Latest / The Wilmac Wire / Ivan Whitaker | Running a Consolidated PSAP, Life as an Influencer, & Beyond the Launch

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Ivan Whitaker | Running a Consolidated PSAP, Life as an Influencer, & Beyond the Launch · The Wilmac Wire

• Emily Miller: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome back to the Will MacWire. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm going to level set with you all for a minute. I'll be very honest that every time we sit down with a public safety professional for this show, I walk away a little bit humbled. These are people who could not be busier and they so graciously accept our invitations and show up ready to share and be very honest. All right, let's start with introducing our guest today. He's based in Salt Lake City, Utah. He's a 30 plus year public veteran who started as a paramedic and emergency dispatcher. He's built his career across EMS operations, 911 leadership ⁓ the private sector, giving him a perspective few people in this space have. He's now the executive director and CEO of Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center, serving 22 agencies and handling 1.1 million calls annually. He was recently named the APCO NINA Association Administrator of the Year. As if that's not enough, he also hosts his own podcast called Beyond the Launch. Welcome to the Willmac Wire, Ivan Whitaker. Ivan, thanks for joining us. And every single time the stories they tell, the insight they bring, and the glimpse that they give us into their centers and even the people behind them, it just reaffirms how mission critical this work is and how lucky we are to get to talk about it, to learn about it, to listen to it. Today is no different. We sat down with Ivan Whitaker, Executive Director and CEO of Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center out in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ivan Whitaker: Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here today and looking forward to the discussion. Emily Miller: Yeah, we appreciate you joining us on Riverside. We were just chatting about how great of a platform it is if you host your own podcast, you've recently started, right? A couple months ago, you got it going. Steve McDonnell: you Emily Miller: It's also referred to as SLVECC, which you'll hear me struggle through a few times in the episode, just as a sneak peek. He's also the host of his own podcast called Beyond the Launch, which you should definitely go check out after listening to this episode. Here's what you can expect out of today's conversation. We started things off, of course, with Ivan's career journey from paramedic and emergency dispatcher to leading one of the more uniquely structured PSAPs in the country. Ivan Whitaker: Yep, absolutely. And it's taken off. I didn't expect it to take off this fast, but have a huge lineup of executive staff and ⁓ customer success folks. And it just, I'm looking forward to what the year produces with the podcast. Emily Miller: Yeah, same here. We appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to join us on the Will MacWire. ⁓ We'll definitely share more about your podcast too at the end for where our listeners can find it. But for us to get into the content, we always like to start with a segment called This or That. It's very lighthearted icebreakers. So I'll pose you three questions and give you two options in each one and you can choose your choice, your top choice. ⁓ So we will start with mountains or beach. and how that path has kind of been shaped the way he leads today. We also discussed what it actually looks like running a consolidated multi-jurisdictional 911 center and why that model stands out and encourages flexibility. We have also discussed technology and AI, surprise, surprise, but Ivan has got a lot going on at SLVECC right now and he gets into all of it. He shared, think, six to seven initiatives ⁓ Ivan Whitaker: definitely beach. Emily Miller: or yeah, so beach. Okay, okay. You spent some time in Florida, didn't you, in your career? about real AI and technology use cases that he's implementing in his center and the proactiveness and innovation was very refreshing. We hit on wellness. Ivan is very passionate about this and has a really grounded take on where the industry is falling short and what needs to change in terms of acting quicker. And if you're a listener, a regular listener to this podcast, you know the wellness conversation has been top of mind for dispatchers in 911 lately. Ivan Whitaker: Yep, born in Florida, raised in Florida. And so I was 45 minutes from the beach each way. So you grow up in Florida, you grow up by water. So I'm a beach guy, definitely. Emily Miller: Very nice. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, that's, that's fair. All right. Speaking at a conference or interviewing a guest for your podcast, the more recent one. Ivan Whitaker: I would say interviewing a guest with the podcast. And the reason being is, it's just, I am a huge believer in growth and development. And with everyone that I interview, is just, the information is phenomenal that's coming across that. I think folks have always wanted to say, or wanted a platform. And so exposing them and their knowledge in a platform has just been phenomenal. Emily Miller: Okay. Last but certainly not least, we hit on the story behind Beyond the Launch, why Ivan started this podcast and what gap he's trying to fill in the public safety space. This was an incredibly insightful conversation. So thank you to Ivan for taking time out of his busy schedule to join Steve and I on the Will MacWire. It's packed. It was one of my favorite episodes to record. Let's get into it. Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. I love interviewing people through this. is like the podcast world. One, it gives you an opportunity to create like a voice for you, for your brand, but also just the cool people that you get to speak to every day. It's such a privilege. So ⁓ yeah, love that. Okay, and last one, ⁓ implementing a new system or celebrating go live day. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, I would say implementing a new system. ⁓ And the reason I would say that is. