Retirement of longtime dispatcher 'huge loss' to Conn. town

By Lindsay Boyle
The Day

New London, Conn. — Robin Schwarze fell into her career of more than 25 years by chance.

A clerk at Electric Boat back in 1990, she learned she was the next in line to get laid off.

Worried, Schwarze applied to a flurry of similar positions, including one at the New London Police Department. She became a records clerk there in January 1991.

She didn't know then that the move would lead her to dispatching.

"I hadn't really thought about it," said Schwarze, whose background in public safety was minimal, at best.

But when a dispatcher told the single mother of three about the position's higher pay and additional hours, she couldn't say no.

On a day in May 1992, she signed on for the first time.

On Nov. 29, at 55, she signed off for the last.

Speaking by phone Wednesday evening, Schwarze recalled some of the most striking moments in her nearly 26-year career.

The most memorable, she said, was working on 9/11, when one lieutenant was trying to track down his daughter while other supervisors were realizing New London could be a target.

"We had no idea what was going on," she said. "That was a really long day."

Then there was the devastating murder of Donna Millette-Fridge, a social worker with mental health care provider First Step who died at the hands of one of her clients in September 1998.

"The first call I took that day was her supervisor calling from the office upstairs," Schwarze said.

The man, 28-year-old Adrian Isom, had attacked Millette-Fridge as she was walking to her workplace.

"This poor woman is screaming, watching this guy stab her coworker to death, and I'm just constantly trying to talk to her," Schwarze said. "I need to know what he looks like, what his name is — if she knows. I need her to stay on the phone, so if he runs, she can tell me which way."

An officer eventually shot and killed Isom. Schwarze heard the gunfire on her end of the phone.

Toward the beginning of her career, she said, someone called to say a dog had been run over near the end of Ashcraft Road that butts up against Bates Woods.

"I didn't think anything of it," she said. "Then — I don't know how long it was — I hear (the officer) on the radio, saying, 'I need help. I need help.' You could just hear in his voice that something was desperately wrong."

There was no dog. Someone, hidden in the bushes, had jumped the officer when he arrived and was trying to take his gun.

"You just want to run out the building and go find him," Schwarze said. "But that's not your job. Your job is to stay there and rally resources and keep track of everything."

Delivery of babies and socks
Several people, including Chief Margaret Ackley, commended Schwarze for her ability to keep cool in such situations.

"Robin's professionalism and ability to take control in an emergency situation has made her second to none," Ackley wrote in an email. "Robin's well-deserved retirement is a huge loss to all of New London."

There were good calls, too.

Once, Schwarze talked a man through delivering his wife's baby in the backseat of their car.

Another time, an elderly, disabled man called with an odd request.

"He kept falling because he was walking around in socks," she recalled. "He wanted somebody to go to the hospital and get a pair of the socks with grippers."

She sent a cop over to get them.

"He was so grateful," Schwarze said.

Then there were the absurd calls, like when an officer trying to rescue a deer ended up impaled on the fence surrounding Cedar Grove Cemetery, and when a woman called 911 with a complaint for an officer: She'd given $20 to a man who said he would buy her crack, she said, but he never came back.

"It's not an easy job," said Battalion Chief Roger Tompkins, a 32-year employee of the city who spent some time dispatching many years ago.

"Everybody remembers the firemen at the fire or the police at the accident, but they forget about the dispatcher who's trying to coordinate everything," he said.

Moving on to Backus
Schwarze said she never stopped enjoying the work — she gave as much effort on her last day as she did on her first.

"You wouldn't want to look somebody in the face and think, something I did is part of the reason this ended badly," Schwarze said. "It's one of those jobs where you really have to want to do it. If your heart's not in it 100 percent, it's not a good idea to be there."

But when the harsh, rotating shifts started making her feel her age, she decided it was time to retire.

Soon, she'll sign on as a dispatcher for The William W. Backus Hospital's security unit.

While she's looking forward to the switch, she knows she'll miss the people she grew close to over the years.

"I feel like most people don't understand that in vocations like that — firefighters, police, dispatchers, EMTs — where you're working in an environment where really, seriously bad things happen," Schwarze said, "you see a lot of stuff normal people don't see. You become closer with your workmates than you would normally."

Dispatcher Kerry Hibbs, who was Schwarze's partner, agreed.

Hibbs came to the department as a secretary eight years ago. Schwarze inspired her to transition to a full-time dispatching gig.

"When I started to train as a part-time dispatcher, several of the guys said to me, 'Make sure you learn from Robin. She's the best,'" Hibbs said.

Soon, she became Schwarze's partner. Isolated in the dispatch center, Hibbs spent more time with Schwarze than with her own family, sometimes working 16-hour days and always working through paid lunch breaks. They developed an unspoken language. Hibbs kept learning.

"In our job, it's not always routine," Hibbs said. "Sometimes things happen that throw you for a loop. If I said, 'What do we here?' she always had the answer."

Hibbs said the woman with an "endless well of knowledge" became like a surrogate mother to her.

"She's only been gone a week and a half and I miss her already," Hibbs said.

Police Union President Todd Lynch said he knows the others — including his sister, Hibbs, and Schwarze's daughter Tiffany — will step up, but it will be different without Schwarze there.

"The funny thing about Robin is she would give you the address … and would tell you who lives there, what has happened there before on other calls, whether there are weapons in the home — not from looking at a computer, but from her experience," Lynch said.

"That's what you're going to miss," he continued. "You can't replace experience."

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