Submitted Photo Barb McPeak retires from Minot Central Dispatch after 32 years.

Barb McPeak retired from Minot Central Disptach after 32 years.

McPeak graduated from Minot High School and went to Minot State University for two-and-a-half years, with her major in elementary education. She was very passionate about diving. Due to MSU not having a diving team, she participated in gymnastics, her coach being Gary Leslie.

While she was in college, she was working at McDonald’s. After a while, she was promoted to a management position. She decided she wanted to focus on the career she had, so she left school to work full time.

She worked at McDonald’s for several years, also coaching swimming and diving. With the time that McPeak spent working with Leslie and Kathy Aspaas, who later moved to Bismarck, she learned a lot about coaching and used her newfound knowledge to coach junior high boys’ and girls’ swimming. She then switched to just coaching girls’ swimming, but was then asked to coach at the high school level. The start of her coaching career was just swimming, then she picked up coaching diving. McPeak eventually resigned from the head swim coach position to just coach diving.

McPeak heard from her sister, who worked for the city, that there was a dispatch position open, so she left McDonald’s. When McPeak started, she didn’t know what dispatchers did. “It was a lot to learn. At first, I was glad I didn’t quit my day job (of coaching),” she said.

Taking the dispatch position, at first, was just a stepping stone for her and her husband. She was making more money than any other job she had and also offered benefits. She hadn’t ever thought of it as a retirement job.

Once she really got started though, she knew it was her calling. She loved the job the entire time she was there, but the seven-year itch presented itself on top of all the horrible calls she took. People that call 911 don’t call on their best day. She helped one of her family friends deliver their baby over the phone. Living in a small town, it was likely that the dispatcher could be taking calls from people they know. “I got a devastating phone call that changed me a lot,” McPeak said.

The wonderful people she worked with knew what she was going through, and they helped her get over the hump. Continuing to love what she did was key to working with Minot Central Dispatch for 32 years. Taking some time off was important, as well. Destressing and spending much needed time with her family helped.

“People need to know that the stress of the job can get to you but you can get through it if you use the right avenues. I got help, and I was better for it afterward,” McPeak explained.

Getting help taught her how to teach her fellow dispatchers deal with the stress. She would tell them to take a walk if they needed, or if they had “a lot of vacation time on the books,” she would recommend that they take a few days off.

“All of it as a whole, I wouldn’t change any of it,” she said.

McPeak dispatched from behind a radio for 28 years, taking the public safety answering point (PSAP) coordinator position for the last three years. There were seven civilian dispatchers to begin with, but as the volume of calls they received increased, more people had to be brought in. From seven, it increased to nine, 12 and finally to 15 dispatchers. When the PSAP coordinator position was created, DeVawn Beckman was chosen for it, as she had the most experience. Beckman held the position for much of McPeak’s career.

McPeak put in 32 years with Minot Central Dispatch, all the while still coaching the high school girls’ diving team. “I had good bosses that let me switch shifts so I could coach,” she said. The upper management thought that it was a positive thing for her to be out in the community and building relationships.

Now that McPeak has officially retired, she plans to continue coaching. She said that every year at the end of the season, she asks the girls if they think she’s too old to keep coaching. Their answer is always no. McPeak is not a coach who just stands on the sidelines and tells her team how things are done. She gets in the water with them and demonstrates. She gets involved and keeps it fun. The knowledge she has is vast and the girls like having her there. They like her coaching methods because she learned from the best.

Other than coaching, she may get a part-time job to keep some income flowing so that when her husband is ready to retire, they can fully retire and enjoy the rest of their lives without having to worry. Minot will always be home for her, but she no longer wishes to endure the frigid temperatures and amounts of snow, so they might become snowbirds.

Throughout her life, McPeak has done nothing but what makes her the happiest.