Arthur E. McDole

“I’ve had a fun career with APCO,” says Arthur “Art” E. McDole. “I always seem to be in the right place at the right time. The more I worked, the more opportunities presented [themselves].”

For the past 60 years (nearly), Art McDole has been a dedicated professional, mentor, friend and knowledgeable resource to many APCO members and leaders. APCO Past President Craig Jorgensen says, “[Art] has always been a leader and worked to promote what he thought was best for the community. He has never wavered from his dedication to public safety. I would say his greatest attributes are his honesty, integrity and dedication.”

On the occasion of McDole’s 90th birthday this month (April 3), we thought it appropriate to examine how those attributes and McDole’s passion have benefited both the technical and operational areas of public safety communications for almost six decades. He has made a lasting impression on his colleagues and public safety communications.

The Early Days
Born in Leadville, Colo., McDole moved to California in 1941 and settled in the city of Salinas. For several years, he participated in a local amateur radio club and worked as a cabinetmaker until he injured his hands. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says, “because it got me back into communications.”

In the late 1940s, McDole began working for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department. A friend from the ham radio club was installing equipment for the department and asked McDole for help. The help resulted in a job offer. McDole started out as a sergeant and worked—both as a police officer and radio technician—up to the rank of captain. Eventually, the sheriff’s department created a new position, and McDole became the agency’s first director of communications.

It was during the beginning of his communications career, on Aug. 1, 1949, that McDole joined APCO. “[I went to] my first meeting, and [it] was neat,” says McDole. “It just became a way of life.”

Local Contributions
Through the association, he had the opportunity to affect public safety communications at local and national levels. He served as president of APCO’s Northern California Chapter (NAPCO) in 1954 and has been the local frequency advisor for an uninterrupted 43 years. Today, he co-chairs the position with Pres Thomson.

McDole worked with his colleagues to pioneer technology that improved local and state emergency communications. He helped develop Monterey County’s consolidated dispatch center for police, fire, EMS and public works. At the time, the local public works department didn’t have radios because it couldn’t get spectrum from the FCC. Including the department in the consolidated center allowed public works personnel to communicate over public safety spectrum.

“I was putting radios in everything,” says McDole. “We even deputized five [public works] guys to get them radios for their vehicles.”

When 9-1-1 came about in the late 1960s, the idea piqued McDole’s interest. He applied for and received a grant to build Monterey County’s system. As one of the largest of its time, the system covered 3,500 square miles of the county. McDole also worked with the legislature to help draft the law that mandated 9-1-1 in the state of California and served as chair of the committee promoting the service.

According to APCO Past President John Powell, “[Art] had one of the very first, truly 9-1-1 centers. He also assembled a consolidated communications center that was the national model for years.”

When two-channel radios premiered in the 1960s, McDole, his colleagues and the state OES developed the California Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Radio System (CLEMARS), a VHF channel that was programmed on virtually every public safety agency’s radio in California. Agencies were allowed to use the channel on a daily basis, and, during an emergency, the channel was prioritized according to the need for mutual aid. The effort resulted in one of the nation’s most effective mutual aid systems. CLEMARS is still in use today and has migrated into other public safety spectrum bands.

McDole often used his weekends and personal time to visit other areas and has helped approximately a dozen agencies with technical issues. He has also chatted with comm center managers about consolidation and other operations issues. He later helped develop a repeater-based, wide-area system of television translators for educational school programming. The system started in San Francisco and stretched 300 miles to San Luis Obispo, Calif.

National Accomplishments
According to Powell, “Art has been involved in, if not responsible for, major national efforts that [have] resulted in more public safety spectrum, including the initial assignment of UHF for public safety.”

Throughout his APCO career, McDole was a regular presence at the FCC, working with numerous APCO committees to acquire spectrum for public safety. He was the chair of Regulatory Committee (now the Spectrum Management Committee) for nearly 20 years and served as co-chair of Project 25. He also represented APCO on the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC) and the National Coordination Committee (NCC). McDole’s FCC filings have tackled UHF, VHF, TV spectrum sharing and 700-MHz spectrum issues. In the 1980s, McDole worked on an FCC filing to have the 800-MHz band assigned exclusively to public safety. McDole initiated a new approach to spectrum management and helped convince the FCC to allow regional planning committees to manage spectrum at the state level.

