Corky Martin started his 26-year career in law enforcement in 1991 as a jailer at the old detention center adjacent to the Garland County Sheriff's Department.
He's still working there 30 years later, but in a much different role. He's director of the Garland County 911 Communications Center, which went live in the booking area of the old jail in 2018 and ushered in a new era of public safety communications in the county.
In 2017, the county began building the new facility and migrating its communications system from an analog platform to the Arkansas Wireless Information Network's 700-800 MHz frequency digital microwave-based interoperable system. At the same time, responsibility for answering 911 calls and dispatching emergency personnel shifted from the sheriff's department to the county's Office of Emergency Management.
The county needed someone with the technical expertise to run the communications center and the interpersonal skills and relationships to work with the facility's 19 dispatch partners. It tapped Martin, putting him in charge of 14 dispatchers who staff the round-the-clock operation and serve as the gatekeepers of emergency communications in the county.
"These are truly the heroes to the heroes and the first responder in the response chain," Martin said. "Without them, the rest of the process would not be possible, and the public would not be able to get the help they need."
County OEM Director Bo Robertson, Martin's boss, said Martin's role in transitioning the county to the Arkansas Wireless Information Network, or AWIN, and integrating the new communications center into the interoperable network used by more than 900 federal, state and local agencies recommended him for the Glenn "Sonny" Cox Award for Excellence in Public Safety Communications he was nominated for at last month's Arkansas Emergency Management Conference in Rogers. Martin received an honorable mention for the award.
"He was an absolutely integral part of accomplishing both of those tasks," Robertson said. "We knew Corky would be a wonderful addition and that his experience and his training and education in public safety would help us get to where we wanted to be with those projects. He was the top guy when we needed to find somebody who could help us move all of these things forward."
Robertson said Martin helped put the county's public safety communications on the vanguard of functionality. It was the first jurisdiction to send digital tones over AWIN to an entire department. The tones alert first responders, such as the volunteer fire departments the county dispatches, to calls for service.
"No one had done it over the AWIN system before, not for an entire department where you might be paging 40 to 50 radios simultaneously," Robertson said.
The county also proved Motorola's automatic vehicle location technology could work on AWIN. AVL tracks deputies' mobile and portable radios and displays their locations in real time.
"We tested it for the AWIN system," Robertson said. "We didn't know how well they could send that GPS location over AWIN."
Martin said dispatchers have taken extraordinary measures to guard against a COVID-19 outbreak in the communications center. A flu outbreak at the facility prior to the pandemic put protocols in place that were enhanced to keep the coronavirus at bay.
"COVID forced us to up our cleaning regimen as well as implementing other procedural tasks," Martin said. "Daily cleaning procedures were modified to include multiple cleanings per day of all dispatch consoles and equipment. We immediately closed the center to non-employees, including our fire and law enforcement partners.
"That meant our staff had to take on the regular deep-clean duties that were otherwise handled by the county's maintenance staff. They lost the ability to interact and bond with our partners, essentially leaving them isolated from any outside contact during their shifts. Due to the proximity of staff, we were required to wear masks during the entire shift and add multiple COVID-related questions to our call-taking script, slowing down the procedure and the resulting response."
Dispatchers have also been separated, with some using spare computers and radios to listen to 911 calls and dispatch emergency personnel without being at their consoles.
"Offices were transformed into dispatch areas where telecommunicators could perform all functions of dispatch, except for answering 911 calls, without being near others," Martin said. "Provisions were put into place that would allow our staff to dispatch from home using emergency operations center laptops and portable radios."
The variety of roles he filled under four sheriffs informed the more than a quarter-century of law enforcement experience Martin brought to the communications center. He was a K-9 handler, training coordinator and assistant commander of the tactical response team. In 2015, he was tapped to lead the 18th Judicial District East Drug Task Force, the multiagency unit charged with interdicting illegal drug trafficking in the county.
"All these assignments, and the staff I got to work with while in those positions, were all outstanding and memorable," Martin said.
He retired as a lieutenant in September 2017 and went to work for the office of emergency management.
"I continue to proudly serve the residents of Garland County and those who I'm fortunate to work with and for," Martin said.