Car wrecks. Life-flight landings. Hysterical callers who have just been attacked.
This is not a TV show. If you work at the Warren County 911 Center, it’s all part of the daily routine.
It’s a routine Tina Rowland has been doing for 20 years, the first 911 employee to reach that milestone. In the face of often-hectic emergencies, Rowland says the key is to not get caught up in the situation.
“We have a lot of people who call in who are upset and I try to put myself in their shoes,” said Rowland. “You try not to take anything personal. Your main job is to try to calm them down, tell them you’re there to help them. I always try to think this person is going through a traumatic event and my main thing is to calm them and help them and get them the help they need.”
Since an emergency can strike at any time, dispatchers are required to work around the clock. This includes holidays. Says Rowland, “I worked Thanksgiving this year and I will be working Christmas, but somebody needs to be here. Somebody has to do it.”
Rowland officially reached her 20-year milestone Nov. 21. She was among the first group of dispatchers hired in November 1994. Since the 911 Center was not yet online, she trained with the McMinnville Police Department and Warren County Sheriff’s Department before moving to the center in February 1994. Four 911 directors have served since she began her employment.
Dispatchers at the 911 Center process emergency calls, non-emergency calls and dispatch for the city police, sheriff’s department, county fire departments, and McMinnville Fire Department. They also call helicopters on the scene and can give them coordinates like latitude and longitude.
When the 911 center began taking calls, just 5 percent of them were from cellphones. Now the center gets about 85 percent of its calls from cellphones, according to 911 director Chuck Haston.
Cellphone advances have been a tremendous help. Said Rowland, “When we first started, you really couldn’t find a cellphone. You could only get the tower that it hit on. Now if your cellphone has the capability, we can plot you to within so many hundreds of feet or yards. A lot of times that’s how we’ve found people who have wrecked. Cellphone technology has gone a long way. That’s helped with a lot of calls.”
Over the past 20 years, Rowland has seen the center go from low tech to high tech. In the early years, everything was handwritten. According to Rowland, “We wrote down everything on radio log sheets and we had complaint cards. If we had, for example, a wreck with injury, we’d send out your officer, your ambulance, your fire department. We had to make a separate card for each agency. Now our system is computerized. There’s only one card you have to make.”
Now a part of the computer system, dispatch radios used to be huge consoles. Likewise, dispatchers have moved from large and difficult-to-handle map books to a computerized map system. This has sped up finding addresses considerably.
The center started with one computer to access the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which served both the city and county. The NCIC is used to run tags, driver’s licenses, criminal histories, and similar information. Dispatchers enter stolen goods, wanted people, orders of protection, and sex offenders. The center now has two NCIC computers, one for city use and one for county.
Rowland is supervisor for her shift and is the tactical agency coordinator. A TAC acts as the liaison between the agency and TBI to maintain access to the NCIC system. They are audited every three years by the TBI.
“I really do enjoy my job,” she said. “If you enjoy what you do it seems like you’re much more passionate about it. To me it’s very fulfilling to help somebody or anything you can do for the community and the agencies we work with.”
Citing the close-knit relationships between 911 dispatchers and the agencies they work with, Rowland said, “You get to know these people, you get to know them on a personal level. You know things about them and their family. Even though we don’t really get to see them a lot, we’re really close to the departments we work with. We all get along really well.”
She credits 911 director Chuck Haston and the 911 Board with much of the department’s success. “We have a great boss out here. That speaks a lot for a department. Not only do you have to have good employees but you have to have good management that supports you and helps you. He has led this in such a great direction. Our board takes good care of us and they want to make sure everything for the citizens is done right. I think Warren County should be proud of the board, management, and everybody out here because that’s who they want to make sure is being taken care of.”
Rowland’s husband, Jason Rowland, is an investigator at the Sheriff’s Department. They have two daughters and a granddaughter.