Reno hires experienced 911 chief

By Mary Clarkin - The Hutchinson News - mclarkin@hutchnews.com

Hutchinson and Marion County didn't work out a swap. It just looks that way.
Emergency Communications Director Mary Messamore, overseeing the 911 dispatch center at the Hutchinson-Reno County Law Enforcement Center, will retire in early December and move to Marion, where family members live.
Hutchinson's next emergency communications director - Michele Abbott - will move here from Marion County.

Messamore wasn't part of the team of law enforcement, fire, ambulance and emergency management officials who interviewed job finalists, but she expressed delight with the selection.
About 60 people applied for the job, according to city staff. The other two people interviewed were from Florida.
Abbott will start here Oct. 25, enabling an overlap training period with Messamore.
Abbott started in 1989 as a dispatcher in Marion County, after responding to a help-wanted ad. She rose through the ranks to supervisor and then director. Since 1999, she has been director of emergency communications and also emergency management chief.
Abbott is familiar with the regional 911 backup dispatch center at Hutchinson Community College's campus near Yoder. A 19-county regional homeland security group wanted a backup center, and a grant helped make it possible. Abbott was on the regional council and served as co-manager of the project.
"We just installed that equipment there two weeks before Greensburg happened, and then we activated it and were able to take calls for Greensburg," she said, referring to the May 2007 tornado.
Like Messamore, Abbott has been active on professional boards. Abbott has testified on emergency communications issues before state lawmakers. She is a governing board member with the Kansas Association of Counties, and has twice been president of the Kansas Chapter of the Association of Public-Safety Officials-International Inc.
Marion County's center is fully staffed, but Abbott said the challenge of filling job vacancies is shared by many centers.
"It's a very stressful and demanding job," she said, but added that she also loved the work.
Emergency agencies in Reno County are switching to an 800 megahertz radio system. Marion County does not operate on such a system, but Messamore said Abbott has a "a lot of knowledge" about it.
Moving with Abbott to Reno County will be her 11-year-old son, Chase. Marion County officials are considering options for filling the future vacancy there, including the possibility of dividing duties, Abbott said.