PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
OUTAGAMIE COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — It’s been in the works for years, and now in less than a month, the new 911 communications facility in Outagamie County will be bustling with hundreds of critical calls every day.
Dispatchers will move out of the dark, windowless courthouse basement.
“It’s run down, it’s dated, it’s very small,” says Telecommunications Director Kati Stahmann about the current facility.
The all-new 911 communications center will be where the dispatchers will call home for years to come.
“This is a facility that gives us some spacing, gives staff a comfortable work environment, a work environment they can look forward to coming to,” says Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office Captain Nate Borman.
The current call center has been operating in its tiny basement room for decades.
“Our dispatchers are working very close to each other so when you’re talking on the radio or taking phone calls, sometimes your caller will be answering the questions of the person who’s sitting behind you,” Stahmann emphasizes.
“It certainly isn’t an appealing location to work out of and when you’re looking to work 8-12 hours in that space every day, that can be a draining for our employees,” Borman adds.
But with more technology and resources than in the past, Stahmann says nine cramped workstations don’t cut it.
“If something were to happen in our community or we have a weather event, our staff is so wonderful they want to come in and help out, we don’t have anywhere for them to work.”
The new facility, located next to the county sheriff’s office in Appleton, adds five new workspaces, not to mention more room to breathe.
Both Borman and Stahman say the space doesn’t only benefit the 911 call center employees.
“It also provides greater services to our community, as you can see we have a great deal more technology in here, it’ll allow us to operate more efficiently, offer more services to the public, and be as responsive as possible,” Capt. Borman says.
The facility comes with all the latest and greatest technology for dispatchers, including new radio consoles and call-taking software that allows for even more accurate data location, and the ability to relay information to the responding officers more quickly.
The facility also comes with the hope that they may finally close their gap in staffing.
“We should have 31 dispatchers, full-time dispatchers, on our staff and right now we are down seven people,” Stahmann says, adding that four people are in training, which takes six months to complete.
The staffing situation is teetering on desperate, Stahman says, as dispatchers sometimes end up working 12 to 16-hour shifts.
“We’re looking for people who can multi-task, stay calm under pressure, are willing to work nights, holidays, and weekends, and there’s a lot of customer service skills that translate from other professions,” she says.
They’ve welcomed employees with experience in education, retail, hospitality, and more.
“They have to be able to go from doing nothing to having a crisis to having multiple units calling for help, and adapt to that quickly,” Borman adds.
If those skills resonate with you, you’re encouraged to give it a shot, and you could be working in the new, state-of-the-art facility, too.
“It’s worth a try for everybody,” Stahmann says. “We have someone working right now that’s been here for 40 years. There are so many people who fall in love with this profession, I say it’s the best kept secret in public safety.”
You can apply for the position by clicking here.
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