Womack promoted at 911 center
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Veteran E911 employee Valerie Womack was offered the post at the district board meeting last Tuesday night and accepted the job. Womack, who has worked at E911 for eight years, began as a dispatcher and was later promoted to supervisor before taking on the operations coordinator job which is basically second-in-command to E911 director Chuck Haston.
The job opening came as a result of the arrest of former operations coordinator Brenda Thompson in connection with a meth lab found at her home, as reported in the Southern Standard. Thompson resigned her position shortly after being put on administrative leave while her involvement with the drug manufacturing operation at her home in the Earleyville community was being investigated. Thompson had worked at the local E911 system since its inception 10 years ago and was the first operations coordinator at the facility.
All charges against Thompson were subsequently dismissed by Judge Larry Ross citing lack of evidence, though her husband Terry Thompson was bound over to the grand jury on his charges involving the production of meth.
According to Haston, E911 works to promote from within. The job was posted internally and there were five applicants.
“That was the wishes of the board,” Haston said, “that we try to find somebody internally.”
According to the E911 board’s personnel committee chairman Frank Rice, the selection process was quite involved, requiring the five candidates to submit to a series of questions testing their knowledge of issues ranging from personnel and regulations to their technical and computer skills. Rice said all of the applicants did well in the testing and interview process, which was handled by Haston and board chairman Mark Gribble, and the decision was a difficult one. Rice said, in effect, there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch.
Haston said he was pleased with the eventual choice of Womack.
“I think she’s going to do a wonderful job,” he said, noting one thing stood out about Womack. “It became pretty evident that technical skill was what we needed. Someone who a computer is second nature to and someone who understands emerging technologies.”
Womack said she is ready to take on the job and appreciated the board’s confidence in her abilities.
“I’m honored to accept this position,” Womack said, “and I hope to do the best job that I can.”