Sandy Hook Woman Heads Emergency Dispatch Center

By Andrew Gorosko

The way Maureen Will looks at it, her job is all about customer service.

And she has a diverse range of customers for whom she provides service — the general public, town police, five local volunteer fire companies, and the town’s ambulance volunteers.

Ms Will of Sandy Hook began work early this month as the town’s director of emergency communications, a post which became vacant recently after the departure of Joseph DelBuono of Wolcott.

Mr DelBuono has become the executive director of Litchfield County Dispatch, Inc, in Litchfield, a nonprofit organization that dispatches fire and ambulance calls throughout Litchfield County.

Ms Will comes to her new position with a deep background in emergency communications, having managed the Town of Brookfield’s emergency communications center while she was a police captain there. Ms Will retired as Brookfield police officer early this year, after 30 years of service with the law enforcement agency.

Signifying her Newtown position, Ms Will wears a uniform displaying the insignias of the fire, police, and ambulance services, plus pins symbolizing the Emergency 911 service.

The town’s emergency communications center, which located in Town Hall South with the police station, handles all local police, fire, and ambulance calls, as well as the town’s Emergency 911 system. It also manages the town’s internal telephone network. The center has a staff of 11 people.

“I love telecommunications,” Ms Will said of her interest in the use of technology for emergency communications over the airwaves.

She added she is very happy to be working in the emergency telecommunications field in the town where she has lived her whole life. “I’m in my hometown,” she said with a smile.

The work that she is now doing in Newtown is very similar to what she did while managing Brookfield’s emergency communications system, she said. The equipment used by both towns is similar, but the way in which that equipment is configured in the two dispatch centers is somewhat different, she said.

Newtown created its combined dispatch center in 2001, unifying the radio control for all three emergency services in one location.

The Newtown dispatching staff is quite qualified, Ms Will said. “The staff is very competent and capable,” she added.

Ms Will said she will work to enhance the dispatch center’s professionalism through the increased training of staffers, the implementation of modern operating procedures, and through close cooperation with the agencies that it serves.

Ms Will said she has met with local police, fire, and ambulance officials in seeking to seeking to synchronize the communications center’s work with their activities in the field.

To better familiarize them with the diverse situations that police, fire, and ambulance staffers encounter while working in the field, town dispatchers will be passengers in those respective agencies’ vehicles as part of a ride-along training project, Ms Will said.

Ms Will commented that Mr DelBuono’s recent upgrade of the communications center with new electronics and improved furniture for dispatching has greatly improved the work environment.

The center’s emergency medical dispatching program is proceeding well, she said. In that program, dispatchers provide callers with emergency information on how best to care for a patient until an ambulance crew arrives at the scene of an emergency.

Ms Will noted that dispatching police calls may be a more complex task than dispatching fire and ambulance calls because of the diverse types of situations that police may encounter when responding to calls for service.

Discerning the context of a telephone caller’s request for police help allows a dispatcher to explain to police what they may encounter at the scene of the emergency, she said.

One of the most visible changes that Ms Will made after starting as the communications director was removing a mirror finish from a large glass window positioned between the police station lobby and the emergency communications center.

The mirror-finish window had allowed the dispatchers to see the public in the lobby, but prevented the public from seeing the dispatchers.

That visual barrier made it more difficult for the public to find help, she said. She said she wants people entering the building to be able to see the dispatcher with whom they are speaking on an intercom or telephone.

“If you’re hurt or you’re in trouble, the first stop is right here,” said of the distressed condition of some people who enter the police station lobby from the street.

“I’m very community- and customer-oriented,” she said. “We’re here to do a really good job…It is customer service,” she added.

Ms Will said she will work to expand the dispatch staff’s abilities in terms of methodology, procedures, and technique. Based on individual needs, each dispatcher will receive training to expand their abilities, she said.

The dispatch center is accredited by The National Academies of Emergency Dispatch.