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. Ivan Whitaker: When you talk about implementing and implementing a new system, it goes well beyond the go live. And so go live for me is a point in where we're really driving home, wanting to see if what we've implemented drives to success. And so I don't think the implementation day is as sexy. It's a great thing to implement and say we're live. But if you look at the totality of the implementation process, there's really not a finish line because adoption just continues. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: throughout your use of the tool. So I always have to say implementing a system as a whole. Emily Miller: I love it. All right. Easy enough, right? Quick and simple. Just for our listeners to get to know you a little bit better. ⁓ yeah, Hedda said that. Steve McDonnell: I have a surprise one. After doing some research, I see that you have traveled the world helping out 911 centers or whatever they're called in different countries. ⁓ What was more unique? And I'm hoping these are right. Beirut or Botswana? Ivan Whitaker: Okay. Okay. Ha I would definitely say Lebanon, Beirut. I'm very surprised at ⁓ just the modernization and how westernized it is. ⁓ Just a beautiful place. ⁓ If you could think of Vegas mixed with New York, ⁓ I mean, the building structure. Steve McDonnell: Okay. Emily Miller: you Steve McDonnell: Really? Wow. Ivan Whitaker: entertainment, I mean it's all there. So I was very surprised to see that. Steve McDonnell: That is surprising. I would not have thought that. Ivan Whitaker: ⁓ absolutely. Emily Miller: Very cool, awesome. Well, great addition to the this or that, Steve. I appreciate it. All right, thanks Ivan for answering those questions for us. We'll move right from this or that into kind of the main core of our conversation today. And we always like to start with career path and better understanding how someone's evolved within their career. ⁓ So first question is, how did you end up in emergency communications? Can you talk to us more about kind of how you've gotten? Ivan Whitaker: Yeah. Emily Miller: how you got to be where you are at SLVECC. Ivan Whitaker: I started off at a college called Virginia Union that's in Richmond, Virginia. And then kind of after my first semester, I had a conversation with my uncle that had spent 30 years ⁓ in public safety. And so we had a conversation about what it is that I wanted to do. And I told him I wanted to become a doctor. And he had an entryway into EMS at the time. ⁓ And so he used to work at a funeral home. which they used to do transport services and he became actually one of the first EMTs in the state of Florida and went into the EMS system. And so by the time I came along, he really was pushing for me to go into the EMS system. ⁓ The ambulance service had tuition reimbursement, which was phenomenal, especially during those times. And so I said, hey, I could actually do this and get my schooling paid for. And that's what I did. ⁓ relocated back to Florida, went into the EMT program the very next semester, and the rest is history. Emily Miller: Mm hmm. I love that. So funny enough, when you said Virginia Union, I played basketball at Virginia and I didn't play like I competed against them like I played them in a game and we traveled down there. So I'm always like, ⁓ I know what their gym looks like. But yeah, awesome. That's that's a ton of fun. Ivan Whitaker: Absolutely. Steve McDonnell: Ivan, to that, one of the things, two things stick out. First of all, your uncle must be pretty proud of the career that took place after his recommendation. And then, I hear this a lot, and it's a little thing in people's stories, but it really helped you make the decision, is the reimbursement program. And are those still around today? Emily Miller: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: Right. Steve McDonnell: Do you oversee or see any of those? Because obviously they're very important with people getting into the system and getting working in the industry. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, it's something that's dear to my heart because if it wasn't in place, I probably wouldn't be talking to you right now. ⁓ And they are in place in many organizations across the nation. What we're really focusing on now is high school programs. we know the right now of those that are actually going to college out of high school. ⁓ And we believe 911 and EMS is just a great career for those that might not know what they want to do or they want to get into medicine, they want to help the community. ⁓ And so with ⁓ reimbursement or tuition reimbursement, might not just be in the form of going to college, it might be in the form of getting certifications while you're in high school ⁓ to be able qualify you and vet you for an opportunity in our space. And so that's happening and popping up all over the country right now, those high school programs. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, that's interesting. Sorry, I'm kind of going in a different direction here, but we talk about in today's world, you know, everyone says go to college and do this, but with AI, everything seems to be changing and this is not a job that's being taken by AI by any means. So it would seem that it should be a great career path and you're out there in the high schools and starting to get this in front of kids as an option. So that's clearly important to you and is your doing it, are most people like you around the country doing it or is it only the of the progressive people doing it? Ivan Whitaker: I think more are doing it now as a. ⁓ There's a great opportunity from a staffing perspective. Staffing has pushed us in a different direction to where things, programs like what I just described, ⁓ used to be the candles on the top of the cake. Now it's a necessity because across the nation, there are some centers that are 30 to 50 % understaffed that are having to find very creative ways to be able to make this happen. So I think in some areas, it's table stakes. It's just a part of how they do business now, making sure they get out with the adult education centers and high schools. I don't think some would survive without these programs with the way turnover is today. Emily Miller: Okay, so Ivan, you started out more on the EMS side. What brought you closer into 911? And then I know you spent some time in