PUBLIC SAFETY · 911, PSAP & DISPATCH
Independent advisory, vendor-neutral technology governance, and managed services for the organizations that answer the call.
We don't sell you software. We sit on your side of the table when the vendor's sales engineer is quoting from a deck we already know line by line, and we remember what happens at 3 a.m. when the system they sold you actually goes down.
CHALLENGE
Communications centers are being asked to modernize CAD, migrate to NG911, defend against cyber threats, and retain a workforce in crisis, all at the same time. Vendors are eager to sell solutions. No one in the room is unambiguously aligned with the agency’s interest.
THE DISPATCH REALITY
American 911 centers answer 240 million calls every year across more than 6,100 PSAPs, with one in four dispatcher seats sitting empty, cyber threats probing every endpoint, and the largest 911 modernization in the system’s history underway all at once. The NENA standard calls for 90% of emergency calls to be answered within ten seconds; nationally, centers miss that target more often than they hit it, and every missed second is a real person waiting on the other end of the line.
Sentinel Solutions Group exists because the decisions that determine whether an ECC succeeds or fails, which CAD to select, how an ESInet is architected, whether the center is ready for i3 and EIDO, how to recruit and hold the people who work the seats, deserve independent, vendor-neutral expertise from practitioners who have lived the work on both sides of the console.
240M+
emergency calls answered annually in the U.S.
6,100+
public safety answering points nationwide
10 SECONDS
NENA Standard 911 Answer Time
THE CHALLENGES
PSAP directors are running modernization, staffing, and cybersecurity programs simultaneously, often with aging systems and flat budgets. These are the pressures Sentinel helps agencies navigate.
Transitioning from legacy selective routers to i3-compliant ESInets, NGCS, and multimedia-ready infrastructure is a multi-year program that few agencies are staffed to manage alone. GIS readiness, MSAG/ALI reconciliation, and EIDO adoption add layers of risk.
Staffing shortages, mandatory overtime, escalating call complexity, and the national push to reclassify telecommunicators as protective service are reshaping what it means to run an ECC. Retention, wellness, and training programs must evolve.
PSAPs have become prime targets for ransomware and nation-state actors. Legacy networks, flat architectures, and unpatched endpoints create attack surfaces that can take a center offline during the worst possible moments.
Proprietary data formats, escalating SaaS fees, undisclosed integration costs, and contract renewal leverage are used to tilt deals in the vendor’s favor. Most agencies discover the real cost years after signing.
Aging CAD, RMS, logging recorders, and radio consoles are reaching end-of-life at the same moment NG911 is arriving. Agencies need modernization roadmaps that balance risk, funding, and operational continuity.
CAD-to-CAD integration, FirstNet connectivity, regional ESInet participation, 988 crisis line handoff, and records sharing with law, fire, EMS, and hospitals all demand governance most centers don’t have.
OUR APPROACH
Most consultants come from one world. Sentinel was built by practitioners who have worked inside dispatch centers, run regional communications operations, engineered the platforms the industry runs on, and sold and deployed the very systems our clients now use. That combined perspective means we recognize the traps before they close, and we know exactly how to negotiate, architect, and govern the decisions that follow.
We have built, sold, and implemented the platforms you are evaluating. We know the contract language, the hidden SKUs, the discount ceilings, and the integration gotchas that don’t appear in the RFP response.
Our founder has run a regional communications center, instructed active shooter courses for dispatchers, and implemented countywide alerting. We understand what happens in your room because we have been in your chair.
Our co-founder served as a Principal Systems Engineer overseeing some of the most complex public safety IT systems in the country, and our advisory board brings decades of additional engineering depth across CJIS, networks, and mission-critical architectures.
You do not get a single consultant. You get a bench of ten practitioners, actively involved in every engagement and tailored to the specific program. Sentinel is one of the only firms that brings both deep technical expertise and operational breadth directly tied to mission-critical public safety operations.
CORE CAPABILITIES
Every engagement is anchored in six disciplines that protect agencies from bad decisions, bad contracts, and bad outcomes.
People make or break a CAD or NG911 migration. We design change strategies informed by real-world deployments (including our founder’s experience leading the LAPD UCR-to-NIBRS transition) so staff adopt, rather than resist, the new reality.
We identify the technical, operational, contractual, cyber, and political risks that threaten your program, then build mitigation strategies your leadership team can actually defend in a council meeting, audit, or after-action review.
RFP development, scoring rubric design, vendor evaluation, reference checks, contract negotiation, and SOW authoring. We level the playing field so the best fit wins, not the best sales team.
PMP-disciplined program governance with public-sector fluency. We structure work for political visibility, audit defensibility, and multi-administration continuity, not private-sector velocity at the expense of oversight.
Beyond advisory. Sentinel can operate alongside your team, maintaining dispatch consoles, servers, networks, logging recorders, radios, and cybersecurity controls so your telecommunicators never lose a tool mid-call.
We watch the vendor so you do not have to. Independent verification and validation across milestones, acceptance testing, data conversion, training, go-live, and warranty, keeping vendors accountable to the contract you signed.
Most firms specialize in one slice, the call-taker, the CAD, the radio, the records. We have sat at every console and engineered every layer. The signature below is how we think about your system end-to-end, and where Sentinel's practice sits most actively in the flow.
Eight ongoing services scoped to the operational realities of a PSAP floor. Embedded administrators, recurring quality assurance, staffing optimization, and certification programs that fill the capabilities your agency cannot justify hiring for full-time.
Ongoing maintenance of spatial data supporting call routing, address points, ESZ boundaries, and location accuracy.
Dedicated CAD administration covering unit recommendations, response plans, and daily operational health.
