In this episode of Hexagon’s Public Safety Speaks vodcast series, we address women’s issues in public safety, including equal opportunities in 911 centers and agencies, career advancement and improving service to the communities served.
Watch as Chris Carver, longtime industry veteran and director of market development for Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division, welcomes three amazing panelists, each with more than 15 years’ experience in public safety:
- Sara Weston, founder and executive director of 911der Women
- Johnna Gonzalez Sells, president of the Ohio Chapter of APCO
- Andrea King-Smith, strategic customer success manager and customer engagement lead for Carbyne 911
Watch the vodcast or read the transcript below.
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Transcript
Chris Carver:
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of Hexagon’s Public Safety Speaks vodcast. My name is Chris Carver, Director of Market Development for Hexagon Public Safety here in the United States and North America. I am so honored to be joined by three amazing guests for this particular episode where we’re going to talk about, well, one of the most important things that really 911 faces today, which is sort of the opportunity and sometimes the challenge, but more often than not, possibility of addressing women’s issues inside public safety and 911, helping to ensure that our workspaces are places that everyone can be successful, especially those women that staff so many of our 911 centers and public safety agencies, not just the United States but around the world. And addressing their unique concerns, but also affording them the unique opportunity to move forward, advance their careers and help make our agencies better, and help improve the service we provide to our communities and to the agencies that we dispatch and cover.
So without further ado, I want to introduce our three panelists that we have joining us today to kind of talk through this issue and provide their insight and perspective around this really important topic. So we’ll begin with Sara Weston, if you would, please introduce yourself and just share your background and how you ended up with us today.
Sara Weston:
Okay. Hello everybody and welcome and thank you Chris for having me. It is an honor to talk about one of my favorite topics to discuss. So I am the founder and executive director of 911der Women Inc. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides resources for women in 911. We provide mentorship, education and training and everything that is encompassed in that. I’ve been doing that for about three years, we’ve been incorporated. Alongside that, I have been in public safety for 18 years. I have been a consultant for NextGen 911 systems at the state and county, and federal level. So I also am CEO of Sara Weston Consulting, a woman-owned business.
Chris Carver:
Very good. Thank you, Sarah. And Johnna, would you like to introduce yourself?
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
Sure. My name’s Johnna Gonzalez Sells. I am the current APCO Ohio President. I’ve been in 911 since 2005. So I started when I was 17, just go with that. Started at Ohio State University, so I kind of specialized in higher education communications for a long time. Did everything from the ground up. So I started as a student officer, supervisor, trainer, then became the lead supervisor and after a couple years I actually moved into the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Communications field, which is where I am now. So that’s an entire new world, but it’s given me a chance to see the gap that we have between our frontline telecommunicators and the information that we can actually use as resources from all the different places and levels that are available to us. So that’s where I am now and I really love it. I’m on the Racial Equity Board for Franklin County here in Columbus, Ohio, and it’s a new adventure for me, but it’s been really awesome to actually share my story. My father immigrated here from Mexico when he was young and he’s actually a police officer, retired from Toledo, Ohio. So I’ve been in public safety and around it my whole life. I’m one of those weird people that actually loves their job. So I’m very happy to be here and talk about this issue.
Chris Carver:
Thank you. And I can’t wait to hear your take on these topics. And Andrea, how about you?
Andrea King-Smith:
Yeah, so I am Andrea King-Smith. I am based in Las Vegas. Currently I am the Strategic Customer Success Manager and Customer Engagement lead for Carbyne 911. But prior to that, I spent 14 years in 911 in the PSAP. I did start when I was 19 years old and I was a call taker, dispatcher, trainer, operations supervisor for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, until December of 2021 where I took a huge leap, probably the scariest leap of my life and jumped into the private sector where I now get to help bring lifesaving, next generation 911 technology to 911 centers across the country. Outside of what my official role is, I am a change champion in the industry. I am an advocate for all things diversity, equity and inclusion in 911. I believe that it is important to recognize differences, celebrate differences and that it’s the responsibility of all of us to bring diverse voices to the table. And I champion that by sharing my story of my journey through 911 as well. I’m really excited to be here because this is also a very important topic to me and excited to be on this great panel where we can share all of our ideas. So thank you for having me.
