NAEMT President Ken Bouvier has named Richard Patrick to serve as the chair of NAEMT’s Health and Safety Task Force. Bouvier also named Bruce Evans to serve as co-chair of the task force.
Patrick is the director of EMS programs and emergency service initiatives for the Emergency Services Education and Consulting Group, a division of VFIS. A former chief of EMS for Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Patrick is a certified paramedic/firefighter and holds a bachelor’s degree in safety engineering with a concentration in emergency services. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public safety administration. He is the chief executive officer of the Annville Fire Department in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.
Patrick has more than 24 years of diverse experience in emergency services. He was recently appointed to a three-year fellowship on the National Association of Emergency Dispatch, and he is a principal member of the Technical Committee on EMS for the National Fire Protection Association. Patrick also serves on the editorial advisory board for EMS Magazine, the ICHIEFS Health and Safety Committee and the Congressional Fire Services Institute advisory board. He is an adjunct faculty member for paramedic education-allied health and the public safety center at Harrisburg Area Community College, a regional faculty member for the American Heart Association in Advanced Cardiac Life Support and a member of the Harrisburg Area Community College EMS advisory council. He serves on the professional standards committee for the American Ambulance Association, is a reviewer for the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for EMS (CECBEMS) and a certified emergency medical dispatcher.
A 22-year veteran, Evans has been with the Henderson Fire Department as a fire captain and a Nationally Registered paramedic since 1989. He worked for Mercy Ambulance in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a paramedic and recruiter, before joining the fire service. He has also worked as a flight medic and paramedic with a third service municipality in central Iowa. Evans is the fire science program coordinator for the Community College of Southern Nevada, and he has taught EMS- and fire-related topics for more than 15 years. Evans has a master’s degree in public administration, a bachelor’s degree in education and an associate’s degree in fire management.
Evans writes the “EMS Viewpoints” column for Fire Chief magazine. He is a trainer for the Phi Theta Kappa public safety leadership and ethics training program and an instructor at the National Fire Academy in EMS-, incident management- and safety- related topics. Evans has spoke at various regional and national EMS conferences.
The NAEMT Health and Safety Task Force was created in 2003 to address workplace health and safety issues for EMS providers.