Iowa emergency communications workers are traveling to Mexico this week to train officials in Iowa's sister state to use their emergency dispatch system.

Nancy Brady, Iowa telecommunicator training coordinator at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy in Johnston, is going to Yucatan in southeastern Mexico to begin training authorities there to use their system.

Sgt. Joe Gonzalez with the Des Moines Police Department was to join Brady on the trip, serving as an interpreter as the two assess the emergency management needs of Merida, the million-citizen Yucatan capital.

The team planned to meet with the city's police chief, fire chief, ambulance chief and Red Cross director, among others. A second trip for training and modifications to the system will be in the fall after Brady and Gonzalez discuss their findings with telecommunications experts throughout Iowa.

Organized through Iowa Sister States, Brady's expertise was requested by Yucatan authorities, who recently acquired telecommunications equipment for police, fire, and Red Cross departments. The equipment is modern, but the system in which they use it is somewhat outdated.

"Basically, their people come in, sit down, pick up the phone and start talking," Brady said. "It would be no different than someone in a secretarial position. There's no training as far as dealing with emergencies or other situations."

Brady and Gonzalez planned to meet with Merida first responders to discuss their needs and concerns. Gonzalez, a veteran of the Des Moines Police Department, was born in central Mexico. In addition to translating for Brady, he can relate his own experiences as a police officer.

Building bridges is nothing new for Gonzalez, who created the Des Moines Hispanic Outreach Neighborhood Advocate program five years ago. Since then, he has been building and improving relationships between police and the city's Hispanic community.

One of the problems in Yucatan is duplication in dispatch systems among the more territorial departments, and consolidation may be a solution. Des Moines Police Chief Bill McCarthy said he hopes the trip will build relationships with Mexican officials. The Police Department has often worked with Mexican authorities when it comes to catching fleeing suspects. Because Iowa does not have a death penalty, Mexican officials are more willing to work with Iowa law enforcement.

TBrady has trained telecommunicators at the law enforcement academy for seven years. In 1991 she was honored as the first International Telecommunicator of the year by the Association of Public Safety Communication. She still mans the phones on occasion, always remembering the importance of the job.

"People don't recognize that the very first responder to an incident is the telecommunicator," Brady said.