First On The Scene

by DiamondBack Staff

Life for most of us is fairly predictable these days. Until things start getting a little shaky, it’s easy to take first responders for granted. The better job they do, the smoother things run, the less we notice their efforts. That’s unfortunate but worse than that, the attention they do get is often negative. Kind of by nature since they show up in our worst moments. Thank God they do.

We hope you’re friends with a few of America’s 4.6 million first responders. Otherwise, it’s difficult to understand them beyond their appearance and actions at the scene of an emergency. You’ll see their response, but are unlikely to see how much of their life is spent making sure they’re ready for the moment.

DiamondBack counts thousands of first responders among our customers. We’re grateful for them all, but especially for the ones we’ve had the pleasure to befriend during our 21 years in business. One of those is Brant Maley, an officer with Penbrook Police Department who’s served the central PA borough and neighboring townships in a dozen other ways over his 24 year career.

If you stumble upon misfortune in Penbrook, Pennsylvania, you could be in worse places. We know, because DiamondBack team members have. And on each occasion, before we could even process what help we needed, emergency workers were on the scene expertly managing and resolving the issue. Penbrook is home to about 3,000 people, and most of them have met the smiling faces of the Penbrook Police Department, as well as their business side. Both forms share responsibility for the warmth that greets the officers when they start their shifts. This is a community that appreciates their first responders.

Central Pennsylvania has good police. That may seem like an overly generalized statement but it’s true. Our residents are friendly themselves so it makes sense that our public servants would reflect that. Our public servants aren’t just “nice”, they’re also incredibly professional and competent. Our friendships with these servants makes us privy to the recipe for that competence. Take for instance our friend, Brant Maley.

When Brant is on the scene, it’s abundantly clear that he knows what he’s doing and in control. What we know is that he and his fellow Penbrook PD officers, when not on patrol, are almost always training. We asked to follow Brant for a day of work, and his schedule was almost impossible to fathom. He’s a 24 year veteran and his week is packed with efforts to get better or to help others do the same. Training academy cadets in the morning, lift evacuation training with the ski patrol in the afternoon, on patrol in the evening. Then stints with the Dauphin County Interdiction team and Gang Task Force in between. No wonder his skills are sharp.

This level of training and involvement isn’t unique to Brant or his fellow officers at the Penbrook Police Department. It’s universal among the first responders we’ve had the privilege to know. They’re always working to get better, to be better. We see dramatizations of police in entertainment and lose sight of who’s actually serving our communities. It’s almost always someone who loved their hometown enough to do something for it. Ask around and you’ll hear about their sense of duty and responsibility to each other and the towns they serve. Get to know them and we promise you’ll appreciate even more the lengths they’re prepared to go to for complete strangers. And you’ll likely find a friend.

To Brant, the Penbrook Police Department, and all of our friends who respond with professionalism each time we call, Thank You.