Washington State Patrol<\/a> they are known as communications officers. Other agencies use the more formal term of telecommunicator, or similar titles. The common term is dispatcher \u2013 the person who answers the phone or radio and sends help where it\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cDispatchers are usually the first people to know when something really bad has happened,\u201d State Patrol Chief John R. Batiste said. \u201cWe count on them to get our emergency response off on the right foot, and they invariably come through with flying colors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Batiste knows the job. As a young state patrol cadet, he was assigned to WSP\u2019s Communications Division. He says not only are dispatchers a lifeline for the public, but for emergency responders as well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been out on that lonely road at night stopping a car with a wanted criminal inside,\u201d Batiste said. \u201cThe dispatcher\u2019s calm voice kept me calm during a dangerous situation, because I knew if I needed help I\u2019d get it. I depended on them, and my family depended on them. I was in good hands.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Telecommunicators Week began in California in 1981, and quickly grew to national recognition. Just ten years later, Congress had designated the second full week of each April as a time to remember the critical role that dispatchers play in keeping us all safe.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The week of April 10 through 16 is National Telecommunicators Week, intended to honor the first link in the chain of emergency police, fire and medical responses.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve ever been the victim of a crime, been in a collision, reported a fire or needed emergency medical help, you\u2019ve called 911 and been helped by a telecommunicator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13928"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}