were just entirely different types of calls. Emily Miller: Interesting. Alright, well thanks for sharing about kind of your background, Nick, and what's brought you to today. ⁓ We want to dig into GIS a little bit because with our previous public safety guests kind of focused on the PSAP as a whole, but I want to dig a little bit more into that. So for our listeners, GIS stands for Geographic Information System. And Nick, you are the GIS manager at CUR Emergency 911. Nick LaMontia: breath. Emily Miller: So for our listeners who might not be as familiar, can you explain kind of what GIS is and why it matters and then kind of where it fits into that broader NG911 context? Nick LaMontia: I could really start swimming in the details here. And I'll probably upset a lot of GIS folks by simplifying it in this way. as far as dispatch is concerned, location is everything, if not almost everything. What GIS provides for dispatch... and here's where I get in trouble, is a map and all of the supporting information that can be gleaned from that map. can be, obviously it plots the location, we'll just say theoretically a 911 call. It will plot the location of that call on a map in a location where they can understand where it is within their jurisdiction and will incorporate all kinds of useful information that would assist with that call, whether it's their road. centerline layers. can be locations of utilities. You can have ⁓ direction of travel on those roads or speed limits on those roads. Your response boundaries are of course extremely important so you know who to even send to those calls. It really provides the foundation on which dispatchers are able to build their response for any particular call. Emily Miller: And so where does that fit in NG911? Because I know NG911 has been a common theme now. It's happening up in Canada. It's kind of happening state by state. ⁓ But where does GIS fit into that greater context? Nick LaMontia: And where it's going become even more important, and of course it was an important function before, but the way pre-911, or pre-next-gen 911 environment was, calls were transmitted over the old copper lines. I'm sure you've heard that many times before. Because of the new way of ⁓ transporting calls via IP, you now have the ability to send ⁓ all kinds of additional data with that call, where that becomes very important to me personally in dispatch at large is it can provide that much more information to inform a response. What's big for me right now is indoor mapping. Now one of the key components that a lot of ⁓ vendors in our industry are harping on is z-axis information. And of course everybody's heard of XY locations but z-axis gives you an elevation or a height of ellipsoid, which is semi-useful information, say, you know, it's 10 meters, your Z axis is 10 meters. Well, where does that, what does that mean? Where does that place you? With indoor mapping, which can ⁓ either be stored locally or it can be pulled from a cloud, I won't bore you with all the details. But with indoor mapping, you can actually ⁓ provide a map of that location to your dispatchers and see exactly where that 10 meters is. What floor does that place that call on? What room specifically in that building does that call now fall in? So it really ⁓ not only streamlines but provides a better dispatchable location. And those are all components that couldn't have been. Excuse me, could not have been easily transmitted in dispatch over the old way of transmission. Now that we have NextGen becoming more prevalent and you're able to transmit that additional information, that is, I think, where the future is going to be going. Emily Miller: Yeah, that's. ⁓ Steve McDonnell: Interesting. you see AI getting involved in GIS and playing a part in the next few years? Nick LaMontia: It definitely could, ⁓ not necessarily from my standpoint, and I guess I'll hit it in a different area, one the GIS and one the dispatch area. Luckily for me, my agency, and when I say GIS manager, it's kind of a misnomer because I'm it. I'm managing me, I guess. But it's a small enough area that I can handle most everything myself. Everything's, you know, the addition of new address points or drawing new roads or changes to response boundaries, that's not outside of my, those aren't outside of my abilities. I can definitely see AI playing a function with the bigger agencies, ⁓ where maybe the adult system with drawing ⁓ footprints for buildings, or maybe the validation of their data. AI may help with that. The flip side of the same coin is for our dispatch, I can definitely see AI playing a part as far as translation and transcription. I think that can be universally helpful, but I also see it being used a lot to triage non-emergency calls and kind of shut those off of dispatchers so they aren't bothered. In our neck of the woods, that's not usually an issue. ⁓ It wouldn't be saving them any time because they don't get an