APCO Utah held its 8^th Annual Hall of Fame Awards Banquet on Wednesday.  Awards were presented for various categories in recognition of distinguished service in support of public safety.  VECC won the award for the Large Agency Incident of the Year 2010 -2011 for the Machine Gun Fire of September 19-20, 2010.  The award cited the work of 70 VECC employees who assisted in the incident for their outstanding performance and commendatory accomplishments. Additionally, Gigi Smith was recognized with the Distinguished Service Award for her hard work and dedication to public safety while serving as an executive board member of the Utah Chapter of APCO, the Regional Director for APCO’s Western Region, and as a member of the APCO, International’s Executive Board.

Daytona Beach, Fla. — May 23, 2011 — The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International has awarded both Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC) and City of San Luis Obispo Communications Center with the prestigious Horizon Award for their proactive technologic achievements within the communications center and the public safety industry.

APCO’s Horizon Award recognizes the technological advancements of communications centers across the nation with the enhancement of voice and data communications while acknowledging the efforts of communications centers that have proactively assessed and met the technological and operational needs of their center, employees, and service population. The award is presented to one large and one small telecommunications center annually.

The 2011 Horizon Award for a Large Center is being presented to Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC). VECC created a robust in-house E-Learning Environment, enabling employees at all levels to engage in media rich learning activities while at their desk. The VECC E-Learning Campus, VECC Online, is built upon Claroline’s Open Source eLearning and eWorking platform. This framework launched in March 2008 and has since become the largest method used for continued dispatch training.

The 2011 Horizon Award for a Small Center is being presented to City of San Luis Obispo Communications Center. City of San Luis Obispo built a technologically advanced communications center highlighting dispatchers’ safety, security and personal needs. The Center offers technology including cat6 data cable and fiber wires, Clear Cube blade PC technology, AT&T Viper 911, Pano Virtual PCs, virtual server clusters, Spillman CAD, Text to Voice Fire Station Alerting system, New Tait city-wide emergency simulcast/digital radio system, and Russ Bassett console furniture. The project was led by an Information Technology team.

“VECC and City of San Luis Obispo Communications Center’s are leading the way to the future and the norm of telecommunications centers by showcasing the highest technologic enhancements and demonstrating efficient operational procedure. They serve as a role model to the public safety industry and APCO is happy to emphasize their success,” said Bill Carrow, president of APCO International.

Nominations for the Horizon Award were accepted February 1 through April 1 and a selection committee reviewed the entries blind as it relates to vendor-specific technology to choose a winner. VECC and City of San Luis Obispo will be recognized in APCO’s official magazine, Public Safety Communications, on APCO’s website, and at APCO International’s 2011 Annual Conference from August 7th-10th in Philadelphia, Pa.

About APCO International
APCO International is the world’s largest organization of public safety communications professionals. It serves the needs of public safety communications practitioners worldwide — and the welfare of the general public as a whole — by providing complete expertise, professional development, technical assistance, advocacy and outreach. www.apcointl.org.

Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC) has been nominated for the The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials – International (APCO) Horizon Award.

The Horizon Award: Recognizing the Proactive Achievements of Communications Centers

This award serves to recognize the technological advancements of communications centers across the nation with the enhancement of voice and data communications. Technology has a direct correlation and impact on operational policies and procedures. The intent of this award is to acknowledge the efforts of communications centers that have proactively assessed and met the technological and operational needs of their center, employees and service population.  Source: APCO’s Website

2010 saw numerous Technical advancements at Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center (VECC). The first project that had one of the most notable impacts on the center was the fully deployed CAD2CAD interface. VECC is a Primary Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) in Salt Lake County; as such it handles 911 calls for service for two thirds of the geographic region. Many calls for service are outside the dispatch service area of VECC. Through grant funding a joint project was put together that involved VECC and the Salt Lake County Sheriff office a secondary PSAP. The project was to provide interoperability between the disparate Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems.

The project took approximately 18 months to complete and involved both agencies CAD vendors as well as a third party vendor to deploy an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). The project was developed to expedite information from one PSAP to the other as well as to reduce the duplication of questioning, that was time consuming and frustrating for the caller.

The system also provided a real time combined data feed to a web based secured application for monitoring and displaying calls for service as well resources utilized on those calls. The application that was chosen was provided by FlyteComm.

After the success of the CAD2CAD with the Sheriff office, VECC expanded the ability of the interface to include Gold Cross Ambulance and yet another disparate CAD system. This interface facilitates the data transfer on specific calls to EMS requests for transport. In the past these notifications were manually made by telephone and sometimes delays were experienced.

When VECC’s current building was constructed in 2000 the location was not equipped to allow for redundant paths for emergency telephone connection. Essentially there was one pedestal that controlled all lines into the facility creating a single point of failure. In 2010 VECC was able to resolve this issue by upgrading to a Self Healing Alternate Route Protection (SHARP) ring. This provided VECC with a dual route auto-detecting redundant feed eliminating the single point of failure. The SHARP ring also provided fiber connectivity opposed to the old copper lines.

