Sukus promoted to 911 center director
About Kathy Sukus
Job: Rock County Communications director
Education: Graduated from Beloit Memorial High School in 1986. Attended UW-Rock County for two years. Earned a bachelor's degree in human resource management from Concordia University in Beloit in 2010.
Family: Husband, Dean Sukus, is a sergeant at the Janesville Police Department. They have two children.
What she wants you to know about Rock County Communications: "We treat callers like we would treat our family members. We want them to know they should not feel like they're putting us out when they call. I want them to know there's normal people on the other side of the phone that can and want to help."
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Kathy Sukus
JANESVILLE — Kathy Sukus likes to tell people she was born for the job.
Not only was she born on 9/11, but she was born in 1968, the year of the first 911 call in the United States.
She has worked for more than two decades in emergency dispatching. Now, Sukus will be the head of Rock County Communications, the 46-person department that takes 911 calls from the public and uses the information to dispatch police, EMTs and firefighters to emergencies.
The county board on Thursday voted to promote Sukus to communications director. She has been working as interim director since former Director Dave Sleeter retired in July.
Sukus started working for the county in 1993 as one of the first telecommunicators when the county started taking 911 calls in its new center. Before that, each police department and fire station had its own emergency number and its own dispatchers.
Before she worked for the county, Sukus was a Beloit Police Department dispatcher from 1988 to 1993.
These days, Sukus rarely answers 911 calls, although she can, she said. Her promotion from operations manager, a title she'd held since 1996, means she will have more responsibility over the direction of the $5 million department, Sukus said.
Sukus has been overseeing the county's transition to digital from analog radio communications. The transition started in June and experienced bumps, including problems with software that led to lost or dropped radio calls.
That transition is almost finalized, Sukus said. Coming up will be a new phone system and other equipment for dispatchers. The changes will make it possible for people to send text messages to 911. That's an option Sukus wants to consider.
Another goal is to bring more of a personal touch to the communications center and let people know about the good work dispatchers and emergency responders are doing.
This year, a communications center billboard campaign will feature people whose lives were saved by dispatchers.
"I want to highlight more of the hidden things," Sukus said. "There are so many good things that happen."
Jan 12, 2013 at 11:03 p.m.
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Hey...good luck with that mess!!!
Jan 11, 2013 at 6:37 p.m.
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"Sukus has been overseeing the county's transition to digital from analog radio communications. The transition started in June and experienced bumps, including problems with software that led to lost or dropped radio calls." Hopefully, they she won't let them mess up the phone system until after they FIX the radio system! It still has problems nightly.
"Repeat? your transmission is unreadable" is common all night, and last night's "Why don't you answer the phone, I've tried the radio 3 times and you didn't hear me." What is it going to take, someone getting hurt... or worse?
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