Former Dispatcher, Now Deputy City Manager, Helps Lead Operations in Local City Government

By

Ryan Dedmon, MA, CMCP

911 Training Institute

From a 9-1-1 dispatch console to an office in City Hall, Jordan Villwock's career has always centered on the same mission: serving people and helping government work when they need it most.

As the Deputy City Manager for the city of Ontario, California, Villwock has a busy day ahead in his schedule. Over 1,600 employees in different city agencies rely on him to help lead internal services that support city operations including facilitating negotiations with labor groups, developing major IT initiatives to improve citywide services, and working with the city’s budget.

“I work with the best team of people on some big projects that make a real difference to residents, business owners, visitors, and other stakeholders in the city”, said Villwock.

But Villwock is no stranger to working under pressure on big projects. In fact, different jobs in public-safety earlier in his career have proven to be the perfect pathway to prepare him for his current role in city government.

“As a kid, I was always interested in the work first-responders did at public-safety agencies. The high school I attended had a special program that focused on emergency medical services and public health, and I was hooked.”

In 2000, Villwock started his public-safety career, while still in high school, as a Police Explorer at the Laguna Beach Police Department in Laguna Beach, CA. As an Orange County native, he was drawn to the smalltown beach vibes the city offered. Villwock had aspirations to take the next step in his career and become a Reserve Police Officer, so he attended the Reserve Peace Officer Academy at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and graduated Class #8R. However, upon graduation, Laguna Beach PD hired him full-time as a public-safety dispatcher.

Laguna Beach is just under 10 square miles with a population of approximately 23,000, making it a smaller city in Orange County. Dispatchers at the police department answer emergency and non-emergency calls for police, fire rescue, and EMS, giving them a wide variety of calls for service. But the call volume exponentially surges during the summer when millions of people visit the city’s downtown shops and restaurants, located just a couple of blocks away from premier coastal access to some of the county’s most beautiful beaches.

“I consider myself a life-long learner and I knew a higher education would open up more doors and opportunities for me”, Villwock said.

And so, he went back to school… no easy task since he was working full-time as a dispatcher. He graduated from California State University Long Beach with a Master of Science degree in Emergency Service Administration. Not long after graduating, he was promoted to Dispatch Supervisor.

But working as a first-responder in an emergency communications center is hard. It’s hard on the first-responder and their family, which Villwock experienced first-hand. In 2010, he married his beautiful wife, Leanne. They wanted to have children and start a family, but the long hours of shift work and prolonged exposure to chronic stress made it challenging.

“Like most first-responders, I had a public-safety mindset. As a supervisor, I wanted to help cover shifts when staffing was short and I felt the need to be available 24/7 in the event of emergencies”, admitted Villwock.

Although Laguna Beach is a coastal community, the topography of the city makes it quite unique. The city is tucked in a canyon and against a hillside nearly surrounded by open space, making it subject to disasters like tsunamis from the Pacific, flooding, wildfires, landslides, and earthquakes. In 2015, the city saw the need to create a new, specialized position to mitigate these natural disaster threats. Villwock’s knowledge of the city, his experience in emergency communications, and his higher education made him the perfect fit. He was named the city’s first Emergency Operations Coordinator.

Because the position was new, Villwock had a lot of freedom to create new initiatives and work on different overlapping projects between public-safety and other city departments.

“I experienced significant growth in this role”, said Villwock. “I got to use my professional work experience in public-safety communications and my education to work with elected government officials on several projects to better help the city prepare for emergency disasters and then respond to them to serve citizens. And for the first time in a long time, the position gave me a ‘regular schedule’, working during business hours.”

In 2019, Villwock took the next step in his career. He was hired as the Fire Administrative Director at the Ontario Fire Department in Ontario, CA. It was a civilian command level position that gave him oversight of 30 employees in Fire Dispatch, Emergency Management, and Administration.

Villwock loved working in Laguna Beach, but the city of Ontario presented new and exciting opportunities.

Ontario is 50 square miles, five times larger than Laguna Beach, and it has a population of 187,000. Located at the southern tip of San Bernardino County, the city is still growing with open space available for development. It’s also home to an international airport, the only one in the greater Inland Empire, so it’s a major travel hub for millions of people. Larger city with more people means a larger fire department.

During Villwock's tenure in the fire department, two new fire stations opened and the department implemented a new fire station alerting system in all the stations. The new technology reduced unit response time to calls for service, a notable achievement in an industry where seconds matter because lives are at risk in fire and medical emergencies. But his greatest accomplishment was leading a major project to bring on another fire department from a nearby neighboring city.

In 2023, the Ontario FD Emergency Communications Center officially began providing dispatch services for the Corona Fire Department. This was an enormous undertaking because Corona FD is a separate agency, so it has its own mission, vision, policy, and procedures for delivering fire rescue services to people in their city. Not to mention, although Corona is a close neighboring city, it’s located in a different county so it has different reporting mandates and guidelines from that respective county’s emergency management authority.

The following year, Villwock made the move to the City Manager’s Office and now serves as the Deputy City Manager.

“Moving to the City Manager’s Office was an opportunity I could not pass and it has truly been a blessing because it’s also allowed my family to grow and thrive”, Villwock said.

Now the proud father of two girls, Brooklyn (12) and Maddie (9), Villwock loves spending time with his family; although, he admits his household is really run by Hazel, the family’s four-year-old golden retriever.

“I’m still a public servant, just in a very different role now.”

Today, Villwock enjoys mentoring employees in different city agencies to help inspire personal and professional growth. He takes a small group of people under his wing and routinely meets with them to have discussions. He even assigns them homework. Recently, he assigned his mentees to meet with other city employees outside of the specific agencies where they work. Villwock challenges them to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

“It doesn’t matter if you work at a public-safety agency, or some other agency in city or county government… as government employees representing the city or county, we are in the people business. Sometimes those people are from the public and sometimes those people are other government employees at different agencies”, said Villwock.

His advice to 9-1-1 professionals looking for other opportunities in city or county government: have the conversation with your supervisors and make your goals known.

“Dispatch does not have to be a dead end. You have to have a vision and then set priorities on a realistic timeline… then maybe one day, you’ll find yourself sitting in your own office in City Hall.”

About the Author:

Ryan Dedmon, MA, CMCP, is the Outreach Director at the 911 Training Institute, bringing decades of experience in public-safety to his work with first-responders. A former police officer and retired police dispatcher from Southern California, Ryan was honored as “Telecommunicator of the Year” in 2012 by the Southern California Chapter of APCO International in recognition of his service. Since retiring in 2013, Ryan has dedicated his career to equipping first-responders with high-quality training to help them perform at their highest levels. He has a unique blend of real-world experience, academic insight, and passion for supporting first-responders. Ryan holds a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology and is a Certified CIT Coordinator, as well as a California POST-Certified Academy Instructor at the Regional Criminal Justice Training Center at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, CA.

City of Ontario, California: Website