Father/Son Dispatcher Duo Grows Closer Through Job

For almost three years, Brian and Andrew Pedrick have worked at the same place, but it wasn’t until five months ago that the father and son started working together.

Now, they work the same 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift as dispatchers for the University of Maryland Department of Public Safety - University Police. Before this, they worked opposite shifts.

“We rarely got to see each other,” Andrew Pedrick, 21, said.

Now the Dundalk father and son sit back-to-back, one receiving emergency calls and the other communicating with police officers on the street, directing them to the scene. Brian and Andrew Pedrick commute together; vacations are easier to plan; they have the same days off to play Texas Hold ‘em or hit the bowling lanes.

“We haven’t gone golfing yet,” Brian Pedrick, 50, said.

Not that they weren’t close before, but working the same job and now shift have brought them closer, they said.

Getting Started

The elder Pedrick retired from the Baltimore City police force and was looking to stay in law enforcement, but didn’t want to be an officer anymore. He's been a dispatcher with the university's Department of Public Safety for almost six years. About three years ago, he recommended to his son that he look at becoming a dispatcher as well.

“All I could do was recommend him,” Brian Pedrick said. His son then had to go through a test and background check. The test had several parts with an emphasis on multitasking. Dispatchers have to be able to listen to incoming calls and commands while also acting on what information they are receiving, all at the same time.

Andrew Pedrick passed the test and joined his father as a dispatcher in September 2008.

“It was a little overwhelming at first,” Andrew Pedrick said. After a day on the job, he would go home and tell his dad about it.

“I’d go home and say, ‘This is what happened. What do you think?’” Andrew Pedrick said. And they would swap stories.

“He Knows What He’s Doing”

It was only a few months into the job that the younger Pedrick was faced with a real test that made his father proud.

He received a call from a man who said he cut off his toe.

“At first, I thought, OK, you slipped on something,” Andrew Pedrick said, but he soon realized that it was actually a suicide attempt.

That, Brian Pedrick said, is the result of asking the right questions: Are you OK? How did it happen? And then, “Stay on the phone with me,” the younger Pedrick remembered telling the man, as officers were sent to the location.

His father said this is one of the first times he started to realize his son was good at his job. “It just relieves you. OK, he knows what he’s doing,” he said.

From Tough Love to Just Another Coworker

For the last couple of months, Brian Pedrick has been able to observe his son work through situations like this, and said he’s developed a real respect for his son, the dispatcher.

“He’s competent ... reliable,” he said.

Perhaps this has allowed the office dynamic to remain as two equals, and not as a parent and his son.

But Brian Pedrick said it was also a conscious effort. “I made sure I didn’t bring the father presence in here ... I try to be more of a coworker,” he said.

It’s a far cry from the days of coaching his son from the ages of 8 to 15 in baseball and football, during which Andrew Pedrick’s competitiveness would sometimes get the best of him.

“He wasn’t a coach who played favorites. ... He benched me,” the younger Pedrick said, giving one example: His team was already down two outs, and when a less-than-impressive teammate took up the bat, Andrew Pedrick said aloud, “Oh, here’s out number three.”

That didn’t fly with Dad. “He looked at me and said, ‘You’re benched.’”

One Month Left

Sgt. Kenneth Leonard of the university police department can cite a few instances of University of Maryland students joining their officer parents as temporary police aides, but he said parent/child duos on the force are rare.

“It probably goes against what you’d expect. It’s kind of a small department. You think you’d hire people you know,” Leonard said.

Although neither Pedrick has plans to leave the job yet, their time together from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. grows short.

Every six months, the 11 dispatchers get to select which shifts they want, with preference going to those with seniority.

Working the evening shift has taken a toll on Andrew Pedrick’s main passion: bowling. He hopes to someday play for the Professional Bowlers Association. Most leagues play in the evenings, so working the late shift has made practice time hard to come by.

Both Andrew and Brian Pedrick could work the midnight shift together, so Andrew could keep bowling and the father/son duo wouldn’t break up. But that won’t happen for two reasons.

Brian Pedrick, who has more seniority in the department, doesn’t want to risk taking a midnight shift spot that his son could have.

“His bowling comes first,” Brian Pedrick said. Secondly, he doesn't really want it.

“After 4 or 5 [a.m.], it’s just so boring. The evening shift grew on me,” he said.

So in a month, the two will probably return to seeing each other only a few scattered hours throughout the week. No more carpooling, and vacationing together will become trickier. There’s just one more month to get in that golf game.

And it's back to the days of going home and asking Dad, “This is what happened. What do you think?’”