In 1996 we celebrated our 50th year of Commitment to the citizens of Kern County by dedicating and renaming our Communications facility in honor of the man who built the first two way radio communications system for Kern County, Mr. William E. Whiting.

Kern County is located in the south central portion of California. It has an area of 8,064 square miles and is California's third largest county in land area.

About one-third of the county is located on the flat valley floor at the extreme southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. This valley portion is surrounded by a horseshoe shaped rim of mountains. On the west is the Temblor Range which follows the western boundary that runs along the renowned San Andreas earthquake fault. On the south is the Tehachapi Mountain Range. To the east is a wide belt of foothills and ranges of the Sierra Nevada, which occupies almost a third of the county area. East of this belt of mountains is an expanse of High Desert which covers nearly another third of the county.

Except for the irregular slanting western boundary, the county is almost a perfect rectangle with an average east-west length of 120 miles and a width of 67 miles. Elevations range from 206-408 feet above sea level on the San Joaquin Valley floor to 3,000 feet on Mojave's High desert. Mountains tower as high as 8,755 feet at Sawmill Mountain. The county is larger than the land area of Massachusetts, New Jersey or Hawaii, and is larger than the land areas of Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

Communications is a part of the General Services Division of the County Administration Office. The department is responsible for the supervision and control over acquisition and utilization of all telecommunications resources and facilities in the Kern County government. Two-way radio and microwave communication plays a major role in county government telecommunications. Kern County public safety agencies depend on radio communication in providing for the protection, health and welfare of the general public.

Radio is used extensively by many County, City, State and Federal agencies. Communications has the unique ability to intercommunicate and provide communications to other organizations using a multitude of radio systems. Telephone voice and data systems play a very large part in the County's day to day business. Such systems, however, are vulnerable to disruptive natural and man made disasters. Kern County has long recognized the role two-way radio and microwave radio communications provide in bypassing land-line circuits. Radio enables the Communications Division to provide end-to-end system control and responsibility that is not possible with leased circuits.

There are many radio systems that serve the county agencies. The largest such systems serve the Sheriff, Fire, Emergency Medical Services and Administration. The county's microwave system is in effect a "telephone cable by radio", capable of carrying hundreds of circuits between numerous offices. It also links together the numerous mountain top radio sites that enable county wide two-way radio coverage. All this is monitored, controlled and supervised 24-hours a day without operational dependence upon any common carrier.