Chris Carver:
Well, Andrea, thank you so much for being here. And by the way, thank you all for your service, for your many years of service to our communities and to our industry. I really, really, really appreciate it and I know that your agencies and your communities do as well. So thank you. So, I’ll kick it off with Sara as the founder of an organization devoted to this topic. Why do you think the issue of women in public safety is something that deserves attention and effort?
Sara Weston:
So many reasons, but the thing that really hits home with me is women in 911 are not underrepresented. We’re not the minority in 911 centers, but we are largely underrecognized. And coming from a place where I was one of the only women in my workplace, I got to see firsthand how men were treated differently from women. And in order to advance, I was expected to act more like a man.
And women have so many unique skills and talents that they bring forth in public safety that we want to really encourage women to be themselves and bring those skills and those talents to the table. When we do that, 911 is better. When 70% of your workforce is women and most of your leadership is male, and we have a lot of 911 centers that are in police departments, under fire chiefs, very male dominated professions, a lot of our talents kind of get diminished, are seen as weaknesses. And when we can empower women to embrace their strengths, bring them to work, empower each other, the ripple effect from that is humongous. It builds into a tidal wave, and we become better as people and therefore 911 becomes better as service. So I’m going to stop there and let the other women go.
Chris Carver:
Well, thank you Sarah. And you just reminded me. So anyone that’s known me for more than about an hour and a half knows that I have a relatively long list of pet peeves, and one of them always was… And thank goodness you don’t see a lot of this anymore, but I’m sure all of you remember seeing it. And if I remember seeing, I’m certain that you did as well, the magazine covers for public safety magazines almost always once or twice a year had an issue where the cover photo was always a female dispatcher with the male supervisor-
Andrea King-Smith:
Over.
Chris Carver:
… Leaning over, pointing as if he was reminding them of what to do as if they had no clue. Now, I can almost guarantee that every time that guy was in that photo, they pulled him off the road. He didn’t know a headset from a chair, but that’s what they had him do. So thank you Sara for reminding me of a pet peeve. I really appreciate that. So Andrea, what do you think about this issue and why it’s so timely now, and why it’s something really we should be talking about?
Andrea King-Smith:
Yeah, so like Sara said, where in this industry, women are not the minority. When you get very granular and you’re looking at the leadership in this industry, we very much are the minority. I was having a conversation with a colleague about our local municipalities and we could count a number of male directors just in our state. And it’s like, how does that ratio, it doesn’t add up. This is a female dominated industry, so where is the gap to where we’re not either providing access for women to make themselves promotable, or we are practicing policies and procedures that make them the less favorable candidates. But there’s something there. There’s something that exists to where women, they’re underrepresented in the leadership of 911. And as Sara stated, there’s so much that can come from bringing those diverse voices to the table, bringing women to the table, when it’s time to make decisions or talk strategy.
And quite frankly, I think the 911 community is not being served as well by not having more of those opportunities available. And so you asked why are we talking about it now? I think that over the last five-ish years, there’s been this shift where women are finding their power, and they’re finding their voice, and it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. And with different groups that have been popping up like 911der Woman, which is such a special group to me because of what I was able to learn and how I was able to grow from that, the NENA WIN Alliance and different groups out there that are providing access to resources, providing a platform for women to just show their greatness in this industry. Since that shift has kind of taken place, now is the perfect time to be talking about how do we keep pushing for this to change in our industry?
Chris Carver:
Well, thank you Andrea. I really appreciate that. Johnna, how about your thoughts on this issue and why?
