When Dolly Brennan started working as a dispatcher in January 1984, there were no rows of computers or interactive 911 databases.

“We had one computer, and that was for the police department. Nothing else was on computers. It was all paper work,” said Brennan, 60, of Kenosha. “It’s all computers now.”

After 25 years of watching technology evolve as she rose from dispatcher to Kenosha County’s communications manager, Brennan retired Friday.

During her tenure as manager — she took that job in 1991 — Brennan helped develop and implement the county’s wireless emergency system, which is slated to include cell phone texting and video capabilities within a few years.

She also helped develop a back-up dispatch station at the Kenosha County Center in Bristol, which opened within the last few years, and lobbied for updated dispatch facilities at the Kenosha Public Safety Building, which broke ground for remodeling and expansion a few weeks ago.

Many of the advances Brennan saw within the dispatch world were due to technology, which started in Kenosha County with that first police-department-designated computer in 1984 and continued in 1988 with the implementation of the county’s first 911 system.

“When I first started, you basically took the information on the call, called the unit and had them go to it,” Brennan said.

Police and sheriff’s department calls went out over the radio. For the Kenosha Fire Department, dispatchers had to pick up the phone to send out a rescue crew.

For anything but the special police computer, the calls were recorded on paper.

“We had a card,” Brennan said. “It was a multi-page, carbonless form and we had to fill in the address, the name, what was going on, the time we received the call. Then we would hand it to the sheriff or the fire dispatcher.”

In 1988, the 911 system transformed emergency dispatch in Kenosha County with a 6-inch square screen that automatically listed addresses, phone numbers and the times for each call.

When the cell phone came on the scene, everything changed again.

“On a current phone, we get the tower and the sector” of the call, “but we also get a location to within 150 meters,” Brennan said. “We have found that most of them are coming within 100 yards.”

Within a few years, Kenosha County dispatchers will be able to get text messages and pictures.

“(Callers) can send pictures (with messages like): ‘This is the guy who just robbed my house. This is the car that hit me.’”

Brennan is excited to see how enhanced dispatch services might help crime victims and save lives, an aspect of the job that has always made her proud.

“We’ve saved lives. We’ve delivered babies. We’ve saved houses from burning completely down. That’s a great accomplishment,” she said.

“That’s what I’m going to miss the most. You take pride in the fact that you can save lives.”