Faye Whitney praised at FD 13 meeting

While closing the books on 2020 during a briskly paced hour-long teleconferenced meeting Thursday morning, Fire District 13 officials took time to salute a La Conner native whose career in emergency services spanned more than three decades.

Skagit 9-1-1 Project Coordinator Faye Whitney, a 1976 La Conner High grad, is retiring after 34 years, during which time she filled roles ranging from dispatching to management, said Fire District Chief Wood Weiss .

“Faye has been a huge help to us,” Weiss said. “She is going to be sorely missed.”

Whitney is also a much in demand vocalist, having provided solos for a wide array of events – from weddings to the annual Pioneer Picnic in La Conner.

Yet as a dispatcher, the role with which she most identifies, Whitney always took pride in being one of the “unknown voices” on the other end of calls serving citizens, law enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics.

Whitney noted last week, prior to the fire district meeting, that her timing could not have been better when she entered the emergency services field in 1986.

“I was very fortunate,” she explained, “that the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office elected to drop its 40 words per minute typing requirement.”

Whitney had never taken a typing class, somehow eluding the La Conner High course taught by Gene Fowler, before she moved on to Skagit Valley College and the University of Washington.

“The sheriff’s office,” she said, “instead decided that being able to think clearly and logically was a far greater asset for the job.”

After 12 years, Whitney became a supervisor at the new Skagit 9-1-1 Communications Center. She was promoted to project manager two years ago.

Weiss, for one, would like to see Whitney stay, saying “I hope they have a reason to call her back.”

Speaking of calls, demands for service increased in November, Weiss said, reflecting a reversal from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our numbers are picking up,” Weiss said, “but with COVID-19 cranking back up we expect the numbers to go down for December.

“It seems with COVID-19, people are more cautious to call. The nationwide trend is the same,” Weiss noted, with about 1,300 service calls in 2019. He anticipates finishing between 1,100 and 1,200 calls this year.

Weiss said Skagit Bay Search & Rescue may be aligned simultaneously with the sheriff’s office and fire district early next year.

Another work in progress is the NextGen 9-1-1 initiative designed to update the emergency call service infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada. Locally, its implementation will require re-numbering of addresses in Shelter Bay, among other locations in the fire district.

Weiss has discussed this with Swinomish Geographic Information System (GIS) Coordinator Jacob Tully.

“We’ll help physically and with paperwork,” Weiss said of the Fire District’s anticipated involvement.