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
I mean, they’ve fairly well covered a lot of things. What stood out to me though is that since we’re not the minority, I’m not really understanding why we’re being treated like the minority and that has something to do with our gender I’m sure. Not that the minority should be treated any different, but it’s there. The other part of that too is I wonder if that plays into the seemingly endless task we keep having to do this reclassification out of clerical because this is a woman dominated field. Is that where they feel we belong is the clerical field rather than seeing us as actual first responders, which is what we are and what we do. I came from a different setting. The weird part is I’ve always been surrounded by men. The men in my center actually outnumbered the women in my center by quite a bit.
So then when I took the promotion to supervisor, I was definitely the only woman in the room. And now that I work with radios and technology, I am the only woman in the room all the time. So I am very careful about what I say. I have to be 100% sure of what I say before I say it. And I know some of that is in me. I do have this imposter syndrome that’s kind of developed because of that, I believe. But when you have such a heavily male dominated field, it does create this, even if it’s just mental barrier because you’re on the outside. So I guess that’s what I’ll add to it.
Chris Carver:
You bring up a really fascinating point to me that you could have the experience that you have and still suffer from imposter syndrome because of the nature of the way the organization or the industry is. So let me ask then, is that a sentiment, Andrea, that perhaps that you’ve recognized in your own experience as well?
Andrea King-Smith:
My experience with this is kind of layered, Chris. I’m a woman, but I’m a black woman and I work in law enforcement and in public safety in a time, our current time where there’s such a disconnect between the community and law enforcement, and that we’re all working really hard to bridge. So my experience is so layered in the fact that like Johnna said, I have to think twice about what I’m saying. I read emails two and three times before I send them, and then sometimes I have to send them to a friend like, “Hey, do I sound too angry here? Do I sound emotional?” Because oftentimes our amazing men like to correlate emotions and women equaling a weakness. And I can’t tell you the countless amount of times that I’ve gotten feedback to that point and I have to turn to myself or sometimes to the person giving me feedback and ask, “If this same situation happened by my male counterpart, would you be telling him that he was emotional in his response, or that he was an outside-of-the-box thinker, or that he was passionate about what he said?”
And it happens far too often and I’ve experienced it so much. And that’s what makes me want to be on this train of empowering women to take their power back because for far too long we’ve had it taken from us.
Chris Carver:
Wow. So Sara, I want to come to you and I’m going to ask you to put your consultant hat on for just a minute. What do you say, I mean to agencies that have this challenge, maybe they know it, maybe they don’t, maybe only some of their team members know it. How do we start the process of getting this issue addressed so that folks don’t see it as a punishment but as an opportunity to improve the workplace for all the people that work there? Which I think is the goal that one of the goals that we should have as an industry, right?
Sara Weston:
Yes. Especially in the 911 center, when you’re all really on top of each other and have to work together so much. So I think number one, we need to step out of denial. “Not my center”, “but it doesn’t happen at my center”, it happens at your center. If you have people in a room, it’s happening. So we need to move into acceptance and get curious. You need to care, first of all, you need to care. Get curious about how you can get in there and start making change in your center. And you have to get curious because none of us have the answer. I don’t have the answer that’s going to work for every center. They’re all different, right? So you have to take a step back and figure out what’s going on in your center, have conversations with people. And that’s hard too. I mean, it sounds simple like, oh, go talk to people.
But you have to empower your folks to share with you. And sometimes that’s more than what we always hear “Give them a seat at the table.” It’s more than giving them a seat at the table. It’s inviting them in, giving them the microphone, telling them they can speak. This is a safe place. We want to try to make change. I’m curious as to what’s going on with you and shut up and listen. And that’s going to tell you a whole lot. And it’s also going to allow the folks in your center to share their voice and share what’s going on inside of them. So a couple of things that Andrea said was that, and Johnna, I have to be sure that what I say is perfect because otherwise I’m going to get struck down.
