Latest / The Wilmac Wire / National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week | Honoring the Heroes Behind the Headset
Transcript
- Emily Miller: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome back to the WillMacWire. Thank you so very much for joining us for today's episode. This week is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. And here at WillMac Technologies, that does mean a lot to us. We've been working alongside the 911 community now for just over 30 years, starting as a reseller of NiceInform and evolving now into building our own solutions that are purpose-built for 911 centers. That includes WillMac Consonuity WFM, a workforce management platform designed specifically for PSAPs, and MAC, our agentic AI built to support scheduling, forecasting, and staff reporting inside 911 centers. Now we've been thrilled at WillMac to get more ingrained and invested in the public safety community. The work that these individuals do for their cities, their counties, just the communities, what they do for them every day is mind blowing, ⁓ very intense. And the more positive recognition that we can give to what they do, the better. So this week, instead of a new guest, we wanted to take a pause and dedicate an episode entirely to the people behind the headset, our telecommunicators. So in today's episode. We are spotlighting clips from some of our public safety guests that we've had so far this season. And we'll give you a sneak peek at a few of the conversations still to come. From 911 directors to national association leaders, from Nina and APCO, to people who are just live and breathe the public safety industry. These are the people that are shaping the future of emergency communications and they're living in it just every day. and you are going to love hearing from them. So before we hand it over, I want to take a quick minute though to talk about something that deserves more attention, not just this week, but every week, the 9-1-1 Saves Act. Right now on the federal level, 9-1-1 telecommunicators are classified as office and administrative support workers. The same broad category is office clerks and receptionists. And when you think about what a telecommunicator does, guiding someone through CPR, talking a caller to safety during a disaster, legitimately coordinating life or death responses in real time, or for whatever that you called 911 the last time for, it feels like a no-brainer that they should be recognized as the protective service workers that they are. So this 911 Saves Act, which is formerly known as the Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services Act is bipartisan legislation that would do exactly what we just discussed. It would direct the Office of Management and Budget to reclassify public safety telecommunicators as protective service workers, giving them the recognition, the resources, and the wellness support that they deserve as the first of the first responders. The bill was reintroduced in January, 2025 with 24 bipartisan co-sponsors and it has stalled in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. It doesn't cost anything to implement. It very frankly just needs to move. NENA hosted their annual 9-1-1 Goes to Washington event in February of 2026 that they hold annually. as I mentioned, where representatives from across the country go to Capitol Hill to advocate for not only this issue, but many others. Across both Nina and APCO, this is, it's top of mind. You'll hear it in today's conversations ⁓ from some of the public safety leaders that we've already spoken to this season. This is where you come in though, our valued listener. The more this conversation reaches beyond the public safety industry, the faster it moves. Most people have no idea that the person who answered their 911 call isn't classified as a first responder. Now you do. So we've published a blog on this topic on our website, willmactech.com, and we will link it in the episode notes. I encourage you to read it, share it, and if it resonates with you, please reach out to your local representatives. For those of you that are listening in Monroe County, New York, that is Willmack's headquarter county, that is Congressman Joe Morelli. I just wanted to take a minute to share about the 911 Saves Act that impacts many of the telecommunicators that we're celebrating this week. So thanks for listening to my spiel. Lastly, it is a big week at Willmack Beyond the Podcast. We are delivering treats to local 911 centers here in New York. and sending treats to centers across the country because these folks deserve to be celebrated. We're also in the middle of our continuity WFM webinar series. If you haven't registered yet, we have two sessions coming up. One being today on April 16th, we're going to dive into how agent take AI and workforce management enable faster call response. And on April 30th, in two weeks, we are tackling overtime optimization in the same breath. Both are free to attend. They're both packed with very practical, easy to understand insight, and they're only 30 minutes long. So we'd love to see you there. Links to register for those are in the episode notes. All right, so now into today's episode and who you'll be hearing from, you're going to hear some clips from three recent