Whether to ask a simple question or to seek aid, dispatchers are the first people you speak with when you call the Bedford Police Department.

"For the amount of time we spend on the radio, we really are the silent service that no one thinks of," said Emergency Communications Officer Jeff Vincuilla. "I just want them to know the job they do is important and appreciated."

Vincuilla is organizing a celebration next week to coincide with National Public Safety Telecommunications Week. The second full week of April has been celebrated by Congress as National Public Safety Telecommunications Week since 1991.

A dispatcher's role has always been central to the operations of emergency personnel, however that role has become vital in a post-9/11 and Columbine America where dispatchers are on the front lines in handling emergency communications and are pivotal to the public's safety and well-being.

"Mr. Speaker, every day, in all of our communities, dedicated public safety telecommunicators answer our calls for assistance. They dispatch our calls for help to local police and fire departments, facilitating the execution of emergency rescue and law-enforcement operations in all of our districts. These public safety personnel serve as the vital links within our cities and towns, although rarely appreciated because they are not physically at the scene," Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said when he helped propose the weeklong recognition of dispatchers.

"[The week is] something that's celebrated throughout the country, and this side of the country, the Northeast has really been delayed on really professionalizing the job," Vinciulla said. "This has been 'The Last of the Mohicans' on this side of the state."

Vinciulla said there has been great progress since he first started in 1998.

"Around here it's becoming a third service, there's the police, the fire department and us," he said.

"They all go above and beyond and we never see it because we're on the street doing something and the public doesn't realize the work that goes on to get their phone call to the street," said Sgt. James Graham. "These people do a good job and seeing them every day you forget to say thank you."

For their instrumental role in emergency communications, most seem to forget the dispatcher when they hang up the phone, but Vinciulla hopes that residents who use the 9-1-1 service will remember the person that saw them through their problem.

"You never get a thank you, so this is a nice way to say thanks to everyone," he said.

Vinciulla and fellow dispatchers will mark their accomplishments and occupation by holding a celebration in the communications center at the Bedford Police Station.

"It's going to be low key, we have to do it in the Comm. Center so that people who are working can participate," he said. "I know Lowell does something, they have a mass even, there are other departments around the state that do it, they are bigger departments."

"We have a young group here and I really want to make them feel important," Vinciulla said. "When I started people didn't care about us, but that's different now. There's a younger group of police officers."

Though the role of a dispatcher has evolved over the last several years, in Bedford it will continue to change as the town grows and as the men and women take on greater tasks.

With the addition of nearly 1,000 housing units over the next few years, the dispatchers will be increasingly taxed with higher call volume not only from new residents, but also from cell phone towers.

Currently the State Police handles cell phone calls, passing them onto individual departments, but with changes to the system, Bedford dispatchers will directly handle the calls.

"You're talking about a lot of pressure on one person or even two people," Vinciulla said. As part of a five-year-plan, he hopes to see two dispatchers working at all times.