And if you’re a woman, you can relate to that and always like, “Well this might be a stupid question.” Or saying everything with an inflection at the end like you’re asking a question, these are learned behaviors and they’re kind of self-preservation. Like, oh, if I’m not sure of myself and they’re not going to be mad at me when I’m wrong. No, everyone’s wrong sometimes. So having those conversations is the first step and making sure that people understand where you’re coming from and we like to provide some resources. We have an empowerment chart where you can go and look, but if you’re not having the conversation with the people in your center, none of this is going to get fixed because chances are you don’t understand everything that’s happening. You have a job, you’re understaffed. So that’s the thing that I say. And also recognizing that everyone’s skillset is different, and everyone has those unique talents and how can you tap into people’s passions in your center?
Do start a, I can never think of it… Morale committee, can you give someone the responsibility of decorating, or doing gifts? Or whatever it is, these little things really, really matter to people. And you might roll your eyes and be like, “Hmm, is that really going to make a difference?” And it really does. Get to know what people want, where their passions lie and they can bring that to work for them.
Chris Carver:
No, I really appreciate that take Sara. So I have a couple different ways I want to go with the next round of questions, but the first thing I would say is, I mean, would you all agree that we have some degree of a staffing crisis or a permanent reduction in staffing problem in 911.
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
Oh yes.
Andrea King-Smith:
Absolutely.
Chris Carver:
So we need to go out and recruit people to be a part of this crazy wonderful thing that is our 911 family. What do you say though, to women that are evaluating this as a career choice in an even more stressed job market where they may have more choices to be honest, and we have to compete and we have to say, “No, come be a part of us.” So we want them to join, but we also then have to be honest about some of these challenges that we’ve talked about. So how do we prepare? And Johnna, I’ll start with you, from your perspective leading a 911 center or leading a PSAP in Ohio, how do we start setting the table in a way that makes it inviting for women to be a part of our organizations?
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
So yeah, definitely a national issue. It’s something we’ve been dealing with at all of our state board meetings that’s come up over and over again. And actually, we’ve looked at starting an outreach committee to start going to the job fairs and to career days at the high schools. ‘Cause in Ohio you need a high school degree and then you are trained either on the job or we can… We’re working on getting dispatch training in community colleges and vocational schools at this point, just to help facilitate some of that transition. If you look at the statistics, and I’m kind of going to get a little NPR on you a little bit, women are waiting longer to get married, women are waiting longer to start their families. And I think that benefits us honestly as an industry. If we can get women in that younger market, so they can get their years in, they can get that hard couple years where you’re working those overtime and those crappy shifts in before you start your family, before you get married, and then you can provide amazing benefits to your family, whatever that looks like.
And I think that’s our big selling point is it’s a great job, it’s a good career that will last you. If you are good to it, it will be good to you. And we have to train them, unfortunately for the bad stuff too, and say, “Hey, yeah, you gotta be resilient. This isn’t something everyone can do.” But we’ll be honest with that upfront. And I think the earlier we introduce this career field, the better. We’re in an industry where we’re not seeing, we’re not dragging hoses out on the street. We’re not carrying guns, hopping out of cruisers, but we’re the ones who are there for absolutely everyone else. And we are the ones who are there on everyone’s worst day, but we’re never seen. So the more we get ourselves out there, the more we get our profession out there, I think it’s going to make it a little bit easier for us to actually get recruitment done. So I think what we’re having to look at is, how do we get that younger generation and get them set up before they start their families, before they are looking at how to have a more established life?
Chris Carver:
I appreciate that take very much. And Andrea, from your experience in Las Vegas, did you follow along the same path about thinking about ways to recruit and sort of strategies?
Andrea King-Smith:
Yes, I was actually very active in our agency’s recruitment efforts. Again, we’re part of the police department and so we had that resource there of police recruiting is very heavy and we attached ourselves. I have a couple of points on your question. I don’t think recruitment of women is the issue. We’re going to keep having women join 911 because that’s just the nature of our job. Retention is really where we’re going to struggle and continue… Where we struggle now and continue to struggle. And I think one of the biggest, and the first ways we can combat that is show people what they can do. Show people what they can achieve, be intentional about who you’re putting in leadership roles and making sure they’re representative of not just the community you serve, but the community that you want to attract and the people that you want to attract to be in your organization.
