Utah NENA

06/08/2026

📣 Meet The Committee 📣

Please help us welcome Cherise Tucker to the Utah NENA Government Affairs Committee!

Cherise has been serving the public safety community for more than 3 years and currently works as a Senior Dispatcher at Metro Emergency Communications in Provo, Utah.

When she’s not answering the call of duty, you’ll likely find her answering the call of adventure! A proud Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast, Cherise enjoys diving into epic campaigns and bringing characters to life by painting detailed miniatures.

We’re excited to have her voice and perspective helping advance Utah’s emergency communications profession through Government Affairs.

⚔️ Welcome to the team, Cherise! 🎨🎲

06/08/2026

🚨✈️ Roll Call, Utah! ✈️🚨

National NENA is almost here, and we want to know…

👀 Who is heading to Columbus?

Whether you’re attending your first National NENA conference or you’re basically a frequent flyer on the conference circuit, drop a comment and let us know!

👇 Tell us:
📍 Your agency
🎉 How many National NENAs you’ve attended
☕ Your conference survival strategy (coffee, energy drinks, sheer stubbornness, or all of the above)

Bonus points if you tell us what you’re most excited about:
🎤 Speakers
🤝 Networking
📚 Education sessions
🛍️ Vendor swag
🍻 After-hours adventures
🦆 Collecting enough freebies to make TSA ask questions

Let’s see how strong Utah’s presence will be in Columbus! 🇺🇸🏔️

Tag your coworkers who are going so nobody gets left behind at the airport. 😉

06/02/2026

📣 Meet the Committee! 📣

Please join us in welcoming Katie LeFevre to the Utah NENA Government Affairs Committee!

Katie brings more than 13 years of experience in emergency communications, but if you ask her, that’s only part of her story. Family is at the center of everything she does, with four kids, two dogs, one husband… and maybe even a partridge in a pear tree. 🌳🐦

When she’s not serving her community, you’ll likely find her outdoors cycling, hiking, and enjoying everything Utah has to offer. Katie believes that most people are good and that we have far more in common than we often realize—a perspective that makes her a valuable voice in advocacy, collaboration, and strengthening our profession.

We’re excited to have Katie’s passion, experience, and positive outlook helping advance the interests of Utah’s 911 professionals.

💙 Welcome to the team, Katie!

06/01/2026

📢Welcome our new Government Affairs Committee Chair!📢

Utah NENA is excited to welcome our new Government Affairs Committee Chair, Heather Perkins. Heather is an emergency communications leader with more than 25 years of experience in public safety telecommunications. She currently serves as the Communications Manager for Metro Emergency Communications, a consolidated 911 center providing police, fire, and EMS dispatch services to multiple agencies in Utah County.

Throughout her career, Heather has served in nearly every role within a communications center, including call taker, dispatcher, trainer, supervisor, and executive leadership. Her experience spans operations management, training and quality assurance, technology implementation, strategic planning, budgeting, interagency collaboration, and organizational development.

Heather has led numerous initiatives focused on improving emergency communications services, including recruitment and retention programs, consolidation efforts, quality assurance modernization, AI-assisted technologies, next-generation 911 planning, and regional public safety partnerships. She is passionate about supporting telecommunicators, strengthening leadership development within communications centers, and building cultures that balance accountability, wellness, and operational excellence.

In addition to her professional responsibilities, Heather serves as a representative on the PSAP Advisory Committee and is actively involved in advancing the profession through legislative education, advocacy, and industry collaboration. Heather believes that emergency communications professionals are often the first lifeline during a crisis and is committed to ensuring that both the public and the telecommunicators who serve them receive the support they deserve.

Please join us in welcoming Heather to this important role as we continue working together to advance and advocate for the 911 profession across Utah.

05/28/2026

At this point, Central 911 is basically running a side hustle as Labor & Delivery. 😂🚑👶

Meanwhile the rest of us are starting to wonder… should we be worried about you city folk orrrr…? 🤨😂

Like y’all know hospitals are supposed to be the destination, right? Not just a suggestion.

Huge shoutout to the dispatchers keeping calm while simultaneously becoming honorary midwives over the phone. Truly out here earning certifications nobody asked for. 👏🏻💛

But for real, great job Kellie 😉💛

In the early Wednesday morning hours, Kellie got to be part of one of life’s most incredible moments — helping a mom and dad welcome a baby boy into the world! 👶💙

This little guy was so eager to arrive that he could barely wait for Kellie to get the address and phone number before making his grand entrance. Talk about perfect timing!