insurmountable amount of calls anyway, with the rare exceptions. Obviously, with the floods we had last year, that could have played a part, that could have helped them out a little bit. But by and large, that AI ⁓ component wouldn't necessarily help them out. Emily Miller: Okay, yeah, interesting. I knew C was gonna ask the AI question. I had it on the list, yeah. All right, I love it. Okay, ⁓ so this is out of curiosity, Nick, but what does your day-to-day look like managing the GIS component and like you said, of figuring out how that needs to adjust over time? Nick LaMontia: ⁓ yeah, I knew it was coming up. It really depends on the day because ⁓ luckily for me, I guess I should preface this by saying that every, what I found is that every agency is different. Everybody has different partners. Everybody has different responsibilities. I'm fortunate in the sense that this may be a conceit, but it all goes through me. Emily Miller: Okay. Nick LaMontia: All the addressing goes through me with the exception of Kerrville Proper who takes care of their own addressing. That's not to sound arrogant, but it really does lessen the chances of there being any errors in the GIS data that is provided to dispatch. Luckily for me, I have a great relationship with every agency that provides any kind of data I need, whether it's our appraisal district or our utility companies. The post office actually won't even start delivery to an address unless they come to me first and confirm their address. very lucky in the sense that it's a manageable system and that I'm more or less solely responsible for doing it. There's one point of failure for better or worse. ⁓ That's really the upside of it for me. Emily Miller: Yeah, I'm assuming you have, I guess, a GIS network that you're familiar with too. Like, how does that differ between what a Houston would look like in their GIS kind of department, I guess? Nick LaMontia: Sure. It's kind of strange you mention that because I was just at a conference a couple weeks ago in Denton, the Texas NENA conference, and went to a couple of GIS meetings there and presentations. And most of the agencies that I talk to are larger than we. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Nick LaMontia: But in a lot of ways, their workflows are a lot different than mine because they have so many offices with their hands on it. They're experiencing or doing things in an entirely different way than I would. for better or worse, that's just their workflow, that's the way they do things. on the one hand, I was able to get ideas about ⁓ additional data to add to my maps when I got home. One was the speed limit on all the roads that I mentioned earlier, and another was mapping all the trails in the area. That was their unique experience and through me talking to them and having that network of contacts, that was something I could bring home with me. Maybe I brought up something that maybe they've implemented in their maps. There may be things that we have on ours that they didn't think to put on theirs like, you know, maybe a drug free zone or. waterways, who's to say, but maybe they brought something back with them that somebody else had brought up. There really is a very strong GIS network in Texas and there's a lot of sharing, it's very open, ⁓ everybody is very peaceful and sharing, it really is a good group of folks. Emily Miller: And like you kind of alluded to before, it's been very interesting as Steve and I have talked to more public safety leaders and are ingrained in every day how much the workflows within these PSAPs vary. And it just kind of depends. And it's what they've established in the past and that's where they're at now. So ⁓ I'm always curious to hear how it differs from your perspective. So appreciate you sharing that. Okay, I'm going to move us into our third theme and on your involvement with Nina, like we mentioned in the intro. you were appointed to Nina's board of directors as the Southeastern director in July of 2025. So how did you originally get involved with Nina and how do you now find yourself in that role? Nick LaMontia: It's another one of those odd chains of events. When I came over to do GIS at this office, because of the nature of the business, it was more an eight to five scenario, weekends off, that kind of situation, as opposed to the night shifts I was doing before. So I could structure my time a lot better. ⁓ I had always wanted to become an EMP. It had always been a goal of mine. No matter where I've been, I've always tried to stay on kind of an onward and upward kind of path. And being an EMP, I thought at the time was going to be the top. That's going to get my EMP and that's all I needed to be. ⁓ So once I was able to get into this job, was able to again structure my time a little bit better and ⁓ start attending study groups and being able to really hit the books and get my EMP. Well, what good is having a certification if you can't do