Stiles to lead BuEComm

PRINCETON — Diana Stiles of Ottawa has been named the new director/coordinator of the Bureau County Emergency Communications (BuEComm) Center in Princeton.

Stiles began her new position July 6, after working for three years as manager of the communication center for the Ottawa Police Department. She started with the Ottawa Police Department in 2001 as a dispatcher and was promoted to management in 2006.

On Friday, Stiles said she enjoys working in the public safety field. Her goal is to keep striving and thinking outside the box to continue to provide the best possible public safety services for the residents of Bureau County.

In giving an overview of BuEComm, Stiles said the Princeton center handles all emergency 9-1-1 calls throughout the county. BuEComm directly dispatches all fire and emergency medical service (EMS) calls, but transfers all 9-1-1 calls for law enforcement assistance to the Bureau County Sheriff’s Department or Spring Valley Police Department. Eventually, she would like to see BuEComm also dispatch all law enforcement calls as well.

Located at 615 Elm Place, the BuEComm office is also dispatch center for MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) Division 57, which reaches throughout and beyond Bureau County.

Stiles said she likes the fast-paced public safety career. No two days are quite the same. Each call requires an individualized response.

In 2009, the BuEComm averaged 1,100 to 1,200 calls a month. Sixty percent of those calls are from cell phones, with the remaining 40 percent from landlines. Overall, BuEComm handled 540 fire calls in 2009 and 2,685 ambulance calls.

“Based on those statistics, you can see how very busy we are,” Stiles said. “It is hard to fathom that there is that much that happens in the way of emergencies in our county.”

BuEComm currently has eight dispatchers, five of which work full-time on 12-hour shifts. Though the center is manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Stiles said she hopes to get to the place where there are always two dispatchers on duty.

As director, her responsibility is to make sure the Princeton site has the necessary equipment and that training of the staff is top of the line, Stiles said. She is also responsible for keeping up with ever-changing laws and technology and for handling the budget. Stiles works with a 15-member board of directors.