Deciding a career path can be difficult; some go with their childhood passion and others go a completely different route. For LCM alumni Victoria Vercher, it took a push from her friends to change her career and do something she’s passionate about. Vercher is now a 911 dispatcher, a job where she can help people struggling in emergency situations.
Though Vercher has only just begun her career has as a dispatcher, she has been involved in the law enforcement industry for over a decade.
“I’ve always known I wanted to do something in law enforcement,” Vercher said. “When I turned 14, my mom put me in something called ‘Police Explorers,’ which is a program where young adults ages 14-20 are trained by the Beaumont Police Department who want to pursue a career in law enforcement.”
There, she learned how to handle traffic accidents, disturbances, crisis negotiations, and other common things officers deal with regularly.
She graduated high school in 2017 and began a degree at Lamar University for Forensic Chemistry. However, after about a year she realized she wasn’t happy.
“Something in me started to say ‘maybe this isn’t what I wanted to do,’” Vercher said.
Like many, she changed her degree and began the road to becoming a dental assistant. In 2018 she graduated from Lamar and got a job in Beaumont; soon after, she moved back to Orange where she had a similar job.
“In 2023, my friends pushed me to do something in law enforcement because they knew that was my calling,” Vercher said.
She saw that the Beaumont Police Department was hiring 911 dispatchers, and this job was an opportunity to get her foot back into the law enforcement industry. Soon after she started the process of becoming a dispatcher and in June 2023, she officially began her new job.
In Beaumont, Vercher was a call taker and dispatcher, receiving 40-100 calls a day for service. She just recently switched to Vidor Police Department where she has the same duties. Though she’s happy in her position, her goal is to work for a Crime Investigation Division.
“I feel like my biggest accomplishment is knowing that every time I answer the phone, I help someone,” Vercher said. “Knowing they are probably in the worst state of their life and helping them get through whatever they are going through makes me know this is what I am meant to do.”
