For more than three decades, Terry Sweeney has been a calming voice to those who may have been having the worst day of their life. As Butler County's longest serving 911 dispatcher, Sweeney has spent his career guiding people through some of their most difficult times.

“You never know what’s coming next,” Sweeney said. “Your next call could be giving CPR instructions for somebody that’s been married for 50 years, it could be telling a kid how to get out of a house fire or it could be somebody wanting to take their life and you’ve got to talk them out of doing that.”

Or something less harrowing.

“It could be a father, telling him how to give birth to their child,” Sweeney said. “Granted the mother does most of the work, but that does happen.”

Two weeks shy of the day he started in 1992, Sweeney, of Clarion County, retired from the Butler County Department of Emergency Services Communications Center on Jan. 3. During his 32 years of service to the county, Sweeney has provided the community with careful instructions and communications during emergency situations for the fire, medical and police departments.

A father, husband, and former president and lifetime member of the Bruin Volunteer Fire Department, the veteran telecommunicator is now getting ready to embark on a new journey — retirement.

“It’s wonderful,” Sweeney said with an ornery smile. “I get paid to do nothing.”

And while Sweeney now has plenty of time to work on his multiyear landscaping project, it is unlikely the former captain of the Bruin department is slowing down anytime soon.

At the age of 15, Sweeney joined the junior firefighter program run by line officer Ray Gilmore.

“Ray Gilmore, still a friend of mine, always liked to tell the story that I was a cocky young kid that wouldn’t last,” Sweeney said. “And I was the only one that lasted, out of like 15 kids.”

He continued to be an active member with Bruin until 2009.

Since a young age, Sweeney said serving his community had a major impact on his life.

“As I can attest, volunteering led me down a lifelong path to a career I love, that also allowed me to retire at a fairly young age,” Sweeney said.

In 1991, Sweeney was one of the more than 100 candidates to take the once-a-year hiring test for the 911 center. He scored high enough on the initial exam to be granted an interview.

“Director Brad Magill took a chance on a young kid from little ol’ Bruin,” Sweeney said. “I appreciate his faith in me and planned to show him that he made the right decision. Though he’s been gone from the county for many years, I am still glad to call him a friend.”

Today, new hires are required to complete more than 40 hours of classroom training before sitting in the dispatch center. That was not the case for Sweeney, who received a “baptism by fire” type of training.

“I had no clue,” Sweeney said. “I was from Bruin, and we always joke that (Route) 422 is the dividing line of Butler County. North of 422 and south of 422 are completely different worlds. So being from Bruin, I didn’t understand the southern part of the county.”

Sweeney’s experience as a volunteer firefighter was helpful, but he had to quickly learn how the rest of the emergency services operated.

“We had over 20 police departments dispatched through the 911 center, so that was a big shock,” Sweeney said.

One of the quickest lessons Sweeney had to learn was how to stay calm during potentially life-threatening situation. It’s a skill he said he has honed through years of experience.

“I wasn’t always calm,” Sweeney said. “You try to stay as calm as you can, but inside you’re like ‘Oh my, what’s going to happen? What am I going to do?’ But it all works out. With experience comes that calmness.”

Even with his years of experience, remaining calm during a chaotic call can still be challenging.

“You have to have patience, which doesn’t always work,” Sweeney said. “You have to realize the person calling you, a lot of the times, it’s the worst day of their lives. You have to keep that in mind.”

While calmness may be one of the virtues most often associated with Sweeney, lifelong friend Shawn Pistorius said there are other reasons for the continued success of his former co-worker.

“He is a very comical, and will always be one up on you,” Pistorius said.

Sweeney’s wife, Mary, agrees with Pistorius’s assessment of her husband.

“He’s very adventurous,” Mary said. “He’s fun-loving, he’s outgoing and he has an incredible sense of humor. He’s just a genuinely good human. He really is.”

Pistorius, who retired in March from Butler dispatch, said he also appreciates Sweeney’s drive for perfection and the seriousness with which he took the job.

“With this job, you have to be detail-oriented,” Pistorius said. “You can’t do things half. If we mess up at work, people die.”

Sweeney and his wife, a school nurse for the Union School District in Clarion County, are eager to embark on the next chapter of their life together.

The couple, who enjoy traveling and socializing, have created a Facebook page, the “Whiskey Wagon Adventures,” to blog their adventures as they eat their way through the region.

“We travel all over the place, and go to bars and restaurants,” Sweeney said. “And people are always asking us where they should go.”

Sweeney was also elected to the Union School District Board of Education in May where he hopes he can continue making a difference in the community.

“I’ve always joked, ‘Wait until I get on the school board, things will change,’” Sweeney said. “So I decided to take a stab at it.”

Sweeney also said he plans on spending a lot time at the Plaza Pantry in town.

“I’m going to talk to the old folks in town, you know, pretty much on a daily basis,” Sweeney said. “They already have me sign up for part-time work there, busing tables.”

Whether it is maintaining his 10-acres of grass, helping someone find a good place to eat or cracking a joke, it’s probably safe to say that no matter what path he takes in retirement, it will involve his lifelong work of making his community a better place for everyone.