The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Emergency Communications Center has a new director taking the helm. The emergency services veteran steps into a role with deep ties to the two jurisdictions that clashed over the center's operations last year. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The city announced last week that Paul Helmuth, currently the administrative officer and deputy emergency coordinator with the Harrisonburg Fire Department, will assume the 911 call center directorship in March. Helmuth's career started in the valley as a teenaged radio communicator for search and rescue events.
PAUL HELMUTH: I have grown up in emergency services in this community. I know all of the stakeholders that ECC works with, including the city and the county, and have a good working relationship for the last 35 years with those stakeholders.
Helmuth served in several places around the country as a helicopter dispatcher and flight paramedic. He was working in D.C. during 9/11 and the anthrax and Beltway sniper attacks; and later led Harrisonburg's COVID pandemic response. He spent four years with the Rockingham County Department of Fire & Rescue and 16 with the city fire department. Helmuth is also an inaugural member of the Virginia Communications Cache, a network of five teams across the state with caches of radio equipment that can be deployed for planned or emergency events. For example, Helmuth was a public safety communications technician for the 2016 vice presidential debate between Senator Tim Kaine and Governor Mike Pence at Longwood University.
He takes on the ECC role after conflicts between the city and county led to the resignation of the former director.
HELMUTH: Part of what I feel my responsibility is as the new director … is one, working with the staff to make sure that their needs are met, and that they are in an environment where they can thrive and do well and grow within the position, and help the organization to grow.
He said that includes addressing understaffing and training needs. In the city's press release, both the Harrisonburg city manager and Rockingham County administrator praised his appointment.