According to McDole, “One thing I’ve been working on my whole career is the challenge of finding enough spectrum for public safety to use to protect life and property. At times, working with the FCC is a challenge and not always as rewarding as it could be.

“Through all this time, trying to obtain sufficient spectrum for public safety has been a challenge. Lately, this requirement for spectrum is growing because the magnitude of new technology has grown dramatically. With each new development, finding frequencies has been getting harder.”

Although advancements in technology are making public safety frequency coordination difficult, McDole wouldn’t have it any other way. “Technology has helped dramatically,” he says. “[Looking] back at the old days, we wouldn’t [have] dreamed about some of the things we have now.”

McDole’s colleagues think of him as a source of compromise and a pioneer. According to Gary D. Gray, “[Art has always been] a peacemaker. He’s good at finding a consensus in diverse viewpoints and coming up with a solution for the common good.”

This hard work has not gone unnoticed. In addition to being honored by the Radio Club of America and other organizations, APCO awarded McDole Life Member status in 1977. And in 1990, the Board of Officers and Executive Council surprised McDole with the J. Rhett McMillan award; he was the first person aside from McMillan to receive it.

Three years later, the Board approved an award in McDole’s name: the Art McDole Award for recognition of exceptional accomplishments of a technical nature in public safety communications. Recipients include McDole himself in 1993, Stu Meyer (1995), John S. Powell (1998), Robert F. Schlieman (1998), Sam Gargaro (1999), Gary D. Gray (2000), Glen Nash (2003) and David G. Buchanan (2004).

Colleagues fondly describe McDole’s personable nature. Long-time APCO member David Swan says McDole is “a true gentleman.”

And according to APCO Past President Glen Nash, McDole has a mischievous, and sometimes self-deprecating, sense of humor. “Art is always willing to have a good laugh, and it’s always a pleasure [to be] around him,” he says.

Life after Retirement
After 41 years of service, McDole retired from Monterey County as communications director in 1990, but he’s still active in public safety. In additional to his committee work and frequency coordination for NAPCO, he has begun his latest pioneering effort: maintaining and engineering an emergency alert system with mountaintop reporting devices for Monterey County.

According to McDole, “I waited to retire because I loved my job and didn’t want to retire. It was a hard decision to make. I told the guys at APCO that I would have more time for APCO. Now I maintain the alert system and work with Pres Thomson. All things I wanted to do.”

Currently, McDole plans to attend the 2008 Annual APCO Conference and Exposition and continue his “hard work.”

“I’ve had a lot of fun at my jobs. It’s been the most rewarding career.” He continues, “I wish that for other people. Do what you love to do, and you’ll have a happy life, and you’ll be good at it. That’s the secret with APCO and communications. There have been some trying moments, but it’s been fun.”

McDole also advises APCO members and others to maintain passion and enthusiasm for their chosen profession, saying, “I get as much satisfaction out of finding someone a useable frequency than anything else in the world.”

He continues, “The Lord blessed me, or cursed me, with an inherent desire to build things. It’s the same with building an organization, the same spirit. You love to see good things happen. Everything I did was because of this passion I have for building things. I feel terrible [when/if] it doesn’t work, but I have an indestructible optimism. It’s its own reward.”

As for the association that he has worked with over the years, McDole also describes APCO as a rewarding experience. “APCO is a very close association,” he says. “People really are friends. [There’s] a fellowship in APCO. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people, and I have so much admiration for people with technical abilities beyond mine. I’m lucky to be who I am and where I am.”

About the Author
Natasha Yetman is assistant editor of Public Safety Communications. Contact her via e-mail at yetmann@apcointl.org.

Note: The editors would like to thank all interviewees for their time and contribution to this article. Special thanks to David Swan and the APCO Heritage Foundation for their contribution to our research.

Originally published on www.apcointl.org, April 2008.