Dispatcher of the Year 2020

All County of Santa Clara 9-1-1 Dispatchers

Every year the department honors two individuals who have demonstrated the highest levels of personal and professional conduct and performance in the line of duty. These Dispatchers represent all the hard work and dedication each of you brings to the job every day. With the challenges that you have all faced within the last 12 months it was impossible to select only two of you. We are pleased to announce that Santa Clara County Communications 2020 Dispatchers of the Year are all of you!

On March 11th, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic followed by a Statewide Stay-at-home order issued on March 19th. With the implementation of the Pandemic protocol and the additional question(s) we implemented for screening, you were all consistently adapting to the changes. Some of these changes were occurring on a daily basis and or weekly in the beginning. Then we expanded those questions to include Law calls as well. To adapt to the consistent changes within your professional & personal lives showed true resilience.

We were scheduled to implement EFD in March but due to the pandemic this was postponed. Upon setting a date in August, and doing additional refresher trainings, we were ready to launch by the amended Go Live date. During the early morning hours of August 16 we were faced with another obstacle, a thunderstorm. There were over 200 lightning strikes within a 30 minute time period. The next thing we knew our County was surrounded by fire. We launched EFD during the midst of this and did an exceptional job considering all the circumstances, having some of our very own dispatchers needing to evacuate due to the fires.