Professional Service Responder George Ridley was honored by the Orange County Board of Supervisors with the Excellence in Volunteerism Award.
PSR Ridley was chosen from more than 20,000 volunteers for the county government, said Board of Supervisors Chairman John Moorlach during the ceremony, conducted at a PSR meeting Thursday at the Department’s Regional Training Center in Tustin.
“You sacrifice your personal time, time you could be with your family, time you could be doing other things and actually earning income, but the truth is you volunteer because you want to give back to your community,” Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson said in thanks to the PSRs at the meeting, including 56 who were about be appointed PSRs.
Acting Sheriff Anderson noted that the PSRs last year donated 15,232 hours of time to the Department and that meant a savings to the county of $1,142,400 based on the average savings for a volunteer worker. The reality is that many of the PSRs are professionals; doctors, lawyers and airplane pilots, so the savings is likely much greater.
Chairman Moorlach said the PSRs help give Orange County, “one of the finest Sheriff’s Departments in the country.”
Chairman Moorlach then turned his attention to PSR George Ridley, who takes photographs for the Department.
“George is one of the most active members of the PSRs, with 1015 service hours,” Chairman Moorlach told the gathering. “In addition to photographing the Medal of Valor Ceremony, the Peace Officer Memorial Ceremony and graduations, he has helped the Terrorism Early Warning Group by taking aerial photographs of all the potential terrorism targets in the county.”
PSR Ridley spent 49 hours in the air on the mission and devoted a total of 128 hours to the project.
The work was challenging, PSR Ridley said in an interview before the ceremony.
“It was quite a project, everything from theme parks to small electronic repeaters on hilltops,” he said.
“Many of the locations were hard to spot from the air. They had been designed for aesthetic purposes to blend into the surrounding community.
“You don’t want to photograph a building that is two doors away from the one you need to photograph.”
The targets were selected by the Department’s anti-terrorism staff.
“A lot of people get sick looking through a lens as you orbit a location. I never got sick, I only got woozy once.”