So that’s point number one. We have to make sure that diversifying our leadership is an intentional goal that everyone has a key role in. But as Johnna said, we have to figure out how to attract those younger people, that younger generation. And that was something I was really passionate about when I was in 911 because at the time I was that youngest generation. I was 19 years old, my path to 911 started when I was 16 and I was a Police Explorer. My dad is a cop, a retired officer now from Las Vegas as well. And so I also grew up in law enforcement and I saw the benefits, and how much the Explorer program gave back to me and I wanted to give back to it. So when I did join the police department and I was in dispatch, I thought about all those young adults who I came up with that maybe police wasn’t the route for them, but they’d be such an asset to our agency and particularly in dispatch.
And so we started a Dispatch Explorer Program and the goal of that is to attract 16 to 21 year olds, or 16 to 18 year olds and teach them that firsthand, get them inside the 911 center and show them how they can make this a career. We are also very fortunate here that we have a high school that has a complete dispatching program and most of those students go on to have careers in a dispatch center. We have several of them that joined our agency. And so you get that proud moment of we did this, we saw this to fruition, but we’re accomplishing that goal of outreach to the youth and showing them that this is a career worth having, that you can have amazing benefits and provide for your family. And when we’re intentional about who we’re putting in roles, leadership roles, we can also show them, “Hey, stay with us because there’s a path to promotion, and there’s a path to success for someone that looks like you.” When we do those things, I think we’ll be much more successful in our recruitment and retention efforts.
Chris Carver:
So Sara, what would you add to that?
Sara Weston:
I think I didn’t care to become any sort of leader until I saw women leading. I saw it was possible, I saw how they did it and that you didn’t have to act any certain way to be a leader except support people and your own personal leadership skills. So as we promote women and we give them the skills to step into that leadership, we have a responsibility to reach behind us and grab hold of the next generation coming up. And it’s not even an age thing. Women who want to step into that leadership role, we have a responsibility as women to support other women because we know what it’s like. Men don’t know what that’s like and it’s not their fault. As much as we say, “Get curious, ask the questions.” They’re never really going to understand. So as women leaders becoming mentors is so incredibly important.
If you are a woman who is in a leadership role in 911 and you don’t have a mentee, get on it. And that can be formal, informal, there’s so many types of mentee-mentorship relationships that are possible. But we are in a position where we’re blazing this trail and if we blaze the trail and no one follows after us, then what did we do? So knowing that by doing what we’re doing, we’re inspiring others. And then taking that extra step of reaching out and saying, “Hey, I remember when I was in this position and this is what I struggled with, and I didn’t have the confidence, and I felt like an imposter and I still do sometimes, and here’s some of the tools that I use and here’s some things that you can do.” And just kind of talking it out can be huge. And then that woman goes on to mentor others and it’s a wave. So I have hope. I think we are better off than we were five years ago, and I think we’re going to keep getting better and better. It’s not a fast thing, it’s not going to be better tomorrow, but if we keep working, where are we going to be in five years? I am enthusiastically optimistic because we are having these conversations. That is always the first step.
Chris Carver:
Absolutely. And I’m curious what you all would think too as 911 trends towards being in essence a fourth service, not under a police department, or not under a fire department, or EMS agency, taking it out of what are sometimes more hierarchical male-dominated organizations may offer an opportunity at just the right time to help address this particular concern. Would you agree with that, Sara? Does that match what you’re seeing in your organization?
Sara Weston:
Yes, it gives you freedom. So when you’re able to look at your agency and say, “Okay, I’m a director, what if we have this many supervisors, this many CTOs.” It’s not as flat, right? You create these steps toward leadership for people. I’ve talked to so many agencies that are like, “I have these women, they’re fantastic, they’d be great supervisors.” And they don’t want to do it. They don’t feel qualified. So if you have programs in place for them to build their leadership skills and not just take them from excellent dispatcher, right into supervisor, then we start to build something. So when a 911 center is responsible for its own structure and organization, we can do things that are better for the employees and create that career path for them.