Florida at a 911 center. And then what brought you to Salt Lake Valley? Ivan Whitaker: Yep. So we had an outstanding program in the EMS system I was in. was called the 50-50 program where We were trying to create champions in dispatch that would actually go out to the field and articulate kind of what was happening in the dispatch center. And so two weeks you would work in the field and two weeks you would work in dispatch. And I was a part of that 50 50 program. Originally it was seen as a promotion. And so that's how I got my first kind of experience inside of dispatch. So all of the things that our emergency dispatchers have gone through the training, the daily observation reports, the certifications I went through all of that and then got into leadership. And so the rest is right after that. Emily Miller: Yeah, I love that. And so you've talked about leading at different sorts of levels. What's changed the most about what you do and how you do it as you kind of scale the ladder and moved around? Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, I think from a leadership perspective, you know, I have to look at. What we're managing today in this environment is much different than previously. So I'll give you an example. 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. 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 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. So there's just a lot of volume. Emily Miller: That's wild. Steve McDonnell: That's a lot of calls. Ivan Whitaker: Yes. Emily Miller: Yeah, yeah, it's always so interesting when when we speak with public safety leaders and they put it in those frank terms like as a civilian you think, OK, I'm going to call 911. I'm one of 200 plus calls in an hour and like what is the severity of that level? And I we talked about it a little bit in the icebreakers that Steve brought up, but you have traveled around to speak on people in wellness. So can you kind of share about some of your experiences and kind of? the message that you try to communicate within those, within that realm of people. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, I think this is one of the areas that we're ramping up, but we're still missing the boat. ⁓ And the challenge that we have today is there's a lot of focus on reactiveness ⁓ at the time the call happens or after the call occurs and what we do. And the focus needs to shift to resiliency. ⁓ First started having these conversations a long time ago with a gentleman by the name of Jim Marshall ⁓ that helped ⁓ develop a protocol for ⁓ mental health callers, his main kind of... was to make sure that we were preparing emergency dispatchers to be more resilient so that they're prepared from a mental health perspective before the call even comes in. And so what we're going to do is we're going to really ramp up our peer support program. There's a major difference between CISM that is very, very reactive versus peer support where we have a variety of programs that we can tap into from training to wellness programs to wellness certification. Steve McDonnell: Thank Ivan Whitaker: to all type of things, not just supporting our emergency dispatchers, but their families as well, because their families are impacted in this journey. And so again, how do we do that? And that's the conversation that I'm interested in, because I think we're all missing the mark right now. Emily Miller: Interesting. Okay, well thank you for sharing about that. When do you have your next like speaking slot like lined up yet or your schedule for the summer? it set? Ivan Whitaker: ⁓ it's getting there. So I'm getting requests and we're trying to iron out the calendar, but day by day is getting there. Emily Miller: Yeah? That is awesome. Yeah, we talked about it a little bit before we started recording, but Steve's speaking. I don't know when this episode will air, so it might be in the past, but he's speaking at Texas Public Safety and the NAPCO Western. So two weeks in a row and we're hitting on that. That wellness component is so critical. ⁓ And it's interesting to see we're talking with ⁓ Roxy Van Gundy this afternoon, who's a Nina, the first VP at Nina. And ⁓ her big push is wellness and the wellness committee that they've built at Neenah. So it's definitely top of mind. Like you said, there's still work to be done, but people like you at the helm just encourages us that it's going in the right direction. we're really excited for that. ⁓ Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, and a little bit more on the wellness programs. You know, we need to expand our thinking. Some of the things that we'll be doing here. We're talking about things like chaplain services to where that's out there. People know about it, but being with people in their, you know, their toughest times, there's always something going on in the dispatch center and I try to be available as much as possible. But to have that extra support, ⁓ maybe there's honor guard services to where ⁓ when people are in their brightest family members graduating or weddings or whatever that they're adequately represented by our system, right? That support also supports mental health as well, knowing that the egg is there. So there's just a variety of things that we're gonna be doing internally. We're ⁓ implementing some technology, some threshold technology to where it will let us know when people are at risk and that, you know, and we will have kind of some platforms or some things that we do before. of the platform is saying that they're at that threshold. There's just a lot of things that we'll be tapping into this year just in my own agency to try to make a difference. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, I mean, we've been in the industry, WillMac, for 30 plus years and the past few years is really, it's nice seeing this finally come to the forefront. ⁓ I wish that, you know, some of the politicians maybe took it a little bit more seriously and because they still, it's always, they want to see the hard ROI and sometimes wellness can be a soft ROI, but it's for four 911 centers, it's the most important. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah. Steve McDonnell: This is the most mission critical, difficult, call taking industry in the world and wellness has to be at the top. And I just hope that it's adopted by everybody, including some of the elected officials, I should say, not politicians, elected officials that are making the decisions on certain technology and certain processes of a 911 center. So, but that's great. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah, and echo what you just said. ⁓ We know the monies are there or dedicated to the field, whether it law enforcement and police services to where we know they have dedicated psychologists. We need the same thing in our profession. We need to be seen in the same way. ⁓ Not want to pit one against the other. But when I was in the EMS and took a bad call, I was able to really decompress and take a break before the next call. Our emergency dispatchers, they rarely have that opportunity. because of the coal volume. So to have those in-house resources, of course it takes money, but to dedicate those monies in an equal way is what we're needing in the industry. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, that's a great, you brought this up. This is like the third or fourth time I've heard this and I don't understand it. Obviously I'm getting more more educated, but I didn't realize dispatchers and 911 call takers aren't looked at by policy or whatever the same way EMS or police officers are. And they're trying, I know there's a, stuff going on in DC right now. They're trying to get this changed. But it seems like a bipartisan home run, common sense, it should be changed. ⁓ And that's just been the way it is. And now it's finally people are starting to say, we need to change this. Ivan Whitaker: Yep, I think. You know, we need to continue to push that effort. I know at the local level, a lot of us are pushing those efforts. ⁓ But it's as simple as things like I had my board of trustees come in and I actually let them listen to a couple of calls and most of them had never heard a 911 call before or understand what we're doing with pre-arrival instructions. ⁓ Another thing I like to say is that when you become certified in emergency medical dispatch, fire dispatch, police dispatch, You become, you know, you are now, for example, EMD, you become a healthcare provider. It's not advanced life support as paramedics do or basic life support, it's EMTs do, but our discipline in healthcare from a dispatch perspective is called DLS dispatch life support. You're actually giving life-saving instructions to be able to support citizens. So you should be seen on that same level. The certifications we have to get, all of the training we have to do, it is on par. with EMTs and in many cases some of the things that paramedics are doing but we're doing it from a verbal perspective. Emily Miller: Right, interesting. Okay, before I move into talking more about SLVECC, Ivan, I'd like to just ask what continues to motivate you working in public safety in the 911 field? Steve McDonnell: Absolutely. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, this is a easy one for me and its outcomes to be in a position into where I can see some of the decisions that we make as teams and the things that we do in as teams directly impact citizens. just it's just astronomical to be able to have that opportunity. It's an honor to have that opportunity. I could tell you some of work, for example, that we did in Detroit, you know, and this was a previous career to where ⁓ we knew what the cardiac arrest save rate was and what we wanted it to be. And we worked in teams to help ⁓ increase the cardiac arrest save rate. What that means is ⁓ that go into cardiac arrest actually walking out of the hospital. And so to be in a position into where we can impact not just the lives of our emergency dispatchers, but our citizens as a whole and the outcomes, right? ⁓ you know, I'll put this out there. My father just went, you know, he had a cardiac arrest event last year. Um, and it is because of, of what we're doing as a team throughout the state that he is alive today and survive that. So to be able to create processes and policies and implement technology that leads to those improved outcomes for those families, that's just something that's, I'm in my purpose, right? This is, is easy for me as far as why I'm doing what I'm doing and I won't do anything else. This is where I belong. Steve McDonnell: you Ivan Whitaker: So. Emily Miller: Yeah, that's wonderful that you're so clear in that and it's so true. Like you said, Steve mentioned ROI like to be able to tie it back to that is powerful, but there's also the soft ROI behind it too and interacting with people and how people are feeling and like you said, so that's wonderful. OK, I'm going to move us into what it's like running SLVECC. ⁓ So for our listeners, SLVECC is a joint enterprise serving multiple cities in Salt Lake County. Steve McDonnell: you Emily Miller: Ivan, can you explain what a consolidated PSAP is and how that model works? is SLVECC structured differently than maybe a more traditional PSAP? Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, actually it is. And I think. sub-model that should be looked at across the country. So there's been consolidations to get to this point of the Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center over a period of years to where we serve ⁓ multiple cities. think we're at about 18 different cities and municipalities that we're serving right now ⁓ for fire services and police services. We have a board that is a board of trustees that actually governs ⁓ the actual policy and day-to-day functions from a financial perspective. ⁓ the weight of the execution of operations and policy falls to me. ⁓ we have the fire chief and police chief that we're partnered with as advisory, ⁓ partners, ⁓ and it's, and it works quite well. And the reason I say that it works quite well is because we have the latitude in our dispatch center to execute out on operations, ⁓ from a standpoint, as long as our budget is appropriate, approved, we can execute out. A lot of directors across the country, they don't have the same latitude. So for example, we have our own human resources internally. Our insurance, everything that we do is internal to us. So we can make some critical decisions that are unique to our industry. A lot of dispatch directors are tied to county human resources, or they're tied to other facilities and things that they have to kind of, you know. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: negotiate with that are not just serving 911, but they're serving a lot of different facets of the county. And so when you, when you're going across that, things can be slow. For example, our hiring time is pretty fast right now. We made some changes that we know that we can't take three months to hire someone. Some directors are under those constraints because they're working with a county human resources department that has certain things in place that slows the process down. It's just what it is. We can make those on the spot adjustments as long as we are from a statute perspective, stay in line with legislation. We can make the changes we need to make and be more agile. Steve McDonnell: So that's interesting, because we talk with a lot of PSAPs and we always hear the constraints on hiring and how long it takes them. And they're hiring three, four to get through a training process that could be 12 to 16 months, because only one of them is going to make it through. It seems like the setup that you guys have is actually a lot more flexible and efficient. And how did that even come to be? Ivan Whitaker: Yep. Yeah. Well, it happened in 1998, I believe, when portion of the consortium and an agency started to come on board since then. And then speaking of the hiring process, for example, in that flexibility, we over hire. We know that we're going to lose about 50 % of our new hires in training. So why not over hire where some of my director friends, have to hire directly to the FTE, right? So if you have five FTEs, you can't hire more than five. Steve McDonnell: Okay. Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: because it has to be FTE to FTE, right? So we have those flexibilities which are serving us well. Steve McDonnell: And then in their case, if one of them doesn't make it through, they have to start over with the higher again. So they could have that gap for years. Ivan Whitaker: Yep. challenge is, and there are some challenges, you're working across the bow with many ⁓ stakeholders that have competing priorities and you just have to have the talent at the leadership level to weigh those waters and bring everyone to the center. And so I work every day and my leadership capability is to be able to do that. So looking more at how I can use data to drive some of the decision making and some of my proof points, ⁓ you know, how I can be better as a speaker, you know, making sure that I'm proving the things that need to be proven or articulating the things that need to be articulated. Steve McDonnell: How many do you know of any other PSAPs around the country that are set up like yours? Ivan Whitaker: There are a few, there are not many. Most PSDAPs either fall under the fire department or police department and that is where some of those constraints come into place because I've seen time and time again whether the fire departments or the police departments and their needs take precedence over the 911 center. Steve McDonnell: Okay. Yeah. And then my other question, because this is such a unique position that you're in and you have history in Florida, I heard you say Detroit, what brought you out to Salt Lake and how long have you been out there? Emily Miller: Interesting. Ivan Whitaker: Yep, so had an outstanding opportunity with Priority Dispatch Corp. They are the wholesale distributors of a protocol called the Priority Dispatch System. so created by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch. And so I had an opportunity to help, started off with the implementation team. I was actually not only an implementer of the protocols in the state of Florida, meaning a user I should say, but I started teaching as well and I would... teach in-house and then I started teaching regionally and then all of a sudden I got a call one day and said, hey, we think you're doing a good job with articulating the message and the vision behind the protocols. ⁓ We'd like to fly you out to see if this could be a more permanent thing. Now at first I said, I'm living in the state of Florida, why would I ever transition to Utah? And when I flew out and I fell in love with it, ⁓ met Dr. Claussen, which is the creator of the protocol. Steve McDonnell: Yeah Ivan Whitaker: and he said something that profound. said, you're helping the state of Florida. How would you like to impact the world? He actually told me that. And so I was able to do that. We started out with eight individuals implementing at party dispatch and we grew that program to where that program is now serving. I think the last time I checked 56 or 59 countries. ⁓ So very proud of the work that not just myself, but many were able to do. Steve McDonnell: Wow. Ivan Whitaker: to build out the implementation teams and some of the adoption that we were able to gain. We're just very proud of that. Emily Miller: Yeah, All right, Ivan, before we start talking about technology more and what you guys are doing at your PSAP, what do you think, what is a strong week for you? What does that look like as a CEO and what does your day to day involve? Steve McDonnell: That's awesome, that's a great story. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, my day today involves a lot of prep. to actually move the dial with initiatives that require not only education, but buy-in. So I'm creating champions on a day-to-day basis. There's always many initiatives that are going on that require buy-in, that require kind of additional approvals, that require legal review. And so I'm meeting with either legal or I'm meeting at the state level, or it's just a lot of things that I'm having to do or create or prepare. for to move the dial with multiple initiatives. So coming in a normal day would be starting off meeting with my internal executive team to make sure I understand what their issues and challenges are and what they're trying to drive. ⁓ We have a decision making time to where we get in a room and that's every week and we start going through the decisions that need to be made and we look at if there's gaps in data or information, ⁓ bringing those in. If there's not gaps, let's go ahead and make it decision and then we have our proof points. We do that on a weekly basis. ⁓ And so again, my week is just a tremendous amount of preparing