Driving Our Economy Forward: Catoosa 911 Center
CATOOSA COUNTY, Ga. (WDEF) –Dispatchers at the Catoosa County 911 center work tirelessly to help those in need. Employees at the center strive to have a standard of excellence in public safety communications every day. We talked to the director of operations about what it takes to be a part of this public safety program in this week’s Driving Our Economy Forward.
“We moved into our new 911 Center on October the 3 of 2024. So we’ve only been here a few months. Still unboxing, you know a few boxes that we have. But this is a state-of-the-art facility. We’re actually only the second Dispatch Center in the state to go with the new Motorola access console, which is how we connect with, our radios to our officers. We’re also part of the Tennessee Valley Regional Communications system. So, we have four counties in Georgia and about 95% of the state of Tennessee that we can talk with,” stated Steven Quinn, the Director of Emergency Management 911 in Catoosa County.
“I’m here doing a crossover training to see how their job works to better understand it. It’s definitely eye opening from being out in the field, to sitting here seeing how many calls come in; how they type everything while talking. Just seeing the different ways, they do it,” said Jayden Deberry, a fireman in Catoosa County Graysville.
“Actually, this one is a Mutual Aid, and they are going to help another county that has a funeral to do. So, they’re covering their station.”
“We’ve got some students sitting in with us. They’re being introduced to what 911 dispatch is. They have the opportunity to ask our dispatchers what they’re doing, what they’re looking at, who’s talking to them on either on the other end of the radio, or on the phone. So it’s been a huge asset just having that next door connection. So that they can come down, listen, see what they know what we’re doing and see if they like the field or not. They’re like sponges. They’re ready to absorb, at least most of them are. They’re ready to absorb that knowledge,” said Quinn.
“I feel like with this, it would just be really cool cause you never know what to expect.”
“It’s a different generation than when I came up. They’re more technology- minded. They know you know computers. And they know how to do things with their phones that I never would have thought of. So, you know it, especially in this field, having them come up with that type of knowledge and that background, it just helps them ease right into it. I came up in public safety to do the fire service. So one of the things that we always stressed was passing along the knowledge that we had, so that the next generation coming up behind us, they have that knowledge as well as what they’re gaining. And then they can pass it along. You know to the people that’s coming up under them. We can learn a lot from books. We can read, but actually getting hands-on skills. And that opportunity, it beats any book knowledge that you can that you can get from reading. You hope it says to them you know you’re doing a good job one, you know because everybody needs that affirmation. That you know that we’re trying to help somebody. And, that they’ve done that so hopefully it just gives them that assurance that that they’re here doing. You know what, what one, what we expect them to do. But also, what the community needs,” said Quinn.
