After more than a decade working patrol for the Idaho State Police, Center for Homeland Defense and Security alum Kevin Haight was ready for a new challenge. In 2013, he requested a transfer to the State Police’s Regional Emergency Communications division. That move would lead Haight to become a leading advocate for 9-1-1 operations professionalization, re-classification, and standardization, which was the focus of his CHDS Master’s Program thesis entitled “9-1-1: What’s Our Emergency? Diagnosing a Struggling Occupation Serving a Neglected System,” which is considered one of the seminal works on the topic and has continued to influence his fellow alums years after publication.
Now, Haight (Master’s Program cohort 1805/1806) is a retired law enforcement veteran who works in the private industry as a Motorola senior account executive servicing public agencies in Idaho, Montana and eastern Washington. But he remains a voice for the 9-1-1 professionalization initiatives on a national scale.
Haight said the 9-1-1 profession has long been undervalued despite its fundamental importance, comparing its around-the-clock operation to that of The Sentinels guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year.
“9-1-1 is very similar to that, there’s never a time that (emergency communication centers) are not staffed,” he said. “They’re there helping someone on the worst day of their lives. I don’t think a lot of people think about the beginning of an incident when they think of homeland security and public safety but 9-1-1 sits at the tip of the spear. All too often, we as a country haven’t put our focus on 9-1-1, mostly due to indifference and ignorance. I’ve tried to put a spotlight on the issue.”
After starting his career with the Idaho State Police in 1999 and serving in a variety of roles while rising to the rank of Lieutenant, Haight requested and received a lateral transfer to emergency communications. It was there he said he became “very immersed in 9-1-1 issues” ranging from technology to funding and staffing and he said he “came to realize very early on that 9-1-1 is as key a piece of law enforcement as any other aspect but was largely neglected.”
Haight also served on the Idaho Public Safety Communications Commission, known as the state’s 9-1-1 Board and appointed by the Governor, and chaired the Commission’s Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Standards & Training Committee, which was charged with enhancing state training, certification, and professionalization of the 9-1-1 practitioner.
At about the same time, Haight became aware of the Denise Amber Lee Foundation named for a Florida mother of two who was abducted and killed after a 9-1-1 emergency communications center failed to properly handle calls from the victim and a witness that could have saved her life. Haight attended a training with the Foundation’s executive director Nathan Lee, the victim’s husband, and learned that the victim’s father Rick Goff worked for the very Sheriff’s office whose emergency communications center “botched the calls,” he said.
Haight said he could only imagine Goff’s “pain and anger as I pondered my own three daughters and the role I was now in to not only lead the Idaho State Police’s emergency dispatch system, but also to lead efforts to enhance professionalization of 9-1-1 across all of Idaho.”
“That really moved me and left me with the determination to change and improve the system,” he said, noting that he joined the Denise Amber Lee Foundation and remains a member of the foundation’s board to this day.
Haight said the foundation’s mission targets the same issues as he did with the state, and with his CHDS thesis, including professionalization and standardization within the system to mitigate human failure, burnout and turnover, inadequate pay and sub-standardized training, and more.
In 2017, Haight was promoted to Captain of Regional Communications and was subsequently encouraged to attend CHDS rather than law school by a State Police official. It was also 2017 when Idaho law changed as a result of the PSAP committee’s efforts. Those changes, and in collaboration with many stakeholder organizations, mandated minimum hiring and training requirements including graduation from the Idaho Peace Officer Standards & Training Academy with a certification and a continuing education credit requirement to maintain state certification. In addition, the profession became statutorily recognized in Idaho as Emergency Communications Officer.
Haight called CHDS an “incredible experience,” especially the “time spent under tutelage of leaders in homeland security and emergency management, and my classmates,” adding that he misses the “camaraderie” in his cohort.
“My time spent (at CHDS) with classmates, faculty, and staff was second to none,” he said. “I learned so much; it equipped me to think more critically and analytically”
In addition, Haight noted that he is one of five CHDS graduates, with D. Jeremy DeMar, Carl Simpson, Michelle Potts, and Shanalee Gallagher, who published a thesis “focused on the critically important pieces of the homeland security enterprise that is all too often undervalued and overlooked, 9-1-1.”
In 2021, Haight retired from the Idaho State Police and joined Motorola, an opportunity which he credits to his CHDS Master’s degree. Shortly after he moved from law enforcement to the private sector, Haight said the state of Idaho moved the Emergency Communications Officer position into the same retirement system as police and fire, he said, “something else I unapologetically support and advocate for.”
“I was able to make change and I’m proud of that,” Haight said.
Haight also continues to advocate for national 9-1-1 standards and said he’s hopeful legislation like the 911 Saves Act will finally pass Congress, and that more states and territories will adopt Idaho’s standards.
In addition to his CHDS Master of Security Studies, Kevin holds a B.A. degree in Business from Ohio Christian University and completed Northwestern University Center for Public Safety’s School of Police Staff and Command in 2011.