for if it's not the board, if it's not the chiefs, if it's not our internal stakeholders, our emergency dispatchers, really moving the dial with what we're doing from an initiative perspective. That's what I'm primarily here for. Emily Miller: Yeah, so I'm just curious. So it sounds like a lot of what you do on a day-to-day basis is ⁓ pitching, is building relationships with people. Has that kind of just naturally made you a stronger speaker? Like, are you naturally more of an introvert, extrovert? How does that work? Ivan Whitaker: You know, I think I used to say that I was an extrovert consistently. think now it depends on the situation. I'm more of an extrovert when I need to be, when I need to stand up and move initiatives. ⁓ I'm becoming more of an extrovert, kind of external in a personal landscape to where when I'm done with this, I'm more quiet, I'm more reserved, ⁓ what I'm doing and what I'm saying. And so I think what I've learned now is I'm just different in different landscapes and I'm okay with that. Emily Miller: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, you adapt and that's completely fine. All right, love it. Sorry, I was just curious. ⁓ Okay, so Ivan, we talked about this a little bit before the call, but can you speak more to kind of what innovation that you are prioritizing, that you're working on, that you're excited about at Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center? 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: 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, 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. 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. Another thing, sorry, I didn't mean to pause. Let me keep going. Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: Another thing that we're implementing, which should be up and going in May, ⁓ that is our NG911 enhancements through video and 911 and live stream, ⁓ the ability to be able to receive SEND media, the ability to be able to ⁓ have language transcription. There's two things on the language front that we're doing this year. We're starting off with transcription, but we already know that the capabilities are there for that language transcription. to morph into ⁓ verbal translation. And so I speak in English, the caller is Spanish speaking, it translates to them in Spanish by voice, they speak in Spanish, it translates to me in English. We'll be live with that for sure this year as well. ⁓ So just a host of things on the NG911 front. I'll give you some statistics here, just in language translation alone. We do about 18 different languages a day here. ⁓ 24,000 minutes of language translation every single month. The challenge that we're having is those language translation calls on average take about nine minutes, where our normal call is about 3.4 minutes. I shouldn't say normal, I should say that doesn't involve language translation. So if we can get down and say get that down to four minutes or five minutes, not only does it mean getting help to the caller quicker, but it also helps our emergency dispatchers be available quicker. Another thing that we're working on, and I talked a little bit about our mental health initiatives, which not only are we expanding our peer support program, but drilling more into the data. What are those signs that we need to do something now? What are the signs from a data perspective that our resiliency programs are working the way they should? So that's a big initiative. Another initiative is our AI-driven dashboards. That's going to be huge for us. So there's a lot of great static dashboards out there. There's a lot of companies that will join to your data and have something that's pretty phenomenal. We're looking beyond that. We want to know what the anomalies are. We want that AI to be telling us what we should be looking at. ⁓ We want to look into things like, for example, prompt based or I come to work and we had a discussion with the board and I come in and say, build me a dashboard that does X, Y, Z and it builds that executive dashboard in seconds. We'll be implementing that this year as well to where that technology is out there. right. AI-driven call-taking protocols, that is a big one for us this year and it is a big topic. One of the things that we've required emergency dispatchers to do is be the interface of all technology and their fingers on the keyboard is that interface. We're requiring them to do more and more every day with all the technology and the demands of the citizens. So what we're doing is we're looking to integrate AI with our ⁓ protocol data and I'll talk to you about how that works. I'll give you an example. Let's just say you have a citizen called, they call in, it's a first party caller, which they are the patient, they have stroke-like symptoms, they're telling you that they have ⁓ facial drooping, they're exhibiting slurred speech, and we know that in the beginning of the call. Today, if we call a stroke alert, meaning having a stroke team ready at the hospital before the paramedics arrive, the emergency dispatcher has to go through the protocol. They have to remember to get the information out to the responding units, even though it's CAD, right? The information goes to CAD, the MBTs. They still have to verbalize the stuff over the radio. They have to call the hospital. What we'll be able to do is once AI identifies that there are stroke symptoms, Emily Miller: Yeah. Ivan Whitaker: and it's clear evidence is positive evidence, that AI will notify the hospital. That AI can actually send the notifications out to the appropriate people. So our emergency dispatcher can just continue to do their base job and not having to remember all these auxiliary responsibilities, which they often forget. So that's how we're interfacing with AI and we'll have those capabilities hopefully this year. We're working on it right now. So, yep. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, that's awesome. You guys are definitely progressive with that. I think that's great. I think one of the things you mentioned earlier that I definitely want to echo what you echoed is the AI being built for PSAPs aren't to replace jobs, but it's to help. Like all this stuff that you just talked about is going to help with the dispatchers wellness. They'll have more time to do what they need to do. They'll always need help, but any of the technology can help them. Emily Miller: Yeah. Steve McDonnell: and not overload them with stuff, not put more stress on them, but relieve the stress. I think that's great, and I think that's what AI will really help out with in the 911 Center. So I agree with you 100 % on that, which is awesome. Ivan Whitaker: Another thing that I wanted to get out there is, and we'll have this up, I think in another month, is we get what we call grammar requests or records requests to where those records requests are coming in from everywhere. In another month, it will be driven by AI, our responses to where the AI will pull the audio and the CAD tickets, the information specific to the request, and then we can get that out through an approval process. So that's something else that's big that I know listeners will want to know that that is happening as well. Emily Miller: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I'll echo what Steve said. That's a lot of stuff, Ivan. I give you a lot of credit as kind of leader of the PSAP to one, be in the weeds on all that. It's very clear. Like we've talked about before, you're driven by the outcomes and then the people piece of it. ⁓ So that's wonderful. ⁓ Let me ask, as part of that, you also recently launched your own podcast, Beyond the Launch, for our listeners to definitely go check it out. I'm encouraging you now. So what inspired the launch of that and what are you hoping it accomplishes in the public safety space? Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, so I had a conversation over a period of a week with two individuals that are customer success members in prominent organizations in the 911 space. And they were asking me questions about implementations and customer success. And I realized that these individuals needed a platform or needed additional training ⁓ because a lot of the things that I was saying to them, not only had they never heard of, but not knowing it could hurt with adoption. And so ⁓ those conversations, both of them lasted a few hours and both of them told me they were taking notes and they would take that back to their company. And both of them said, you should do something with all of this information is sitting in your brain. And so after that conversation, I said, you know what? podcast, you know, one of things that I know for sure is that with all of the technology that's coming out, you know, you have some companies that are implementing technology to remain competitive, but that technology is it's loss leader in nature and some it's their niche is what they do and you can see their passion behind it. But in all of that, we have to weed through not only how do we achieve buy in and champions? How do we get approvals? How do we sell it to our people on the floor and the weight of All of that is on folks like me to push those things across the bow. The challenge is, is I need materials. I need resources. I need ready-made things that I can go to my board with and say, hey, this is what it is. Those executive level materials and resources. I need to be able to hand things out to my people on the floor, ready-made videos about these are the use cases. This is why it would bring value to us. Right now, in some implementations, we're sitting back creating training materials because those customer success teams or implementation teams training materials aren't even created. And so the more information that we can get out there about how to make things easier for us, I think the better it will be. There's a lot of 911 directors out there that will tell you that their teams are technology fatigue in the industry right now. I believe something different. I don't think it's technology fatigue. I think it's implementation and the achievement of buy-in fatigue. I think that we have to do so much and creativity that it just you know it's only so many hours in a day and people are working 16-18 hours to try to create these resources and drive things the more that customer success teams can help us and then achieve those outcomes to where we can show the ROI we can show a proof point we can show the outcomes the more flexibly that we will have people like myself and implementing initiatives in the future because the trust will be there. Emily Miller: That's wonderful. Yeah, we chatted about it for a couple minutes before we started recording and just that the story behind it is really interesting that like, yes, technology is evolving, AI is changing quickly. It's very important to stay aware and on top of that. But the fatigue isn't behind that. It's behind like proving that it was a worthwhile investment, making sure, like you said, the internal resources that you have aren't wasting their time or like they're spending too much time on it where their time should be allocated elsewhere. That's very interesting. Thank you for sharing. I give you a lot of credit for running a podcast. That's no small feat, speaking from experience. ⁓ Steve, did you have? Ivan Whitaker: Yep, that's a lot. Steve McDonnell: Ivan, let me ask you this. It's a large PSAP that you run. If you're implementing a major technology, how often is the provider bringing a resource, an implementation specialist, an implementation engineer on site during the implementation and sitting there with you for the first three months to really make sure everything is going smooth? and you know all the use cases and they're tailoring whatever the technology solution is to your PSAP directly instead of, know, in the old days it was kind of, here you go, go figure it out, we'll help you for a few days, we'll train you, we'll charge you for a couple hours of training and then we're off. But that's unfortunately how it used to be. Do you see that changing or is there still kind of a gap that a lot of the vendors need to close on? Ivan Whitaker: Yeah, therein lies the essence of the podcast. And that's a great question, Steve. It's changing, but too slow. ⁓ And so when I came to VEC, and I've been here now for two years, ⁓ we had a few vendors that were very responsive and proactive. That's the word I want to use. But of them it was clear you know the deal had closed and unless we read out their attendance or you know being on site was absent. ⁓ We've renegotiated deals, we've reestablished