Chris Carver:
And Andrea, it’s not just inside the organizations that are the day-to-day 911 centers and public safety is important, but I think you’re also blazing a trail now by going into the vendor community. So that’s also a component because in a long public safety career, and quite frankly my career’s an example of that as well where I’ve kind of done all the sides of the equation now. Would you agree that sort of your path continuing on into the vendor world also blazes a trail of sorts and provides an example?
Andrea King-Smith:
You’re absolutely right. It does. It’s like Sara was saying, having those steps along the way. And so when I made the decision to go into the private sector, it was the next natural step for me, because I did have those amazing mentors and I had the opportunity to be the CTO, to be an acting supervisor, to become an operations supervisor, to mentor the new supervisors, to apply for other roles within the agency. And then to go to this next step it’s like, okay, now I can show people that there’s also more, like I talk often of my last two years in 911, which were probably the most challenging years of my career because of so many things that were going on. But one of them that I had to come to terms with through therapy was, I hit my glass ceiling. I grew too big for the box that I was in.
And it was nothing to do with the amazing job that the men and women at the 911 center were doing. It was just about me and my professional and personal goals and aspirations. I’m so grateful that I was surrounded by people that showed me, look, there’s another world out here and you can keep going. And so my goal is to always empower women that whatever that next step is, you can keep doing it. And if that step is in the private sector and to all my directors that are watching, I’m not trying to poach your people, but if that natural next step for you or if that next challenge for you is private sector, that’s okay too because you can continue to serve this industry. And that’s something I’m very proud of.
While I did leave the 911 center, I have not given up on my passion and my desire to serve the 911 industry and to help them and the people on that frontline improve to make their jobs easier. And I get to do it with a lot more resource behind me because that’s government and a lot more reach. And like Sara said, the ability to just reach back and pull somebody up is so important. And my past agency, we called it Operation: Replace Yourself. It’s important to do that. And I get to do that now from a different lens, but it’s all the same work for the same mission.
Chris Carver:
That’s a wonderful phrase. That’s one I’ll be stealing “Operation: Replace Yourself”. I love that. That’s great. Thank you. There’s been about 10 things I’ve jotted down here, so thank you. Y’all have totally messed up my notes, but that’s good, that’s a great sign. So Johnna, that’s also a journey you’ve taken kind of a path that led you in a couple different ways, not just outside of the 911 center, but also into leadership on the association side, which is also an important part of this discussion as well, right?
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
It is. And actually Andrea, you were talking about it earlier, you grew out of your glass box. And that’s kind of where I was too after 15 years at the same center. And don’t get me wrong House at University is my alumni. I love it. I still love everyone there, but I was done. I had done everything. We did everything that every large center had ever done, just in different ways. And I had seen this quote probably when I was at my lowest, most unmotivated, and it said, “Never shrink yourself to fit places you’ve outgrown.” And that hit me so hard and it was like, you know what, okay, first I’m going to cry about it and then we’re going to go. So I kind of got pulled into the Homeland Security EMA world. I wasn’t recruited per se, but I was chosen for a job and it saved me.
I was going crazy. So now I get to serve my telecommunicators in a different way, not only with that, but also with APCO. Again, I kind of struggle with the imposter stuff. So I had not chosen to run for candidate. I was told I was running for a candidate. And when I ran for second VP, I did not realize second VP meant you are also going to move into VP. I had no idea until after I was sworn in. It was kind of a nice little, oh, oh my God, this is six years. Okay, got it.
