The 911 Goes to Washington conference is coming later this month, and Lyon County Emergency Communications Director Roxanne VanGundy will be among those attending.
VanGundy is the first vice president of the National Emergency Number Association, the entity organizing the conference. NENA represents 911 centers across North America.
The conference is focusing on the need for enhanced infrastructure for Next Generation 911, or NG911, operations nationwide — especially when cybersecurity is a concern. NENA says 911 centers are facing increasing risks from cyberattacks and service disruptions.
Also, VanGundy and other participants will ask federal officials to reclassify 911 dispatchers as protective service workers, which they say is a better representation of their role as first responders as opposed to their current classification as administrative workers — the same federal classification used for clerical positions. Besides the reclassification, which is currently part of the 911 SAVES Act of 2025 bill, federal lawmakers are also considering The Enhancing First Response Act which would formally recognize dispatchers as first responders, strengthen systems against outages and help compliance with federal 911 access mandates.
The conference is Feb. 22-25. VanGundy is KVOE’s Newsmaker guest at 7:20 am Monday with more on the conference.
