After 33 years, Tri-Com director set to retire

Jerry Bleck is a man with a plan.

Bleck grew up at a time when each of the Tri-Cities had separate numbers for its police and fire departments, creating six different emergency numbers.

In 1976, he set out to change that when he created Tri-Com, an emergency dispatch center that brought together emergency dispatch services for Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles, allowing residents for all three communities to dial 911 for police and fire assistance.

Now Bleck, Tri-Com's first and only director, is set to retire on Aug. 31 after 33 years of service.

"I have been in business for almost 40 years and have hopefully contributed a lot to the field," Bleck, 60, said. "It's time to pass the baton on now. Every good turn must have its end."

Bleck is proud of his time at Tri-Com, which started with 10 employees working out of the Geneva Police Department's headquarters. The agency now has 23 employees operating out of its own headquarters near the Kane County Judicial Center, and serves Elburn in addition to its original three members.

Bleck, who grew up in Geneva and still lives there, always had an interest in law enforcement. He worked as an emergency dispatcher through high school and college, and once had ambitions of becoming a police officer, earning a criminal justice degree from Aurora University.

But serving as director of the emergency dispatch center and working to keep up with the constant stream of new technology was just the right job for him.

"I started working with dispatchers when I was 16 and I wouldn't have traded my experiences for anything," he said. "This is always what I've wanted to do and I got to do it in my hometown."

Bleck has no set long-term plans yet for what he will do once retired, though he hopes to travel with his wife, Kathy, a first-grade teacher at Williamsburg Elementary School in Geneva.

Their first trip may be by rail through the Canadian Rockies, a part of the continent he never has seen.

Even though he is stepping down, Bleck says he will continue to have an interest in Tri-Com and hopes it will continue to prosper under new director Stacy Guercio.

"(Bleck) is a great guy and I view him as one of the mentors in the business who pioneered 911," Guercio, of Winfield, said. "Many of us in the business respect and look up to him. He is extremely knowledgeable."