Bryce Tracy Named New County 911 Coordinator
By Ryan Schlehuber

Bryce Tracy

Bryce Tracy of St. Ignace has been named Mackinac County Central Dispatch Board’s new 9-1-1 coordinator, replacing Pam Matelski, who resigned to take a position with the Michigan State Police in Lansing.

Mr. Tracy was selected from eight applicants by the board’s hiring committee, which narrowed the field to three. The Dispatch Board made its final decision Wednesday, May 25, at a regular meeting. The position is full-time, with health benefits and a 401k program. Mr. Tracy’s salary has yet to be determined.

Mr. Tracy, 30, is a captain with the St. Ignace Fire Department and is the department’s training officer and fire service instructor. He said he has more than 25 fire, rescue, and emergency certifications. Before he moved to St. Ignace in 1999, he served on the Carp Lake Township Fire Department in Emmet County.

“We chose Bryce because he has more communication experience,” said Lawrence Leveille, a county commissioner and member of the Dispatch Board’s hiring committee. “It was a hard decision, because we had three good candidates.”

Sheriff Scott Strait, who is also on the hiring committee, said Mr. Tracy’s familiarity and experience with the county’s 9-1-1 communication system and with the Central Dispatch Board itself were the deciding factors in Mr. Tracy’s hiring.

“With the experiences he has, he’ll make a good 9-1-1 coordinator,” said Sheriff Strait.

St. Ignace Fire Chief John “Bucky” Robinson said Mr. Tracy is an excellent grant writer for the fire department and will be an asset to the county’s 9-1-1 program. Mr. Tracy has been successful in securing grants for airpacks, emergency response vehicles, and training materials for the department, Mr. Robinson said.

Bryce Tracy is a 1993 graduate of Pellston High School. He and his wife, Carrie, have a 3 1/2-year-old son, Parker. He has been a dock coordinator for Mackinac Island Carriage Tours for the past six summers.

Mr. Tracy said he applied for the 9-1-1 coordinator position because it gives him a chance to apply his knowledge of fire, rescue, and emergency techniques and his training in Homeland Security. He has worked with the Michigan Firefighters Training Council, Michigan State Police’s Hazardous Materials Training Center, and the center’s Emergency Management Division.

“I moved here when the county’s 9-1-1 program was just getting started,” he said. “I’ve been involved with many collective groups involving emergency services since then.”

Pam Matelski, who held the 9-1-1 coordinator position for the past five years, will travel from Lansing on weekends to help Mr. Tracy with the transition.

“I have some big shoes to fill,” said Mr. Tracy. “Pam did an excellent job setting up the 9-1-1 program. She did such a good job that other counties have used Mackinac County’s 9-1-1 program as a model for theirs.”

Mr. Tracy said he hopes to maintain the success that Ms. Matelski had as 9-1-1 coordinator.

“My big thing is to not let things go backwards, to maintain what we got going here, and to get more people involved,” he said.

Sheriff Strait said Mr. Tracy has a long list of ongoing and one-time projects waiting for him when he takes office in a couple of weeks. Pending issues include constructing a radio tower at the east end of the county for better emergency radio communication, finalizing the county-wide digital mapping with Lange Enterprise of Wisconsin, installing emergency locating identification signs along snowmobile trails within the county, inventory and assign new equipment, and programming new 800-megahertz radios to the county’s 911 system.

Mr. Tracy will also coordinate the transition on Mackinac Island from basic 9-1-1 service to enhanced 9-1-1 service, once the city approves an addressing system for the community.

Lieutenant Curt Robertson, commander of the Michigan State Police post at St. Ignace, and Clark O’Brien, the assistant fire chief of the Clark Township Volunteer Fire Department, also served on the hiring committee.