And I’m so glad they threw me into it. I have loved every moment of growing with APCO and changing things along the way, I think a little bit differently than probably some of the more traditional people that had gone through. So it’s been an adventure for everyone that I serve and is on my board with me. We actually got our Telecommunicator Emergency Response Task Force set up this year, had our first deployment. It was amazing. And yeah, you tap the next person. So I’ve had a couple women who have actually come up to me and it’s kind of surprising to me still and said, “Hey, I want to do this, and how do you grow? How do you do this? What was your path?” And it’s been wonderful. I’m a voluntold mentor, I guess I’ve been pulled into that as well.
So nothing official, but it’s been wonderful just talking to other people and letting them know all the paths that you can take. I’m also a member of NENA, an active member of NENA. There’s no battle in our state, which is kind of nice. So I go to DC each year and do the 911 Goes to Washington trip and that is just a phenomenal event every year. And if you want to feel like you are making a difference, you are actually legit, that is a great way to do it because you are meeting with senators, and representatives, and congressmen and they listen to you. You are the subject matter expert and you have to be ready. And when you leave that office knowing that you did the right thing and not only did you represent APCO NENA, you’ve represented all 1600 telecommunicators in your state well. That is an amazing feeling. So yeah, going to APCO NENA, going to these private… I don’t want to say private, but going to the professionally developed groups, that is another way to grow yourself. And it’s led me to meet some amazing people along the way and I am so grateful.
Sara Weston:
Hey Chris-
Andrea King-Smith:
Is Sara, isn’t that, where isn’t 911 Goes to Washington? Isn’t that where the Wendy Day scholarship is given out?
Sara Weston:
Yes.
Andrea King-Smith:
Yes. Powerful women.
Sara Weston:
Yes. I wanted to jump on something Johnna said really fast, Chris.
Chris Carver:
Sure.
Sara Weston:
How she reluctantly said “yes.” And we’ve talked a lot about what people can do to empower women, but we are responsible ultimately for what we do. Saying “yes” is so important. It’s scary, it’s hard. You’re out of your comfort zone, but if somebody’s pulling you to the table and shoving a microphone in your hand, it’s up to you to take it.
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
Especially if it’s somebody you respect. So then, you know you feel a little more legitimate even in that way, automatically.
Sara Weston:
Yes.
Andrea King-Smith:
And on that same note, as you know what I’m going to say next, Sara, saying no is just as equally powerful. Saying no to things that don’t serve you. We talk about in our empower session, disappoint someone else before you disappoint yourself. And when those things are not in your path towards your goals or towards your empowerment, then saying no is okay too. And as Dr. Michelle says, “No is a complete sentence.” And it’s my mantra for 2023.
Chris Carver:
Well, I hope y’all don’t say no to this next thing, but this is going to be, this is our last question to take us out of this. And again, thank you all very much. This has been eye-opening for me and I’m sure it’s been for anybody that’s watched this as well. But here’s my last question: You’re presented the opportunity to speak for about 30 seconds, more or less, to a group like the International Association of Chiefs of Police, or the Fire Chiefs or an organization like that really, that that’s sort of one of the traditional power organizations inside the public safety world. What would you say to them about the issue on 911 for women? What would you like them to know if you got that chance to be handed that microphone? And this time you can’t say no, Andrea, you got it. You got to take that one. Who would like to go first?
Andrea King-Smith:
Okay, so my friend Drew Clark, who is an ally of empowering women, when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, he says, “Diversity means we see you, and inclusion means that we hear you, and equity means that we advance you and that it’s everybody’s role to make sure that we are touching on all three of those points, right?” Women in public safety, women are not new to public safety. In fact, women have been the backbone of public safety since its inception. We talked about a number of times how women dominate that public safety communications field. And there’s a reason why. And it’s because of the unique perspective that women bring to critical thinking, and strategy, and the empathy that women are able to show when people are calling on their absolute worst day. So it’s important for those major organizations, those ICPs and things to recognize that the women in your organizations and the women in this industry, they bring a perspective to the table that no one else has. And it’s important in order to serve the community that you signed up to serve in an effective way to allow those voices to be heard, to empower those voices, to champion those voices and to honestly give it a chance so that you can reap what you sow… Or I’m sorry, so that you can reap what the rewards are from bringing women to the table.