what it means to be a partner with VEC. ⁓ Any of our partners they not only will be responsive but they will be innovative and they have to have great customer success teams and customer success departments that are going to be very proactive. We want them to be looking at data and saying hey Have you thought about this or thought about that? We want them to put boots on the ground. I got excuses in my next six months of some vendors were saying, we just didn't want to bother you. And I'm like, no, there's I need you. I need you here to provide the support and resources ⁓ to be able to come out and just sit on the floor and say, hey, ⁓ we noticed that your people aren't using the functionality to its capacity. If they do this or they do that, it will be easier for them. So it's getting better, but there's still a long way to go in the industry to provide the customer success that across the board that we're looking Steve McDonnell: Yeah. Emily Miller: do. Ivan Whitaker: for. Steve McDonnell: Yeah, I think that's one of the dangers of AI right now. ⁓ While it is spectacular, it does take training and someone needs to be there with the customer for a length of time to make sure that the training models are going correctly and are getting customized and the workflows of that specific piece app are getting into the AI. Because if you leave it too early, it's not necessarily built specifically for that PSAP. It could hallucinate. It could go off the walls a bit. So I think with AI, some people think, ⁓ it's plug and play. But my feeling is it's even more important for the vendors to be there for a length of time to make sure this thing is running properly ⁓ and then be constantly there for them. Because the more it trains, the better it gets. Ivan Whitaker: Yeah. And I'll give you a quick example. So I was explaining to a partner vendor what we're trying to do from a notification standpoint. was talking earlier about stroke alerts. And he said, hold on, wait a minute, and pulled up a dashboard and showed me that in our dispatch center, those stroke alert determining factors, how quickly we were getting to those. He showed it to me quickly. He said, OK, look. Five seconds into the call, 11 seconds, 30 seconds into the call, you're getting those indicators. So why would you wait much later if you know the patient is waiting to call a stroke alert, right? And I was like, wow, this is the data that I need. And so I wouldn't have known that or seen that dashboard if he wouldn't have engaged me on just various topics. So what do you need? Let's talk through your issues, your challenges. We do have some CEOs that are putting boots on the ground that are really trying to find those things out. putting any staff on the ground. So I think there's just a great opportunity there when those boots come on the ground and they just observe. They observe the key, they observe what we're doing. Steve McDonnell: Yep, understand your PCS workflow and how you guys operate. Emily Miller: Mm-hmm. All right, thanks, Ivan. As we start to wrap up, I want to give you a minute to share about any initiatives or programs ⁓ that you're a part of, working on personally, or part of your ECC that you'd like to share about. Ivan Whitaker: Alright, so I think... You know, one of the things that we're working on right now is really improving our quality assurance across the bow. Like I say, we have the capability now to review 100 % of our cases. So being able to look at that data from an outcomes perspective provides just an array of opportunities there. So this year, it's going to be really big in really revitalizing our QA program, making sure that we're not only providing constructive feedback in the way we should be to our people on the floor, but also Also, we're training our people to provide great constructive feedback, but using that data in a different way, not just to make our emergency dispatchers better, but outcome-based, being able to look at things like social determinants or issues or challenges as to why people are accessing 911. We told people in the 1980s to dial 911, and we pushed that, and that's what they're doing now. And so, being able to look at the data to see which way we're going to go is going to be huge this year. that we know that we're going to implement is virtual care, to where 911 callers will have direct access to a physician right from their home when they dial 911, because we know that it's about access to care and 911 is the most easily accessed thing in the industry today. How do we provide them with the care that they really need? So this is a year of really looking at the data to really determine which way to go with a variety of things. So we're very excited about looking at that data. Emily Miller: That's wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing. And like we talked about throughout the episode, you've got a lot of great stuff going on. So we give you a lot of credit for balancing all that. ⁓ Before we close, Steve, do you have any final questions or thoughts for Ivan? Steve McDonnell: No, this has been great, Ivan. ⁓ Super impressed with your career, super impressed with the PSAP that you're running out there. I think it's a special PSAP that the rest of the country should be studying and it's a great situation and you should be proud of ⁓ what you've built and what you're running out there. Ivan Whitaker: Alright, you might want to say that again. I was trying to hold the sneeze. Steve McDonnell: what my ending was. You should be super proud of what you built and what you're running out there. I think it is great. So congrats and keep it up. Ivan Whitaker: Thank you. Emily Miller: Yeah, yeah, wonderful. All right, so for our listeners, if you'd like to learn about Ivan more or follow what he's doing, you can check him out on LinkedIn under Ivan Whitaker. You can also learn more about SLVECC on their website, which is slvecc.com. And last but certainly not least, you can find Ivan's podcast Beyond the Launch wherever you listen. And you can listen to it right before or after you tune into the next episode of the Will MacWire. So it's perfect. Kill two birds with one stone. All right, Ivan, thank you so much for joining us on the Will MacWire. It's been an absolute pleasure. Ivan Whitaker: Thank you. Steve McDonnell: Thanks, Ivan.