About > Emergency Medical Services (EMS)

I got my start in EMS as a freshman at Ursinus College in 1990. I was also very active in emergency medical services off campus. Much of my early EMS experience was gained on the Tuesday night crew of Lower Providence Community Center Ambulance. As if that didn't take up enough of my time, I also joined Trappe Fire Company Ambulance, which was the ambulance that covered Collegeville and Ursinus' campus.

Besides being an EMT in the field, I also worked my way up the EMS ladder, eventually reaching EMT instructor with the county EMS system and training officer at Lower Providence as well as an American Heart Association CPR instructor.

I served with William Cameron Engine Company for a summer while I was doing a chemistry internship at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. William Cameron gave me my first taste of the fire service, something that I would return to in a few years when I got to Clemson. They also had the nicest ambulances I've served on. Their barn-shaped Braun Super Long ambulances were the roomiest and best constructed ambulances I've seen in my many years of EMS.

The summer after my senior year at Ursinus College I worked as a paid EMT for Pleasant Valley Community Ambulance (station 307), located in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Running about 800 calls a year, this BLS squad was unique in the area. Most other ambulance stations in the eastern part of Montgomery County were ALS. As it turns out, Pleasant Valley's life as an independent BLS organization was short-lived. A few years after I served with them, station 307 found itself taken over as a substation of Narberth VMSC (station 313).

While at Indiana, as an extracurricular activity I founded IU-EMS, the Indiana University Emergency Medical Services Organization. It was hoped that this organization will flourish and be able to provide campus education in CPR and other emergency topics. From all indications, IU-EMS has exceed my expectations and is now doing EMS stand-by's at large events such as the "Little 500."

Also while at Indiana in 1994-1995, I helped the National Collegiate EMS Foundation become a visible organization with its own Web server and domain name. This involvement with NCEMSF was to be just the beginning of a long-term relationship resulting in me becoming the Foundation's Vice President in 1997.

When I arrived at Clemson, I joined the Clemson University Fire Dept - EMS. It is a really unique mostly-paid university fire department and ambulance. I worked for CUFD-EMS at the football and some basketball games at Clemson. I was also a bike EMT, responding on an Intermediate life Support (ILS)-equipped 18-speed mountain bike from my office in the chemistry building to calls on the west side of Clemson's campus.

While my time at Los Alamos National Laboratory was brief, I joined the Los Alamos Auxiliary Fire Brigade. While their name implies they have something to do with fire protection, it is a misnomer. They are the primary search-and-rescue organization for the Los Alamos area. While I didn't have the opportunity to go out on a mission with them, I enjoyed getting to know this fine group of folks.

It didn't take long for me to join the local ambulance corps in my new town once I relocated to New Jersey. River Vale Volunteer Ambulance Corps (RVVAC) was happy to have me as an EMT on their Wednesday night crew. After a little more than a year on the Corps, I found myself nominated to be a Lieutenant. Serving that role, I built a custom call tracking system, which helps them glean important usage statistics about the Corps. As of December 2002 we also deployed an on-line mutual aid status system that will aid seven towns in the Pascack Valley to know the availability of ambulances in the region in real-time.