Aubry Insco felt called to a career in 911 communications at 19.
She had taken a part-time job as an emergency call responder in Grand Prairie to help pay her way through nursing school. A few months in, Insco answered a call from a panicked mother who had left her baby alone in a bathtub for a few seconds and came back to find the child drowning.
Insco kept a cool head and quickly guided the mother through CPR until the infant started breathing.
(Ella Scott-Dean | Fort Worth Report)
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“I was practically a kid at 19, and I thought, ‘Wow, how powerful is it that I have been blessed to receive training to be able to respond to that over the phone,’” said Insco. “Because of my action — because of the skill set that was given to me — I was able to give a mother another day with her kid. I want to keep doing that.”
That call helped inspire a 26-year career in emergency communications. In November 2024, Insco joined Fort Worth’s Office of Emergency Management team as the city’s first 911 communications administrator.
The city created Insco’s position to help lead significant changes to its emergency management infrastructure that consolidates how police, fire and emergency medical services take calls and coordinate responses. She also worked alongside the fire department as it prepared for its July 1 EMS transition away from MedStar, its third-party provider for about four decades.
The two initiatives — while separate — work hand-in-hand to better equip Fort Worth’s first responders to serve a city with more than 1 million residents.
“It’s almost two separate things that are happening, but they do have a lot of crossover, and they have a lot of interconnectivity,” Insco said.
The city of Fort Worth rolled out its new ambulance design, left, at the Texas EMS Conference inside the Fort Worth Convention Center’s exhibit hall in November 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)
Insco directly reports to Sonny Saxton, who joined Fort Worth as its inaugural director of emergency communications and management in December 2024.
Equipped for new role by a ‘cumulative build’ of experience
Insco stayed a part of Grand Prairie’s emergency response team for 26 years and, for a brief time, worked in police administration.
She said she’s held “every role imaginable in emergency communication,” from dispatching and quality assurance to instructor, most recently holding the position of emergency communications manager.
“I have been really blessed to have some great leaders over my career who saw something in me and recognized that drive, passion and enthusiasm that I had,” Insco said. “(They) afforded me opportunities to learn, and when those positions weren’t afforded to me, I raised my hand and I asked a lot of questions and offered to get involved.”
The emergency response world is all she’s ever known, Insco said. Her husband is a firefighter, and her father and stepmother were both police officers.
“I just connected so deeply to the mission of public safety and the significance of it,” she said.
Dareas Agnew, a communications supervisor for the Grand Prairie Police Department, was recruited by Insco and worked with her for eight years. He described her as a “game-changer” and said her wide expertise can be attributed to her vision and ingenuity.
“She has the ability to keep the mission the main thing, while also ensuring that she meets the needs of her people,” Agnew said. “She doesn’t just work in 911, she embodies it. She lives it. Everything about her personality and what she does is to further advance the profession and take care of the people that are working.”
Over her career, she has accumulated thousands of hours in technical and leadership training and has joined various committees in North Texas, she said. She chairs the Tarrant 911 District Board of Managers, which helps coordinate emergency call services across the county.
“Twenty-six years in emergency communications is just vicariously a wealth of knowledge and an opportunity to grow. It’s just the experience you go through — you lead, I was promoted up in my former organization several times, so that gave me varying levels of experience,” she said. “It’s really just been a cumulative build on my knowledge and experience that has set me up to be successful in this role.”
It was through her role with the Tarrant County 911 board that she heard about a job opportunity in Fort Worth. She was already familiar with Fort Worth facing challenges with response times and retention, so as Fort Worth started exploring possibilities for improvements, she made it a mission to help the city however she could with her expertise.
Her unofficial adviser role soon led the city to approach her with a sentiment of: “hey, we’re going to post this position. We would love for you to apply,” she recalled.
After a nationwide search process, she was hired.
Currently, her day-to-day responsibilities are focused on the logistics of consolidating the 911 call centers. She’s been building out emergency communications staff, ensuring call teams have the necessary resources they need.
Insco also has been working toward the city’s long-term goal of merging the public safety and fire call-taking teams in the Zipper Building — a downtown city office building that features a large zipper mural — if voters approve renovations in the 2026 bond.
Insco feels her entire career, and all the facets of emergency management she’s experienced, have led to her new leadership role. Managing the logistical challenges puts all her skills to the test, and that’s exciting.
“A lot of eyes are on Fort Worth right now, watching because we are about to be the 10th-largest city in the nation, and (they’ll say), ‘If Fort Worth can do it, well, maybe so can we,’” she said. “It’s exciting to just show them what is possible and how that could help influence better outcomes in their own community.”
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
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