public safety leaders we had on the podcast. The first being Captain Jack Varnedow, who came from season three, episode 11. He is the 911 director at Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office. and president at APCO International. You'll also hear from Ivan Whitaker, who aired on season three, episode 13. He is the executive director and CEO of Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center. And last but certainly not least, you're gonna get a sneak peek at an upcoming episode ⁓ with Roxy Van Gundy. That'll be airing in May. but she is the Director of Lyon County Emergency Communication Center and the first Vice President of NENA, which means that she is the incoming president this summer. So we're really excited for her. Now, if these conversations leave you wanting more, I promise you we've got it coming. Over the course of the coming months, you can expect to hear from more public safety, leadership and influencers like Holly Barquell, like Nick Lamonta. Melanie Jones, Mark Fletcher, and Adam Timm, with many more to come. So if you recognize those names, check them out on LinkedIn. I'm pumped for those conversations to come. Now to every telecommunicator listening, thank you so very much for all that you do. What you do matters more than most people will ever know and understand. And we at WillMac are very proud to work with you and are committed to using technology and AI to make your lives easier. so you can better serve your communities. Now, let's get into today's episode of the WheelMac Wire. Thanks for tuning in. Ivan Whitaker: Call volume in some dispatch centers have always been very high, but the call volume has increased. But the challenge is the type of high priority calls that our emergency dispatchers are getting today more consistently. That's a change that I'm seeing in my dispatch center that I haven't witnessed quite the same way before. So volume, we've always dealt with volume, but the type of calls and the frequency of those calls is leading to a variety of things that we just haven't seen. The mental health challenge that we're having today, I saw a stat this week that said that in EMX and 911, most will experience a, I think the percentage is more than 50 % will experience a mental health diagnosis sometime in their career. So that is one of, think, the changes or the challenges. Jack Varnado: at an early age. I to be a police officer. I wanted to go to college and I started off in college being a criminal justice major. ⁓ I dropped out of college ⁓ after about two and a years and decided I wanted to go ahead and start practicing. ⁓ And ⁓ that was after an in my community. a lady that I went to church with and her husband were killed in a car crash. I was one of the first people there and I got to the accident and I couldn't do anything. I didn't know what to do. I was 20 years old. I had no idea what to do. And I said, you know what? I'm never gonna have this happen again. So I started being a volunteer firefighter in my community, ⁓ moved up in there to get my EMT. ⁓ And I have... ⁓ Ivan Whitaker: that we're up against. I think the man's from a technology perspective, not internally, but our citizens and what they're exposed to, I think that's totally and completely different. So if I am a non-English speaker, ⁓ the expectation is that they're going to have the same level of care and support, which they should expect that. And so we have to be able to deliver on that in the same way as everyone else. The use of apps and the use of, you know, our NG911, where we're talking about Jack Varnado: moved up in every position ⁓ to go into Baton Rouge and if you wanted to go into Paramedic, you had to go to ⁓ East Baton Rouge EMS. Well, my first day was Christmas Eve, 1989, and it was like really cold and a steam pipe burst in the ⁓ Exxon refinery and it burst a gas line, which then a truck drove through and blew up and blew up the entire Exxon refinery. And that was my first day. Ivan Whitaker: enablement and the capabilities and our ability to be able to capture all of that. So I think it's just the requirements of the emergency dispatcher are a lot different. So leaders have to understand what those requirements are and those thresholds. Steve McDonnell: Getting, I know, you want to cover this a little later, but I'm diving into it now. If we talk about, you know, an eight hour, 12 hour shift, how intense are the back to back conversations? Meaning, are they taking a call, it lasts 20 minutes and then getting, you know, another 20 minutes before another call gets in? Emily Miller: Go for it. Jack Varnado: Supervisor my supervisor catches me in the hallway as we're leaving that day and she said are you gonna come back tomorrow and I said Absolutely, I that I can honestly say and I've told this story many many times that is the day that I fell in love with communications and I I've done field work in law enforcement fire EMS since then but my heart is always with communications because Steve McDonnell: group themselves and not an official break, but when they're on the desk? Or is it just coming constantly for those eight, 12 hours and it's up to the supervisor to make sure they're getting those breaks, those mental breaks, the 15 minute bathroom break, the 15 minute snack break. What kind is the environment like in a typical day? Jack Varnado: I know what it means to really be involved in that and making that the best it can be because our first responders out in the field depend on that for their safety, for the safety of the citizens, for the response of every emergency call that is coming in goes through communications. And I want to see it be the best we can make it at every level, whether it's at my local agency or now. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, so I'll start with the volume. We're doing more than 200 calls an hour right now. And so when you look at the number of call takers, if you go out on my floor right now, those calls are back to back to back. So we've infused breaks throughout to try to deal with that volume. ⁓ But it is very intense. And like I said, the reason being is it's not just the type of calls that are coming in. It's also the acuity of those calls, the severity of those calls, which are just much different. Jack Varnado: being the president of ABCO International and trying to make this industry better and I want to see it better every day and I want to see us making it better. And I've tried to do that and I've worked with some amazing people, whether it's people in the public sector, private industry, Congress, FCC, I've worked with a lot of people to do that. Ivan Whitaker: you might have an experience of having a pregnancy childbirth to where it's high and intense and you're giving pre-arrival instructions. And then, you you might have a gunshot an hour later. That is reality in dispatch centers today. And so where that gunshot might be an incident to where it would require that person off the shift for the rest of the day, you know, they might have had two or three of those in a shift. Jack Varnado: And I just love this, that we're seeing a transformation of our industry now. ⁓ And it's a career. I was telling someone here not long ago that this is such a worthy career. And I'm sorry that we don't have more people stay in this career, but it's a tough career to make it long lasting unless you get into management. ⁓ Ivan Whitaker: And so the volume in our dispatch center, we have some call takers that are taking anywhere from 800 to 1200 calls a month in our dispatch center today. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, that's a wild first day on the job. Emily Miller: Yeah. Jack Varnado: Yes, it was crazy. But that's another one of those situations where I said, you know, I couldn't do anything. I could answer the phone and say, what do I need to do? But I didn't know what to tell them. And I said, I'm never going to do that again. And I wanted to be the best I could be. And I had some great trainers and supervisors and leaders in my life that I've been able to, and career that I've been able to try to do that same thing with people. Emily Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steve McDonnell: So you've literally worked across a ton of the different disciplines and clearly communications is where your heart's at. ⁓ How was working being a volunteer fire, being in EMS, doing some patrol work, ⁓ how was that compared to being in the communication center? Is it just a different field because you're out in the field or? Jack Varnado: It is. Yeah, it's different because you're actually, you have to communicate face to face with people and not over the phone. ⁓ I tell dispatchers and call takers this all the time that you know the worst thing that can really happen to us in communications is we have to eat a cold burger or the room gets hot or cold. For our first responder ⁓ disciplines in the field, they cannot go home to their families. And so I try to take that idea that I know what's happening in the field and... what we do in communications affects them. many times what I'm trying to do whenever I'm in the field is trying to learn what can we do differently or more efficiently ⁓ to help those in the field when they are on a call, whatever that call is, ⁓ what can we do to make their jobs safer or more efficient? ⁓ without burdening the dispatch centers down with some of the things that sometimes we get burdened with, ⁓ can they do from the field or can AI help us? Can new technology help us in a particular way? Roxanne Van Gundy: I think that we have got to get past, in 911, we're very controlling and we have to have control of every single thing. And I think a good culture starts with letting people make mistakes and not having that control. Understanding that if somebody makes a mistake, it's a learning moment. I think at first, a big part of our culture and our positive change. Emily Miller: Yeah, that's powerful. ⁓ Let me ask Jack, so you obviously moved from frontline roles into leadership. Like what changed most about how you approached your day to day with that? Jack Varnado: think for me what changed most was that I didn't... Roxanne Van Gundy: was talking about stuff that had gone wrong versus me coming in and being like, you did this wrong. That's how we were treated for so long. And nobody learns anything from that. So we had a lot of family meetings about issues and calls that went south. Tell me how you got there. Tell me what was going on that made you make that decision. I want to be curious as a leader. And I