Chris Carver:
Very good. Thank you. Johnna, how about you?
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
So this is where I’m actually very lucky because I have built a reputation here in Franklin County. So I have a chance to address the chiefs of police and the fire chiefs every month.
Andrea King-Smith:
Awesome.
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
So it’s great. So to reference back to COVID, when we first got the vaccines out and everybody was like, “Who gets these first?” Literally I had the fire chiefs and the police chiefs stand up and say, “‘We can separate. The dispatchers can’t. Let them go first.” And it was this beautiful moment of, oh my God, you recognize that you need us, we need to be here, we need to be healthy, we need to be safe. And we are with you. We’re not walking behind you. We’re walking beside you. And that’s kind of where I would go, is we help you every day. We help the public every day we walk alongside you, we back you up. And now with next generation 911, we are going to be the first eyes on the scene sometimes. So now it’s your turn to back us up. Now it’s your turn to stand up beside us and say, “Yes, they deserve this reclassification. They deserve all the benefits, and they deserve the help that we get on an equal level.”
Yeah, I think that it’s there. I think we’ve gotten over a lot of those humps that it used to be the traditional like, “Oh, they’re clerical. They sit there, they can walk to the microwave, that’s where they respond.” That drives me absolutely bonkers. I’m like, let me not answer this phone for one day. And you know what? And I honestly think if there is some hesitation, once we get those cameras integrated, once we get that video integrated, we’re going to get over that with even the hardest most dinosaur of the officers and leaders, because now we’re protecting you on scene as well. I come from an agency that has 5,000 cameras within its jurisdiction. The officers hated it at first because they thought we were watching them. Sir, you are not interesting enough for me to watch.
Sara Weston:
Nothing else to do.
Andrea King-Smith:
That part.
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
Now the expectation is for basically real-time crime center dispatchers that I had to train from the ground up to tell them what’s on scene first. So they’re the first eyes going, “Yep, that fight is still going, and yes, I see weapons.” Or “Oh, nope, your suspect fled, he’s going south.” That is what we’re going to, that is where we are headed. We are literally the first eyes on scene. We’re the first voice for every call. Let’s get the reclassification done. Let’s get the support we need now.
Andrea King-Smith:
Beautiful.
Chris Carver:
Wonderful. And Sara, finally.
Sara Weston:
I would say to them, we are all people. We have good days, we have bad days. But when you are out there and your life is on the line, and your lifeline is on the radio with you, giving you information, telling you where to go, giving you coordinates, giving you whatever it is that you need, do you want that person to be a burnt out, hopeless, tired individual who could make more money at Buc-ee’s or Wawa? Or do you want the person who is saving your life, your family’s life, to be proud, empowered, to love what they do, to have a passion for helping you and helping your family? What do you want? Because that stuff matters and it makes a difference. And we have seen story after story. You just have to watch the news of when a dispatcher messes up and what the effects are. We don’t see the happy stories as much. So if you want that person to be the best that they can be and do the best that they can do, then we all as a public safety community have to support each other in whatever way that means to them. And if you don’t know how they’re supported, then figure it out.
Chris Carver:
All right. Well, thank you all. This has been an absolutely incredible conversation. I hope we have the opportunity to do it again sometime in the not too distant future. Sara, Andrea, Johnna, thank you again. And that concludes this episode of Hexagon’s Public Safety Speaks vodcast. Thank you all for watching. We hope you found it interesting and informative. And if you’d like more information from any of our panelists or from myself, please feel free to reach out through our Hexagon social media channels. We’d be happy to connect you with information or resources as you work to address this particular topic inside your own agencies and inside your own communities. Thank you again. We look forward to seeing you soon. Be safe and have a great rest of your day.
Sara Weston:
Thank you.
Johnna Gonzalez Sells:
Thank you.