With the upgrade to the telephone line feed VECC was able to pursue Next Generation 911 (NG911) capabilities. Working with our service provider Qwest and Intrado we were able to install IP based wireless call transfers through the Intrado Intelligent Emergency Network (IEN). This project was the first in the State of Utah and is currently being used as the model for a statewide role out. In December of 2010 VECC’s 11 wireless trunks were cut over to the new network.

In September of 2010 VECC performed a forklift upgrade to our CAD system hardware. The old hardware was 4 years old and was never intended to accommodate nearly 350 mobile users in addition to dispatch operations personnel.

The new IBM solution provides VECC with enough hardware resources to accommodate the current mobile users as well as allowing for future growth. The new system also provides enough resources that should an agency desire, they could host their Report Management Software (RMS) on VECC’s server.

The old system provided redundancy in that there were two servers; however they were side by side in the same server room. With the new hardware we were able to separate the two servers by means of a fiber connection into a different building on campus. This measure added and additional layer of redundancy to the Center.

One issue that VECC experienced during the H1N1 virus outbreak was the need to be able to data mine calls that were pertinent to the outbreak. We currently had no user friendly application to segregate calls based on symptoms. We located a vendor FirstWatch that met the need. We purchased the required hardware and software. Since May of 2010 we now have a user friendly web based dashboard that allows not only Center for Disease Control analysis but also allows our fire/ems agencies real time analysis of all fire and medical related calls.

The last improvement that was made during the year was another forklift upgrade of our audio recording system. The old system was nearly 8 years old and had limitations to the amount of storage space. The limit was 60 days. If an agency required a copy of the call it needed to be manually pulled and archived somewhere else in that time frame. The current system allows us to store that same data for 180 days. Another benefit from the new system was the ability to monitor both radio and/or telephone traffic real time if a situation requires.

2010 was a very busy and protective year here at Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communication Center.

Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC) is proud to announce that it has become a 9-1-1 Call Center Partner with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

~ Calls about missing and exploited children often become one of the most critical calls received by VECC.

~ These calls must be handled according to best practices.  VECC chose to become a partner with NCMEC to insure that they would have the best policy & procedures in place to assist our law enforcement agencies to give every missing and exploited child the best chance to be found alive and unharmed.

~ VECC is the second Communications Center in Utah to become a 9-1-1 Call Center Partner.

~ VECC is one of only nine Communications Center in the nation to become a 9-1-1 Call Center Partner.

~ In order to become a 9-1-1 Call Center Partner VECC Chiefs of Police, or their representatives, and employees, from managers to dispatchers and call-takers, completed extensive training.  They also formally adopted the ANSI-approved Standard for Public-Safety Telecommunicators when Responding to Calls of Missing, Abducted and Sexually Exploited Children.

Last year the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) represented by Terry Shaw (VECC Employee), Gigi Smith (VECC Employee), and Deborah Mecham (Utah Valley Dispatch Special Service District) presented a proposal to the Utah 911 Committee to fund a 911 education campaign.  The 911 Committee acted on their suggestion and contracted with the advertising firm of Penna, Powers, Brian, and Haynes to produce the campaign.  The campaign consists on TV and radio spots, billboards, a web site and other media.  You have probably seen the TV spots and the billboards.  The 911 Committee was informed last week that that 911 Education Campaign and each of the TV spots received Telly Awards.  Telly Awards are to advertising as the Emmies are to television.  In an international completion with over 13000 entries, the Utah 911 Education Campaign won the awards.

One of the Telly Awards is on temporary display in our display case.  Even though the award was given to Penna, Powers, Brian, and Haynes for a Utah Department of Public Safety (911 Committee) campaign, it was made possible because Gigi and Terry recognized a need and took action on it.  Thanks to Terry and Gigi.

PROVO — Picture yourself sitting at a desk with six telephones. Let’s say two start ringing at the same time. A bit awkward, but manageable. Now, imagine all six phones ringing off the hook for three hours. Think you can handle it?

Gigi Smith, of Utah APCO, talks with Mike Veenendaal of Valley Emergency Communications Center after the incident of the Year award.

Provo’s dispatchers did on Feb. 17, 2008, when a fiery explosion rocked the Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Co., shaking homes for miles around and prompting a flood of calls to 911. “With all those lines going off, I don’t know how they were able to do it,” said Provo Police Lt. Jeff Lougee, who was dispatch manager at the time. “It was multitasking at its utmost at that moment.” The Provo City Communications Center, the Valley Emergency Communications Center and the DPS/Box Elder Communications Center were all honored Friday by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials for their calm yet quick responses to emergencies during the 2008 year. “What the dispatchers do every day is so important,” said Gigi Smith, president of the Utah chapter of APCO. “(To some) they’re just a voice behind a telephone. But people don’t realize what they do in a day’s work.”

Source: The Deseret News