Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Saugus Resident Honored as Sheriff’s Dispatcher of Year

Radio dispatchers for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are usually the unsung heroes of the agency, working behind the scenes to ensure that patrol cars are quickly deployed to the scenes of murders, robberies and other emergencies.

But on Tuesday, dispatchers and supervisors gathered to honor one of their own.

Denise T. Motoyasu, a Saugus resident who has been a dispatcher with the department for nearly six years, was named Dispatcher of the Year during a ceremony at the agency’s communication center in East Los Angeles.

Motoyasu, 36, also received a scroll, a pendant and flowers, as well as a highly valuable prize in Los Angeles--her own parking spot for a year. She was chosen for the citation, which honors dispatchers for exemplary teamwork and job performance, from among the 72 operators who work for the department.

The award recipient’s supervisors praised Motoyasu for her professionalism, leadership and coolheadedness.

“Dependability, judgment and maturity--those are the things that are Denise,” said Dan Householder, one of her supervisors.

In a phone interview before the ceremony, Motoyasu said that when handling an emergency situation, she is aware that a part of her feels the tenseness of the situation. But she said she works to control her feelings and focus on the job that needs to be done.

“You feel like getting up and walking away, but you have to hang in there and be the best assistance that you can be,” she said.

An incident that Motoyasu remembered as particularly harrowing occurred two years ago, when two sheriff’s deputies flying over the Antelope Valley alerted her that their helicopter’s engine appeared to be failing. She kept in constant contact with them to pinpoint their location, and arranged for firetrucks and paramedics to meet them when they landed. Fortunately, the pilot managed a successful emergency landing.

Another time, about five years ago, deputies driving in Lennox near Los Angeles International Airport yelled over the airwaves that they were being fired upon by an unknown assailant. Motoyasu sent several squad cars to the scene and handled communications between dispersed deputies as they cordoned off the area.

Motoyasu said she began working as a dispatcher because she viewed it as a job which was socially beneficial, challenging and rewarding.

“It has lived up to all of those things,” she said. “I love what I do, and maybe that’s why I do well at it.”