New Director Chosen for SW NH Dispatch - January 2000

Info from The Keene Sentinel at www1.keenesentinel.com

A new head is named to regional fire dispatching agency (1-20-00)

By BRUCE W. WHITMAN for SentinelSource

Paul Szoc, a longtime dispatcher at Southwestern N.H. Fire Mutual Aid, has been promoted to chief coordinator of the emergency communications agency.

The 13-member Southwestern N.H. Fire Mutual Aid board of directors voted unanimously Jan. 12 to offer the $45,000-per-year job to Szoc. He started his new duties Monday.

Szoc is replacing John S. Marechal, who announced last year he's retiring this March. Szoc, who lives in Keene, joined the mutual aid staff in 1976 as a dispatcher, and was promoted to dispatch supervisor in 1987.

"It's been a good learning experience and I'm excited," Szoc said of his first few days on the job. "It's not really a new job. I have been here for 24 years next month. I know the area and I know the people. "I'm not coming to a new ball team."

Southwestern N.H. Fire Mutual Aid, founded in 1959, dispatches 74 fire departments, 26 police agencies and 20 ambulance services in 77 towns in southwestern New Hampshire and southern Vermont. Mutual aid is also the primary alerting agency for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vt. It has 12 full-time and 7 part-time employees.

"We're very happy that Paul took the job," said Herb Hurlburt, president of the board and a member of the Walpole Fire Department. "The board had a very clear signal of the type of person we wanted for the position. Paul interviewed exceptionally well." Twenty-eight people applied for the job, and a four-member selection committee narrowed the field to nine.

A second selection committee decided to interview five of the nine finalists, Hurlburt said, and when those talks were finished, "we knew we had two outstanding candidates." When the other candidate bowed, Szoc was the only candidate interviewed by the entire board of directors. The process took about three months.

Szoc's selection pleased the newly formed Fire Mutual Aid Dispatchers Association, a union formed last fall to represent dispatchers at Southwestern N.H. Fire Mutual Aid. "The association supported Paul Szoc for that position," said Philip J. Tirrell, president of the new organization. "Due to his years of experience, we felt there was no better candidate for the job."

Szoc has been promoted during a busy time for the agency. It's preparing its annual budget and has just started contract talks with dispatchers association -- the first in the 41-year history of the emergency communications organization. In addition, a $12,000 communications study released in December recommended that Southwestern N.H. Fire Mutual Aid disband and the Cheshire County government take over all emergency communications for the towns served by mutual aid.

Currently, the county acts as a financial middle-man for mutual aid, collecting money through the county tax portion of the property tax bill then funneling it back to the agency. Hurlburt said he is doubtful the county will take over mutual aid. Ultimately, the Cheshire County Legislative Delegation will have the final say.