Nearly a decade after initially accepting a position as a dispatcher, 31-year-old Jonna Acosta couldn’t imagine where the job would lead her.

“I don’t know exactly how I got into it,” Acosta said. “It was one of those things where I saw a job opening that sounded interesting. I hopped on it and I have loved it ever since. I never would have imagined myself doing this if you would have asked me 10 years ago, but I absolutely love this job.”

Acosta is now a dispatch supervisor for one of the shifts, and has served as supervisor for three years. She’s also trained new dispatchers for eight years.

“Starting off there is so much information to take in,” Acosta said. “Our job is very much multitasking and you have to be quick on your feet. Putting that all together, that’s a whole different story. People talk about being able to multitask but this is something nobody can ever prepare for.”

There are currently 16 dispatchers working at the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, and Acosta elaborated on some of the responsibilities for a dispatcher.

“We’re the behind the scenes crew,” Acosta said. “We take 911 calls, we dispatch for not only the police department but the sheriff’s office, Early, Bangs, Lake Patrol. We also have Game Wardens and Troopers and we also dispatch for all of our fire departments that are paid or volunteer. We also have our paperwork aspect of entering warrants and entering stolen vehicles, taking calls for animal control. We do just about anything in our office.”

The dispatch center is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, answering 911 emergency calls as well as non-emergency calls throughout Brown County.

As for the important the dispatcher plays in the grand scheme of emergency situations, Acosta said, “We call ourselves the ‘first’ first responder. If somebody’s in distress, something’s going wrong, we’re the first person they talk to. We get all the information, we prepare our officers for what they’re going to walk into, same thing for the fire department. People talk to us all the time but a lot of the time they don’t know us because they don’t see us.

“We do listen to a lot of different things, but we also prepare our people which is why we ask so many questions. Sometimes people think those are unnecessary but we have to make sure that our officers and our firefighters get home. At the end of the day, that’s our ultimate goal, that people stay safe and our guys get home.”

Acosta, who grew up in Priddy, graduated from Howard Payne and has lived in Brownwood for 13 years. She has been married to her husband Sgt. Noe Acosta of the Brownwood Police Department for four years, and the couple has a 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine.

“In this community I love being able to go out and educate and just show people what we do,” Acosta said in regard to the most rewarding aspect of her job. “A lot of people don’t realize what our job entails so for me to go out and talk with kids about 911 and how to use it properly, and even talking to some community members who don’t realize the technology has advanced, like tracking phones and texting to 911, that’s a huge thing that a lot people don’t realize we have. People in this community are just so open to it, and just to hear you talk about it they’re like sponges and absorb everything that you give them.”