think that that's Jack Varnado: Not real sure how to say this, but, that my role didn't change. Well, my role changed a lot. My responsibility didn't because I now had the responsibility of the entire team, whether it was a shift or, go from a trainer. And I was responsible for that trainee and myself to a shift to the entire organization at that point. ⁓ Roxanne Van Gundy: driven into my people is they want to be curious as frontline and supervisors, ⁓ asking questions. think all of that drives positive culture change. ⁓ I talked to a lot about if we want to look at ourselves as professionals, we have to act like professionals, right? And before, you know, we didn't really have that structure. It was, you did this wrong and I'm the leader and you're going to listen. That's not professional. So. Jack Varnado: I guess my leadership style was always, was not to be overbearing or ⁓ micromanaging, but to be a part of that team, not to just jump out there and say, I'm in charge, I'm in charge. ⁓ Emily Miller: Yeah. Jack Varnado: Look, many times I walk in the dispatch center today and I'm asking those ladies and guys on that floor, I'm asking them, hey, tell me what you see, tell me what you need, and then I'll go out and make it happen. But I don't try to pretend that I know or have all the answers. Those people are pretty resourceful and go getters on that dispatch floor. And most of the centers that I've been in, Roxanne Van Gundy: You know, we want to honor each other for the work we do. We want to honor each other's skills and abilities. And everybody's a person here. So we're not going to talk to each other like dispatchers. We're going to talk to each other like people. And, you know, that takes some conversations and culture shifts. you know, sometimes I don't get it right. So it's being humble when I get it wrong. And just, you know, trying to keep the culture open and honest and Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Jack Varnado: probably the most intense individuals because they're gonna they're gonna get out there and get the information and do whatever they can to support that particular call or that particular event going on. Roxanne Van Gundy: human, that's really important. Steve McDonnell: The old way probably doesn't help wellness either. The job's tough enough. And to have, to be worrying about someone barking at you on top of what you're trying to do can't be good. Emily Miller: Yeah, so it sounds like the people are kind of a big motivation for you, that safety of the community. Am I correct in assuming that, that what keeps you continually motivated to show up every day? People, yeah. Roxanne Van Gundy: No! Yeah, it is. It is. Jack Varnado: Yes. Roxanne Van Gundy: Well, and I think, that's the thing we all learned from this very paramilitary structure where it was the leader was always in charge. I'm not in charge. I'm the director, but I think that these heroes, they're in charge. They write our story. They represent our center. They're the ones who are protecting our partners every single day. I'm just the lady that keeps the lights on. Jack Varnado: Yes, yes, it's the people, whether it's the victims or the callers or my own people that work in the agency with me. And I try not to say people work for me. ⁓ They work with me and I work with them and it's all about the people. The technology, we've had times where the technology has totally failed, but those people in that dispatch center, in that agency, fire police, EMS, they didn't fail. The equipment we had, Steve McDonnell: What you mentioned the word heroes and I think Emily alluded to at the beginning of this. We've been in public safety for 30 plus years, Wilmat, but as a reseller of nice and we have 300 customers. We've been in the PSAP world. ⁓ but I myself have just kind of taken a dive the past two or three years. Once we started building our own products and it is Jack Varnado: Learned from things and I've been involved in some pretty horrific events Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Ida the the different things out there and and Our people never quit Sometimes the technology does we get it back working and we continue doing what we do Roxanne Van Gundy: Yeah. Steve McDonnell: eye-opening to me to see myself included, I will raise my hand, but the general public is not aware of what these people are doing, how difficult their job is, and kind of, you know, I don't want to say the treatment of them is bad, but there's certain things that they don't get that other first-line responders, I'm sure we'll get to the 9-1-1 SAVES Act, which I'm just shocked to know about and learn about. Roxanne Van Gundy: No. Steve McDonnell: and see, and it's still sitting there not passed. I'm sure you guys are working on it, but it's very interesting to see that. And I think there's a gap that the general public just is not aware of. Roxanne Van Gundy: Right. I fully agree. You said it perfectly. I think that, you know, to most of the public, they're like, that's common sense. Of course they're a part of public safety. Of course they, you know, are just as important. I think there's far more public members who think, I'm on line. Yeah, absolutely. But to tell them that we're classified as administrative personnel on a federal level, that blows their mind because, you know, I don't know any secretaries that give, you know, Emily Miller: Yeah. and Steve McDonnell: Yes. Roxanne Van Gundy: baby delivery instructions. I don't know any secretaries who have walked somebody through how to plug a bullet hole. You know, that's not a secretarial task. And so when you really break it down to the public in that way, and I mean, you've got to be brutal about it, it really does open their eyes to what we face every day. Emily Miller: Yeah, right. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. And I think hearing the actual stories, they're tough to hear. Maybe the general public doesn't want to hear. But a lot of this goes right into the gap of wellness that is out there right now for the call takers and dispatchers that it needs to get better. But some of the resources maybe aren't being provided because of this gap in how you guys are classified. Roxanne Van Gundy: Yeah. Right? Exactly. And I think that that's something too that we have to work on educating 911 about because I don't even think 911 understands fully that, you know, if we were classified in a different way, perhaps we would have a way to, you know, study our profession and really have some concrete data of understanding what these calls are doing to us every single day. We can guess, we can... We can speculate all we want, but we really don't have any kind of quantitative data that says Steve has taken 2,911 calls this year and here's how it's impacting him. We don't know that the entire state of Kansas, those dispatchers, 20 % of them have PTSD symptoms. We're guessing, but we really don't know. And I think one of the biggest drivers of being reclassified is not only just to right or wrong, but it's to open up some of that. ⁓ You know, you can go online and see how many ⁓ law enforcement officers or members of the fire service have taken their own life. You really can't find that for dispatchers. ⁓ So I think that, you know, the wellness component is really, for me, the key driver of why we should pass the SAVES Act because we need people to really dive deep into what this is doing to us. Well, Emily, think you probably know if you follow me on LinkedIn, I'm the touchy-feely one, right? You know, I'm all about the wellness and the happy vibes. I think that Betty stemmed from that. You know, I was going in the center and seeing my folks get pummeled. I mean, literally assaulted with calls for 12 solid hours a day. And even if that's not, you know, a bunch of really bad 911 calls, that can be so mentally draining to just call after call after call after call. Emily Miller: I'm Yup. Roxanne Van Gundy: And all that does is burn people out, drives people away. And we have a hard enough time keeping people in 911. We need to do whatever we can to support them. So that was really where Betty kind of came to life. I think that we have found immediately an impact by bringing in AI automation. And she's only right now doing 10 call types and transferring a certain call to our jail. and they can already tell the difference. So I'm really working on what the next step in that is. So there's more call types coming. We also do rangeland burning here in Kansas. So burn season is a really difficult time for us. So we're gonna work with our company to ⁓ get burns into Betty and then she can put those on our burn map. So we're trying to find ways where we can streamline the workflows. and make it so we're taking just those little annoying things off their plates so they can really focus on the business of 911. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, as someone who leads a company, AI company, I think one of the biggest things that we try to echo is the AI should really help everyone's wellness because it should be taking away the tests and the mundane tasks that people look at as kind of a pain and that are overburdening them. leading the burnout exactly you said, then you have turnover, then the whole retention and hiring, and it just starts a nasty ball. And if you could free up their time as much as possible ⁓ to do the important stuff and have enough breaks, I think that's how people should be looking at AI applications. ⁓ know, LinkedIn, for example, can be a nasty place. ⁓ Emily Miller: Ivan, we talked about this a little bit the call, but can you speak more to kind of what innovation you are prioritizing, that you're working on, that you're excited about at Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center? Roxanne Van Gundy: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: Yep, this year is going to be a powerful year for VEC. We have a lot of things that are lined up. I think the biggest initiative that we're working on right now is our non-emergency AI initiative. We actually have an RFP out right now. We're doing, if you just exclude 911 calls, we're doing about 600,000 non-emergency calls a year. I would say probably about 93 to 94 % of that can be handled with AI without the intervention of a Steve McDonnell: talking about AI, but I think that's really where AI fits in public safety and it should help wellness out quite a bit. Roxanne Van Gundy: And I think the big fear, and just to be transparent, I think the big fear is that we're gonna allow it to take over these mundane tasks. What else are we gonna allow it to do? And I don't believe at this point, from what I've seen so far, there is an argument for AI to take over 911 calls. I think that there's a real human component that needs to stay involved in emergency services. But... Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: Some of those are just needing the phone numbers to certain places or need to be routed to certain places or needing a bit of info that could be handed off just easily with the right AI program. And so we're going to implement that. We go live with that in September. Just to give you some stats, you know, even if we diverted 10 % of that, which is 60,000 calls, about 12,500 calls for us is one FTE, right? And so, Roxanne Van Gundy: To be afraid of it, to do some of these small tasks, it's mind-boggling to me because we have already seen such a difference and only on a very small scale. ⁓ It's a supported tool. It's a tool to support our folks and I don't know why anyone would question why that wouldn't be a good thing. Ivan Whitaker: So one of things that we're doing is we're making it mindful that there's a lot of work that we have that we need to do that we can't get to. And so this is not about replacing emergency dispatchers. I want to make sure that's understood as we get into this conversation. It's allowing us to be more efficient and get to the things to where we can actually drive outcomes because we now have the time to be able to explore different types of work that really matters on a day-to-day basis from an outcomes perspective. And so we're varying in through. Emily Miller: Yeah, 100%. We always talk about human in the loop. Like it's the way to keep it grounded. And like you said, not replacing people by any means, just empowering them more. Okay, so you mentioned it a little bit before, but Lyon County just got a brand new $3 million emergency communication center approved after you operated out of a basement. You mentioned that. First of all, congratulations. Roxanne Van Gundy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steve McDonnell: Wow. Congrats. Roxanne Van Gundy: Thank you. Emily Miller: Second of all, what does that mean for your team? Like what's the game plan moving forward with that? Ivan Whitaker: We want to at about the three to four year mark to be at about 50 % diversion or 300,000 calls, which is about 24 FTEs when you're starting to look at ROI. And that would be phenomenal for us. Roxanne Van Gundy: ⁓ so we actually went through, and I think I kind of mentioned this on LinkedIn, Emily, but we went through a really long time where we looked for a lot of different options of where we could go because, you know, 13 years ago we were promised this was temporary solution. You guys are just going to be here for a few months until we can find a place for you. Well, 13 years later, we're still here. and we just could never find something that really worked. the that kind of checked all the boxes. ⁓ Our sheriff was able to obtain a DOJ grant to build a new range. They have a range, it's not great how it's set up, it's kind of clunky. And ⁓ he also has some of his different apparatus, like his MRAP and stuff like that, in different places all across the city. And he wanted a place where he could build a range, get all of his stuff in one place. and potentially build us a training facility because we don't have a lot of training facilities here. ⁓ Most of our conference areas are public, so we have to fight the public for space to have training. So that was kind of his general goal. And we got into a conversation of, what would it look like if we just expanded the goal just a little bit? So that's how we came into the conversation. ⁓ I think the game plan for us is getting the range up and going because that has a time limit of when that money needs to be spent. So that's kind of the first phase of our project. And we're getting into the second phase of building. So they're starting to lay foundation and do that kind of stuff. And we should be there probably if Kansas weather holds out sometime around March of 27. Emily Miller: Okay, that's awesome. It's really exciting. Steve McDonnell: That's exciting, congrats. Jack Varnado: one big thing that I been focused on and so many in our organization have been ⁓ is ⁓ getting our telecommunicators reclassified protective service occupation employees. ⁓ They are right now they are considered administrative clerical. ⁓ They are not what are is not administrative clerical. They are emergency ⁓ call takers and they deserve that protection or designation as emergency, I'm sorry, protective service, occupation. And the Senate has passed it out at the U.S. without any opposition. And it is sitting in the House of Representatives and it is stalled right now. But we at APCO We are out there trying to fight that fight to get our telecommunicators ⁓ reclassified as protective service. Crossing guards and lifeguards, school crossing guards are protective service, but our telecommunicators are not. And we've got to change that. And APCO is working as hard as we possibly can to get them reclassified. So stay tuned for things that may be coming. and call to actions that could come here in the next few months to try to get this done and get it over the finish line.