Suzanne DeFillips

Suzanne began her career in public safety as a 911 dispatcher for a large call center in Central Florida. She worked nights for four years as a call taker, dispatcher, trainer, and senior teletype operator. Suzanne continued to advance her career in public safety, earning her Master’s Degree in Human Resource Change Management, and has over 21 years of professional experience in federal, county, and municipal governments that includes Law Enforcement, Fire and EMS emergency communications, business administration, project management, budget preparation and fiscal management, business, and investigative analytics.

Suzanne has extensive experience with complex operations, development of short- and long-range plans, policy development, organization, and system redesign, change management, talent acquisition, employee engagement and retention. Her professional and project management achievements include CAD/Mobile, RMS, Evidence/Asset Management, Radio/P25, Remote E911, Emergency Communications and Backup/Disaster Recovery.

Suzanne has developed and implemented successful Emergency Communications Retention and Career Pathway Programs that reclassified pay structure and incentives for career advancement, provided change culture and employee retention, significantly reducing staffing shortages and increased center capability. She enjoys writing and served as team member and Vice-Chair for APCO PSC Magazine from 2018-2022. In 2020, Suzanne led the Integrated Justice Information System (IJIS) CAD to CAD operations working group to develop national standards for PSAP operations and served as Board member and Regional Coordinator for Florida Crisis Response Team (FCRT) from January 2007- March 2022.

In March 2022, Suzanne was contracted with the City of Milwaukee to serve as Emergency Communications Interim Director. Her goal is to transition Milwaukee Fire Department (MFD) and Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) emergency call centers into a consolidated center and to execute the following objectives:

• Implement the transition process from two separate MPD and MFD Emergency Communications Centers to a single unified Department of Emergency Communications (DEC)
• Improve 911/Emergency Communications workflows and business processes to achieve maximum operational effectiveness and time efficiency
• Improve the quality of Call Taking services to citizens who call 911 to report emergency situations
• Incorporate nationally accepted public safety standards, best practices and guidelines to Department of Emergency Communications policies and procedures
• Establish new unified workflows, business processes, procedures and training protocols to streamline MPD and MFD operations
• Ensure DEC personnel are trained to proficiency

Suzanne grew up in Miami and the Florida Keys and raised her family in the Central Florida area. When she is not working or traveling, she enjoys spending as much time as possible with her four adult children and seven grandchildren.