Health monitoring, retention compliance, and restore drills for full call and radio recording defensibility.
Structured review of calls and radio traffic to identify training needs and reduce legal exposure.
Development and refinement of dispatch protocols for high-liability scenarios with full operational alignment.
Data-driven staffing models and schedule redesign to improve coverage and justify headcount.
End-to-end career development and certification from call-taker through executive leadership.
Structured training officer program with Sentinel oversight for consistency and defensibility.
Two Wave 1 courses live for 911 and dispatch professionals. Delivered by practitioners who have sat at the console, supervised the floor, and reviewed the calls afterward. Both end with toolkits the agency keeps.
How to sound, decide, and document like the job is being reviewed in court, because it is.
A multi-module professional certificate for telecommunicators, dispatchers, CTOs, supervisors, and center directors operating in a recorded, discoverable, and reviewable environment. Built from real case reviews and supervisor debriefs.
The supervisory work that catches small problems before they become headlines.
Supervisor development for communications center leaders. How to coach live, catch drift early, manage veteran dispatchers through change, and build the kind of center people stay in.
OUR PRACTICES
Every Sentinel engagement is governed by proprietary practices built for the realities of public safety and mission-critical technology, not borrowed from commercial IT playbooks.
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
How we govern programs.
PMP-disciplined program governance structured for political visibility, audit defensibility, and multi-administration continuity. Every milestone, deliverable, and decision gate is designed for the public-sector reality, where council turnover, budget cycles, and federal funding rules shape the timeline more than any vendor’s project plan.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
How we prepare your people.
Organizational change management built for the dispatch floor, the patrol car, and the fire station, not the corporate campus. We design adoption strategies informed by shift schedules, union dynamics, civil service rules, and the operational reality that your systems cannot go dark for training. When the new CAD goes live, the people behind the console are ready.
CONFIGURATION AUTHORITY
How we own the configuration.
Configuration authority for CAD deployments, NG911 transitions, and call-handling platform migrations. Sentinel owns the foundational decisions that shape how calls are received, routed, and recorded, from response-plan configuration through protocol provisioning. The Blueprint, training, and administrator documentation we produce survive dispatcher turnover and administration changes.
VALUE ASSURANCE
How we prove the value.
Post-deployment governance for your CAD and NG911 investment. Sentinel independently measures whether the call-handling, dispatch, and reporting outcomes specified at procurement are being realized in operation, and documents vendor accountability when they are not. Findings become the evidentiary basis for next-cycle renewal decisions.
After engagement closes, Sentinel Sustain keeps the practice active across the life of the investment. Three tiers: Core, Active, and Strategic.
Learn more →DEEP EXPERTISE
These are the specific technologies, standards, protocols, and operational disciplines we work in every day.
WE KNOW THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE
These are the traps that consume budgets, derail timelines, and leave agencies stuck with systems that do not serve them. We have seen them firsthand, and we know exactly how to neutralize them.
01
Vendors that encode your data in formats only they can read. We insist on open data standards, documented schemas, and exportability clauses before the contract is signed.
02
The line items that appear after go-live: custom interfaces, “professional services” fees, API throttling, and sandbox charges. We surface them during procurement, not after.
03
Year-one discounts that balloon at renewal, usage-tier creep, and per-seat pricing that punishes growth. We negotiate caps, escalators, and renewal protections up front.
04
Deployments that collapse under staff resistance because change management was an afterthought. We structure OCM as a first-class program workstream from day one.
05
Vendors who promise “minimal training” and deliver weeks of classroom instruction. We demand realistic training hours and protected ramp-up periods in the SOW.
06
The leverage shift that happens once data, integrations, and staff knowledge are locked in. We design exit ramps and portability clauses into every deal.
WHO YOU ARE WORKING WITH
The people who lead every Sentinel engagement have spent their careers inside PSAPs, on command floors, and behind the engineering consoles of the country’s most complex public safety systems.
MANAGING PARTNER · OPERATIONS & CHANGE MANAGEMENT
911/PSAP, P25 & RECORDS MANAGEMENT ADVISORY
Also Supporting Your Program
The right engagement depends on where the PSAP is in the program lifecycle. Each tier has its own scope discipline and its own deliverable cadence.
End-to-end managed operations for the dispatch consoles, CAD, and call-handling infrastructure Sentinel helped you stand up. Console sustainment, CAD/RMS vendor coordination, version-upgrade discipline, and 24/7 incident response on the dispatch floor. The system is still answering the call at 3 a.m., because someone is still accountable for the floor.
We govern the program. We never sell the platforms.
Read moreOngoing retainer with quarterly governance reviews, pre-decision advisory, and an open line for council briefings, NG911 transition planning, and CAD vendor escalations. The PSAP has independent counsel on the technology side of the table, every shift change.
Sentinel documents. We do not litigate.
Read moreAnchored to one of SDF, SRM, SDB, or SVA. Best when the PSAP knows which discipline is needed: a CAD migration program, console rollout change readiness, configuration authority during a vendor swap, or post-deployment outcome governance. Fixed scope, named practice, defined deliverables.
Independent. Practitioner-led. Vendor-neutral.
Explore subscriptionsA specialized service plus a signature practice plus Sentinel Institute training, packaged as a single integrated engagement. For PSAPs standing up a new dispatch operation from scratch and building the institutional capacity to run it themselves.
Cutting-edge. Never bleeding-edge.
Read moreREADY WHEN YOU ARE
Let us show you what independent, vendor-neutral 911 advisory actually looks like. A 30-minute conversation is the fastest way to see if Sentinel is the right fit for your center.