something with it? So I've been sitting on this ENP for a couple of months and saw ⁓ in a NENA email that they were taking applications for membership on the NENA ⁓ Institute Board. And the NENA Institute Board are the folks who... ⁓ create and administer the ENP test. They're the ones that write the questions, write the body of knowledge, all that kind of stuff. So I put in for that and God help them, they accepted me as an enlarged member. ⁓ Seven years later, I was on their board for seven years, and last national conference in, ⁓ where were we last year, Long Beach, it came up to Cassie Lowry, who was the Southeastern. ⁓ director for the board of directors, she was going to move up to second VP, which left a year left on her term as southeastern director. And I had never really thought about it. I mean, it had been back in my mind, hadn't really thought about it much. But there was a big part of me that wasn't going to forgive myself if I didn't at least put in for it. And again, God help them, they chose me when I put in for it. And the timing was honestly perfect because I was coming to the end of my term on the Institute Board. There was a little bit of an overlap, but really just one position flowed into the other. And even though I'm only doing it for a year, that year will be up in June. They've been, I have learned so much from all the other directors. and all the experiences it has given me. I would not trade that experience for anything in the world. It's been an amazing experience. Emily Miller: Yeah, that's wonderful. I was about to say, it's been fun to chat with people on the board of directors for Nina and to hear kind of how their paths differ. And I know so different. Yeah. Nick LaMontia: ⁓ yeah. they're all intelligent, they're well-spoken, and they come from all walks. Nobody's just being pulled out of the same pit. We're all from all over the place. And I believe we work very well together. I would hope they're all getting just as much out of the experience as I have been. Emily Miller: Yeah. Right. And let me ask, like you, come, guess, from a more technical position. The conversations that we've had with some of the other NENA board of directors, folks on staffing, wellness, telecommunicator reclassification, the NG911 funding part of it. what topics, like what are you, what are you collectively focusing on and how do you see like your technical background coming into play there? to coming into kind of that conversation. How do you come into it? Nick LaMontia: Well, you've definitely hit on all the pillars that we as a board and Nina more at large are concerned about. ⁓ The one that hits close to home for us, and when I say us, I mean our office and Texas in general, is the next gen funding. ⁓ Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Nick LaMontia: And I don't want to throw any water on it. But a lot of agencies our size are in a similar position in that if we don't receive what we view as a very modest fee increase on wireless fees, our existence as districts are kind of in doubt. ⁓ Because we received what amounts to an unfunded mandate to become next gen ⁓ compliant, which was great and we received funds on the front end to help do that, but there was no allowance for. ⁓ all the recurring costs associated with NextGen. And we'll definitely be able to go for a while, absolutely, but without ⁓ some kind of funding measure put in place, we don't know what will happen inside a decade. So we have a very vested interest in that. Not to say that we don't have... ⁓ We don't support reclassification or wellness initiatives, anything like that. It's just that is the primary one we're concerned about on almost a daily basis. And I'm sure our concerns and situation is not unique. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Right, right. ⁓ Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we were just talking about it before with you attending the 911 Goes to Washington. In February, you've attended a couple conferences. This spring, you have more to come outside of what we've been discussing. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you're excited to hear more about and learn more about and progress toward? Nick LaMontia: I'm, and this may sound fairly selfish, but I'm trying to squeeze in as much as I possibly can before my tenure's over in June. ⁓ Only because, I won't say only because, because my experience has been so positive for me and there was a gamble in a sense of me even putting in for the position because I'm not always comfortable speaking in public. I'm not comfortable traveling all the time. all these different components. So by me putting in for that position, it was really taking me out of my comfort zone. And thankfully for me, the rewards have been just innumerous. The people I have met, the experiences I've had, and being able to do things like GTW and meet these passionate people who live these things every day and they