Knudsen returns to Concordia Police Department as dispatch supervisor

Kathy Knudsen

Kathy Knudsen has returned to Concordia in a job she loves, and brought almost 24 years of experience with her.

Knudsen, the new dispatch supervisor at the Concordia Police Department, began her career in Concordia in 1999. After five years she went to work with the Kansas Highway Patrol, where she stayed for almost 19 years. She has now returned to Concordia to be closer to her family and to work again with Police Chief Brent Gering. Gering and Knudsen worked together in the Concordia PD from 1999-2001, when Gering was an officer.

“My kids are here, and I wanted to be closer to my kids and grandkids,” Knudsen said. “Concordia PD needed some help and I thought I could help them... that was another reason I decided to come back when I found out Brent was going to be the Chief. I felt that we could work well together.”

Knudsen's career has taken her to many places and left some indelible memories, but for her, it's all about public service. “I like helping people,” she said. “It can be a stressful job, but it can also be rewarding and enjoyable.”

A dispatcher covers many jobs in a rural police department. “You man the radios, so you're speaking to the officers in the field, fire, EMS, deputies, rural fire, and you answer 911 calls and get help to people,” Knudsen said. She will oversee the dispatch staff and make sure the department stays compliant with all state regulations.

Knudsen has many stories from her near quarter-century in the emergency dispatch arena. Some of her most memorable work was with the KHP during bad weather. “Snow days were the most memorable. If you were working Kansas City or Wichita, the Metro area, you'd have up to 400 calls in a shift.”

Sometimes, a call can be downright strange. “Someone called one night and said we needed to check out the moon because it looked really strange.”

Kundsen's response? “Well, we weren't really sure who to give that to, because we didn't have a direct line to NASA,” Knudsen said with a smile. “I told him we'd have an officer check it out... and an officer did step out the door and look up at the moon.”

Another time, Knudsen once took a call from a man in Kansas City who said he ran out of gas. But, when she continued to verify his location, he was still moving. “I said, 'I thought you were out of gas?' He said, no, I'm running out of gas but I left my wallet at home on my bed and I don't have any money to get gas. So I looked up where he lived, and he was only a few blocks from home.”

911 calls are for emergencies only, and it's important for a police department to not have its dispatchers tied up with non-emergency calls. All non-emergency calls in the Concordia area will be answered by dialing 785-243-3131.

If you do need to call 911, Knudsen stresses several points to keep in mind. “Stay as calm as possible, listen to the dispatcher and answer their questions as plainly and quickly as you can. Try to know your address and location. Although we do have an advanced system that pulls up the address, we need to confirm it just in case there's a glitch.”

The Concordia PD is looking to hire several more dispatchers. Training is mostly done in-house, though there is some certification required. Police Chief Gering said he wants his department to implement an Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) program that will give dispatchers the training necessary to provide lifesaving pre-arrival emergency medical instructions.

“So what that entails,” said Gering, “is if we get a call of a Code Blue or someone's not breathing, They (the dispatchers) will have a chart to go through that basically walks the caller step-by-step on how to give CPR or administer first-aid until our paramedics get there. The dispatcher has to be certified to do that, and that's the direction that I want to go. It gives us one more step to make sure our community is safe.”

Applications for dispatch jobs can be found on the Concordia website concordiaks.org.

“If you want to help people, that's what we're here for,” Knudsen said. “I feel it's rewarding. I like working with the local LEO (law enforcement officers). They're all standup guys and ladies. It's a profession to be proud of.”