OCECC Celebrates Achievements By Chris Cord, Emergency Communication Center Director
Orange County Emergency Communication Center (OCECC) has cause for celebration this month. Two employees completed leadership training, and the OCECC A Team received an award from The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO ) Virginia Chapter. Communications Supervisors, Holly Williams and Jessica Lohr, completed The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Registered Public - Safety Leader (RPL) program. This is a year - long program covering a variety of topics that leaders need. Developing the talent pool, fostering teamwork and collaboration, and managing change are just a few of the topics they learned over the course of the past year. In addition to their course work, they were required to complete a service program. For OCECC, that project was preparing for CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) accreditation. As part of this project, they revised and wrote several new policies and processes for OCECC. “ APCO ’ s RPL program is an excellent tool in developing leaders in the public safety communications industry and helps make us the great place we are to work. Holly and Jessica can put what they ’ ve learned to use in supervising their teams, and their work on CALEA accreditation puts us much further towards that goal, ” said Chris Cord, ECC Director. Holly had this to say about the experience, “ I am thankful for Orange County ECC being so involved in building our supervisors by way of training opportunities. RPL was an amazing class that has helped shape me over the past year into a better leader for my team. It was both challenging and rewarding to be able to complete RPL over the past year. I look forward to continuing to be the best leader I can for my team in the years to come! ” Jessica described it as “ the most intimidating, incredible experience I ’ ve had within Public Safety. The class goes beyond training, beyond learning, and genuinely made my brain approach supervising differently. The class is a year long, so it ’ s almost like learning a new language. I didn ’ t learn how to work, I learned how to grow. I learned how to lead and guide, to teach towards the future. I discovered better time management skills, project management, and interpersonal communication concepts that I haven ’ t encountered before. Fellow students became friends and resources. As APCO has just recently updated this program, it was all fresh and relevant and applicable to what I see daily. I enjoyed it so much that I reached out to APCO and was accepted as an RPL Course Facilitator, so I can take the extraordinary experience I had and pass it on to the upcoming leaders in public safety. I am very grateful for such a privilege to take this class and look forward to putting my new skills to work for Orange County. ” In addition to those personal accomplishments, OCECC ’ s A Team was selected by the Virginia Chapter of APCO for the Outstanding Team Performance in a Critical Incident Award. The team, Holly Williams, Xiushka Gibson, Alicia Herzog and Jeremy Brown, handled a call about a suicidal person on June 16, 2020. The caller, who was in Spotsylvania, refused to be transferred and Jeremy stayed on the phone until responders were on scene. The team performed flawlessly in locating the caller ’ s cell phone location, coordinating a response with Spotsylvania, and keeping the caller calm and talking. “ This is a prime example of the incredible work our Communications Officers do every single day, and to be recognized by the state chapter of APCO is an honor, ” said Chris Cord. “ It shows that we ’ re benefiting from programs like RPL. ”
The award winners will receive their awards at the Virginia APCO - NENA conference this October.
Page 5 | June, 2021
Powered by FlippingBook