This Web site mirrors the evolution of public safety dispatching—it started out in 1982 as the small, printed publication DISPATCH Monthly Magazine, written and edited by Alan Burton, a pioneer in training for the profession. He carried the publication for 16 years until his consulting work consumed more of his time. At that point, I took over the publication with several thousand subscribers and moved it forward to today’s Web site.
I spent 20 years at a dispatcher’s console, starting out with eight years at a California fire department (the agency’s first civilians), and then another 12 years at a police-fire comm center. In between, I spent two years as a technical writer for a major CAD software company. Mr. Burton recruited me to help write the publication in the mid 1980s, and then I became associate editor in 1988. I assisted with writing and editing duties until 1999, when Mr. Burton handed DISPATCH Monthly over to me. I continued with the printed publication until January 2009, when I converted it to an on-line only publication.
Now, when I’m not searching for hot topics and writing stories, I maintain my dispatching skills from the other side of the microphone, as a police reserve officer for the past 37 years.
Contact me at: editor@911Dispatch.com
Gary Allen