take it very seriously and they study up on it, they're very knowledgeable on it. It's their passion. And it's really made me, I knew there was kind of an expiration date on what I was doing, but it's made me want to carry on even further because it is so important to people. And it doesn't matter if we're just talking the reclassification, but also the wellness or the. whatever the pillar may currently be, there people that are so passionate about what we're doing in the 911 sphere that it's infectious. And I would prefer to just keep going in some angle. It obviously isn't gonna be the board of directors deal anymore, but as long as there's some road I can travel on, I'm gonna stay with it. Emily Miller: Yeah, and that goes back to kind of what you shared before in your experiences at these PSAPs. You enjoy the community aspect of it, for sure. And I feel like what you mentioned before, too, in terms of enjoying going to work every day, that plays into the wellness component. ⁓ Nick LaMontia: ⁓ absolutely. Well, and the folks that I meet, the... whether they're board of directors or institute board members or the people that attend the conferences, it's important to remember that by and large these folks are all volunteers. They're doing it because they love it and they want to do it and they want to be involved and that in itself is infectious. I mean these are people who are passionate about what they do. How can you be around them and not be inspired in some way? And it's rare that you find an industry like that where I guess it kind of goes Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Nick LaMontia: goes back to the family thing and makes you want to go to work. I'll be the first to admit I've made friends on these various boards, Institute Board and the Board of Directors that I know I'll still continue friendships with ⁓ probably till the day I shuffle off. I mean how many other positions, how many other jobs can you have that allow you that kind of friendship? Emily Miller: Yeah, that's wonderful. And I appreciate you sharing about your experience. Like I said, we talked in our back and forth emails and you're like, what story do we have to tell here? And we're like humble beginnings to like national leadership. It's a very impressive, impressive story. And we love hearing them. Like I said, everyone's stories in the 911 industry are so vastly different. Nick LaMontia: Well, I mean, come on, if I can be a housekeeper one day, the next day I become a dispatcher and then be doing this, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Granted, it took me 30 years to do it. I bet somebody could do it a lot quicker, but if I can do this, anybody can do this. Absolutely. Steve McDonnell: you Emily Miller: Yeah. Steve McDonnell: you Emily Miller: Yeah, very powerful. All right, before I start to wrap this up, Steve, do you have any additional questions for Nick? Steve McDonnell: No, this is all impressive. know, I love the passion. I think people need to, the general public outside of, you know, PSAPs, police, EMS, fire, need to hear about this more. There's such special people that work in this industry and it's such a difficult industry. I'm glad wellness is starting to take a hold and really be important. and people are building technology around it and giving you guys the right resources. So all awesome. But again, thank you. We love hearing the passion and the stories from everyone. Everyone in the country needs people like you, leadership like you. So keep doing what you're doing. Nick LaMontia: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you for having me. Emily Miller: Wonderful. All right, Nick, before I wrap us up, is there anything that we didn't hit on today, programs, initiatives happening at Kerr, at Nina, that you want to bring awareness to for our listeners? Nick LaMontia: You let me talk for so long and I don't even remember half of what I said. I'm just going to assume that I touched on everything and thank you and nothing specifically I can think of now. Emily Miller: You got it. All right, if you think of anything, we'll chat about it at the NEENA annual conference in a couple of weeks. So we'll chat then. All right, Nick, thank you so much for joining us on the Will MacWire for our listeners. If you'd like to connect with Nick or follow along with what he's doing at NEENA, you can find Nick on LinkedIn under Nicholas Lamontia. You can learn more about NEENA. That's the National Emergency Number Association through their website, neena.org. Nick LaMontia: Yeah, or just have me out again and I'll be here. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Emily Miller: and you can also follow them on social media on LinkedIn, Facebook X and YouTube. Nick, thank you so much for joining us on the Will MacWire. It's been an absolute pleasure. Nick LaMontia: Thank very much. you for having me. Thanks, Steve. Steve McDonnell: Thanks, Nick, appreciate it.