Great job to Kellie for staying calm and helping guide the family through such an unforgettable moment. We’re hoping mom and baby are both doing well and enjoying lots of snuggles today! ❤️

05/25/2026

Today we remember the heroes who never made it home. The ones who answered the call, stood the line, served something bigger than themselves… and paid the ultimate price for it.

Memorial Day is so much more than a long weekend. It’s a reminder that freedom has always come at a cost carried by brave men and women and the families who loved them.

Today we honor the fallen.
We remember their sacrifice.
And we promise they will never be forgotten. 🇺🇸

05/21/2026

🚨 LAST CALL(ish) FOR PAPERS 🚨

The deadline to submit for the Utah APCO & NENA Fall Conference is coming in HOT. 👀

🗓️ June 1st is right around the corner, which means your “I’ll do it tomorrow” era is running out of road.

The conference heads to Ogden, Utah | October 5–7, 2026, and we’re looking for real voices from every corner of emergency communications.

Got a session idea?
A story that taught you something the hard way? A training concept, leadership lesson, wellness topic, tech success/failure, or “here’s what worked for us” moment?

We want it.
Not perfect PowerPoints.
Not polished conference-speaker energy. Just real people sharing real experiences that help move this profession forward.

✨ Every discipline. One team. ✨

Submit your proposal here:
https://form.jotform.com/260845937416163

Don’t wait until 2358 on June 1st while stress-eating gas station snacks and questioning your life choices. We already know how dispatchers operate. 💀🎧

05/20/2026

Part telecommunicator.
Part stork.
100% calm under pressure. 🎧🫶🏻

Calls like these are the reminder that behind every headset is someone capable of changing, and even beginning, a life in a matter of minutes.

Way to go, Halle!!

Halle has officially been with Central for 9 months… which coincidentally, is also the perfect amount of time for the healthy baby boy she helped deliver over 911 today to fully “cook!”

We’re pretty sure this officially makes her part dispatcher, part stork.. and we are so grateful she’s a part of our team!

Way to go Halle! 🩵

05/10/2026

To the moms behind the headset, the aunts, bonus moms, grandmas, sisters… the women who raised us, stood beside us, and became part of our village without ever being asked to…

Happy Mother’s Day from Utah NENA 💛🎧

Today we celebrate the women who somehow do it all. The mom’s answering 9-1-1 calls while running on little sleep and carrying the weight of both work and home. The women comforting strangers through chaos while missing holidays, dinners, bedtime stories, and moments they can never get back.
The aunties and bonus moms who step in without hesitation.
The grandmas, sisters, coworkers, and friends who become family somewhere between midnight shifts, caffeine runs, and surviving hard calls together.

Because in dispatch… family isn’t always blood.

Sometimes it’s the woman sitting next to you at 3AM handing you caffeine and dark humor after the worst call of your life.
Sometimes it’s the coworker checking on your kids while you’re stuck on overtime. Sometimes it’s the woman who quietly notices you’re not okay before you even say a word.

And to the moms who raised us to be strong, compassionate, resilient humans, thank you. Thank you for teaching us how to keep going when life gets hard. For being the calm in our storms long before we ever became the calm in someone else’s.

This job takes a special kind of heart. Motherhood does too. Today we honor every woman who nurtures, protects, supports, encourages, and loves fiercely. 🫶🏻

05/05/2026

Today we celebrate culture, resilience, and the kind of grit that refuses to back down… which, honestly, feels a little too on-brand for 9-1-1. 🇲🇽🔥

Because dispatchers? We don’t fold under pressure—we just hit a different level of unhinged calm.

Like:
🌮 juggling three ringing lines
🌮 officers screaming for traffic
🌮 someone yelling “HELLO??” like we aren’t already there
🌮 while calmly giving CPR instructions like it’s just another Tuesday

All while thinking about tacos. 🛌💤🌮

We honor the history, the strength, and the fight behind Cinco de Mayo— and yeah… we recognize that same “we’re not going down without a fight” energy every time that headset goes on.

So today: Celebrate the culture. Respect the history. Eat the tacos. And if your shift turns into absolute chaos… just remember—

You were built for this level of spicy.

🎧 Humanizing the Headset
🌮 Thriving Together (but slightly feral about it)