Tammy Baierl

A telecommunicator for the Ramsey County Emergency Communications Center in St. Paul, Minn., for the past nine years, Tammy Baierl loves her job. If she had it to do it all over again, she would. “I would have gone into this field 20 years earlier—definitely,” she says.

Previously, Baierl’s focus had been in customer service, and she had served as a crisis counselor for a domestic violence hotline. Baierl had also been home for eight years raising a family. Then a friend who is a police chief told her she should be a 9-1-1 operator and he encouraged her enough that she began to develop an interest in the area and was ultimately hired by Ramsey County as a calltaker.

In her role, Baierl works the information channel once per week. She conducts name checks, driver license checks and calls related to animal control and missing persons. On others days, she answer 9-1-1 calls. Her job entails dealing with 16 cities within Ramsey County. “We’re the only one in the state of Minnesota that operates as a consolidated system. We answer for all of Ramsey County,” Baierl says.

While she possesses many skills that allow her to do the job well, Baierl emphasizes the importance of multi-tasking. “We rarely do one thing at a time,” she says. In addition, oral and written communications skills combined with a good spelling ability is necessary. Baierl also stresses that customer service experience or prior public contact is an asset to this type of work. “I’m very compassionate, and I’m very patient with people. I have a genuine desire to help people. I tend to like the calls where I’m able to help someone out,” she says.

Baierl recalls the time a woman called 9-1-1 because her boyfriend was having a diabetic attack, but the girlfriend was not with him at the time. Baierl obtained the cell phone number of the boyfriend and called the carrier for latitude and longitude information and was able to get assistance to the area within minutes. Baierl kept the girlfriend, who was very upset, on the line and checked back with her to keep her informed about what was transpiring.

A memorable but troubling call for Baierl was one she received from a police officer who reported another officer had been shot; the officer ultimately died. “I’ve lost three in a short nine years. Every time it happens, it brings the other one back. We need to compose ourselves and move on,” Baierl says.

Baierl also works domestic violence calls frequently and says she gets four or five per day. She has participated in the Blueprint for Safety program, which is special training for police officers, calltakers and dispatchers to learn about the serious questions that must be asked in these types of situations.

Baierl, 52, is married with two children. She has one child in college and another is a sophomore in high school. Her husband is very supportive of her work. “He thinks it’s great,” she says. She has a mixture of friends, both within and outside the field, and they are a large part of her life. “Some of my closest friends are my co-workers now,” she says, and acknowledges that they understand what the line of work entails.

Baierl has a number of hobbies, including exercising, riding a Harley, antiquing, cooking and reading. She gets a lot of pleasure from reading. She usually reads nonfiction and reads to learn.

Baierl says it takes a very special person to do and stay on the job. In her line of work, personnel end up working days, nights, mandatory overtime and being away from their families but Baierl acknowledges it is a valuable and rewarding job. Her accomplishments include receiving Chief’s Awards in 2005 and 2007, two unit citations and an Employee of the Year award within her organization. She is currently a certified training officer (CTO) and began training others after one year on the job.

Baierl is currently in the application process for a police dispatcher position. “I have a lot of experience in this area, and I understand what officers think,” she says. With success in her field thus far, she will undoubtedly progress onward and upward.

About the Author
Karen L. Bune serves as an adjunct professor at George Mason University and Marymount University in Virginia, and is a consultant for the Training and Technical Assistance Center for the Office for Victims of Crime and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. She is a nationally recognized speaker and trainer on public safety issues. Bune is Board Certified in Traumatic Stress and Domestic Violence, and she is a Fellow of The Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and the National Center for Crisis Management. She serves on the Institutional Review Board of The Police Foundation, Washington, D.C.