POSTED: Monday, June 1 at 4:30 p.m.

For the first time since it's last director resigned in disgrace, the Dane County 911 Center has a permanent director.

Monday was the first day on the job for the county's new Director of Public Safety John Dejung.

For the past 12 years Dejung worked as the 911/311 Director in Minneapolis. Last year, The Minneapolis 911 Center won the 911 Call Center of the Year award by the 911 Institute for its handling and emergency response to the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse.

Dejung and his wife are from Stanley Wisconsin and he received his MBA from the UW Madison in 1988.

"Minneapolis is a great city," he said. "And I'm thinking Madison from everything I've heard and seen is very similar, a microcosm of the big brother."

As for his new job, Dejung admits that most of the heavy lifting has already been done, with the recent additions of a computer aided dispatch system, radio system and staff increases, but his job will be to make sure it is seen through.

"Dane County is going through a number of the projects I just mentioned that I had gone through already in Minneapolis," he stated. "There were lessons learned that I wanted to apply again."

There is a lot of pressure on Dejung. The 911 center has been under fire for more than a year, starting last April when a dispatcher botched a call for help from murder victim Brittany Zimmermann. That resulted in the resignation of then director Joe Norwick.