Sandy Vogstad

Sandy Vogstad, manager of the North District OCC, said there are services in place to help operators handle the emotions of the job, and those emotions are natural and expected.They are not expected to be robotic and cold, only professional in the heat of a moment, she said.There is also plenty of supervision and mentorship to help operators through the ups and downs of the calls they receive. "I'm going to go back a few years to my own personal priorities when I started 31 years ago," Vogstad told The Citizen about why she joined the dispatch team.
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Once they are done their work they go home, said Vogstad, where they are coaches of their kids' sports teams, active in volunteer positions, busy with family functions.
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Vogstad said the turnover rate for most OCCs across the continent is high, but many thrive in their unique environment, especially those who can do well what is commonly called multi-tasking. "Multi-tasking isn't the right word," she said."From psychological studies we know that no one's brain can truly multi-task.Your brain can only effectively concentrate on one thing at a time so we are looking for people who can make those fast choices to prioritize well, and move back and forth between mental tasks quickly and professionally." If that sounds like a pitch for new recruits, it is.Vogstad and Dreher encourage others to join the local OCC team, and an open call for applications is now open.
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"That is my personal goal in my current job as manager, to support these people (who operate emergency calls)," said Vogstad.

• Director Sandy Vogstad, RCMP Prince George, North District Operational Communications Centre
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• Sandy Vogstad,directeur, GRC Prince George, Centre des communications du District Nord

Sandy Vogstad - Director
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Sandy Vogstad - Directrice

Le congrès d'APCO Canada donne l'occasion de retrouver ses amis, les répartiteurs et les gestionnaires de tout le pays et de rencontrer de nouvelles personnes. Le réseautage est probablement ce qui est le plus important pour moi. Le fait de découvrir que vous n'êtes pas seul avec un problème de communications particulier et d'apprendre comment les autres ont réussi à cerner des problèmes semblables. Le fait de pouvoir appeler quelqu'un et lui dire :

Your new APCO Canada Board of Directors is composed of Maureen Schmidt, President; Donna Anderson, Past President; Curtis Brochu, Vice President; and Directors Theresa Virgin, Gavin Hayes, Nancy Banks, and Treasurer Sandy Vogstad.
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Left to Right: Donna Anderson, Gavin Hayes, Theresa Virgin, Maureen Schmidt, Curtis Brochu, Sandy Vogstad, Nancy Banks.

La m.c. Sandy Vogstad

Item: Ms. Sandy Vogstad, Unit Commander, Operational Communication Centre (OCC) - RCMP North District office will be in attendance to make a presentation regarding the services provided by the OCC.

Director Sandy Vogstad

Sandy's Civilian Member career with the RCMP started in 1976. Since that time she has been stationed in ten different RCMP Operational Communication Centres throughout 'E' Division, British Columbia. Although all centres have been operational in nature two had a varied, focused applications, those being Vancouver International Airport and '43' Vancouver, Division Headquarters. Her current position is as Officer in Charge of North District OCC in Prince George. This is the second largest provincial centre in British Columbia with the largest geographical coverage area - 72% of the province! Aside from being a communications operator, a shift supervisor, and an office manager, Sandy has been involved in communication operator training, disaster planning, managerial reviews and strategic planning. She is a single course away from completion of a Project Management Diploma. Aside from her work with the RCMP, her previous work history includes nursing, teaching and real estate. Sandy's limited leisure time is centered around art and RVing. She and her husband Glenn have two grown children (step) and two grandchildren living in Victoria and Edson, Alberta.

That's the message from Sandy Vogstad, manager of the RCMP's communication centre.

This past Monday, according to Vogstad, the centre, which answers emergency and non-emergency calls for the entire North Island, handled 598 911 calls during a 24-hour period.

From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. the call load was 553.

"Extra staff is being brought on shift to handle the forecasted weather event (Thursday night), but the public is reminded not to call 911 for road conditions and closures, or hydro outages that do not relate to imminent public safety," Vogstad asked in a press release issued Thursday afternoon.

Vogstad said the public should only use 911 for calls to police, fire or ambulance if life or property is in peril.

"The last couple of months we've had some major weather events," acknowledged Sandy Vogstad, manager of the Courtenay-based RCMP Communications Centre and 911 Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).

"During a time of major events often people are caught up in the situation and don't recall the appropriate number to call."

That means 911 operators out of the centre, which answers emergency and non-emergency calls for the entire North Island, have been handling calls other than for police, fire or ambulance.

"In recent history, this has been the largest call load we've handled in a long time," said Vogstad, pointing out that on Dec. 11 her staff handled 598 911 calls during a 24-hour period.

Between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. that day, dispatchers' call load was 553.

However, a lot of the calls dispatchers handled were related to road conditions and closures, or hydro outages that do not relate to imminent public safety.

"We have to remind (people) from time to time about 911 calls … that' s why we put out a press release (Dec. 12)," said Vogstad.
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Vogstad noted the Nov. 15 snow storm saw 911 dispatchers handle more than 200 calls.

On average each day, the centre will handle between 175 and 200 calls.Last month, dispatchers handled 5,500 calls.

"If we had a 500 load every day we'd have 218,000 calls in a year," said Vogstad, adding on average each year the local call centre will process about 60,000 911 calls.
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Various factors, according to Vogstad, can determine if there's an increase in calls on any given day.Is it a long weekend?Comox Valley is a high tourist area, so there's more traffic during peak tourist seasons.What are the weather conditions?Are kids in or out of school?

Covering an area of 52,000 square kilometres, the North Island 911 centre is kept busy.Vogstad takes pride in her staff's delivery time, averaging 3.7 seconds per call in November.

"It's not that we take the most number of calls or have the largest population, (but) we've been consistently for the last 36 months between 3.6 and four seconds.That's not the fastest, but that's a good answer time."

The next time there's a major weather storm, Vogstad offered the following numbers for residents to keep handy near their telephone:

Contact: Sandy Vogstad, Manager, Courtenay Operational Communications Centre at 334-5902 or by e-mail at sandy.vogstad@rcmp-grc.gc.ca