Project Manager

About The Paramedic Foundation

The Paramedic Foundation (TPF) is a nonprofit consulting and policy group. It was formed in Minnesota in 2013 and is based in Duluth. The Internal Revenue Service treats it as a charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

TPF works to make paramedicine a trusted health profession. It also helps emergency medical services (EMS) systems give good care that lasts. Its clients are state agencies, regional EMS bodies, county governments, hospitals, and federal programs. Most of the work is in rural, frontier, and Tribal communities.

Rural EMS is fragile for reasons of design, not effort. The rules, the funding, and the roads and radios were never built to hold these systems up. TPF builds the analysis, the policies, the governance tools, and the road maps that let a state or a region run its own system. Then it hands the work over. Every project is built to be owned locally.

TPF’s principals have advised the federal government on rural EMS for more than twenty years. TPF works on four continents. Its experts are working professionals, brought in by project.

The engagement

Nebraska is rebuilding how EMS works outside its cities. Many rural squads run on volunteers, thin call volumes, and budgets that were never built to carry them. TPF is helping the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, roll out the state’s community paramedicine work and its six regional EMS technical assistance hubs.

The goal is a sustainable system. Regions that can plan and pay for coverage. Paramedics who can treat people close to home. Payment that follows the care that was actually given.

Six work streams run at once. Each has its own experts, subcontractors, deadlines, and partners.

The six hubs do not exist yet. TPF is standing them up. That means first hires, governance papers, board recruiting, and the footing each hub needs to run on its own. The hubs will be the fiscal agents for their regions. TPF will not.

Essential duties and responsibilities

Supervisory responsibility and authority

The role has no direct reports. It coordinates TPF principals, experts, and subcontractors without supervising them. Each of them holds a separate agreement with TPF. Being coordinated does not change that agreement.

The role cannot sign or change a contract. It cannot certify anything to a state or federal agency. It cannot spend outside an approved budget. It cannot agree to a change in scope or schedule. Those powers sit here:

TPF’s financial statements, audit, and tax returns are the work of TPF’s outside accounting firm. The regional hubs are separate organizations. TPF helps start them, and this role does not run them.

Minimum qualifications

• Five or more years running deliverable-based projects to a formal method. Method means a work breakdown, a schedule with dependencies, a live risk register, change control, and regular status reports. Bring a work plan or schedule you built and kept current.
• Experience on multi-year projects with several work streams at once, and with subcontractors or partner groups.
• Working knowledge of federal uniform guidance at 2 CFR Part 200, gained on federally funded contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, or sub-awards.
• Writing that holds up in front of a state agency.
• Skill with Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, Teams, Excel, and Word, and with a scheduling or tracking tool.
• Able to commit to substantial and sustained availability aligned to Central Time, and to travel to Nebraska on a periodic basis if not local.
• No clinical credential is needed. Without an EMS background, a candidate can qualify on a like record in state or county work, public health, federally funded programs, nonprofit operations, or grants and contract administration.

Preferred qualifications

None of these is required. Each one strengthens an application.

• EMS experience: current or former paramedic, emergency medical technician (EMT), or EMS leader who knows how rural and frontier services run.
• A project management credential. The PMP, PgMP, CAPM, and PMI-ACP all count. So do others. No single one is expected.
• Training in grants or sponsored project work. NCURA coursework, the CRA, and the CGMS are examples.
• Work on a federal health award. An award from CMS or HRSA is the closest fit.
• Knowledge of Medicaid policy, EMS payment, health care quality assurance, or rural health systems.
• Experience helping with a Single Audit, or work in a group subject to one.
• Graduate study in public administration, public health, or health administration. Like professional experience counts the same.

What the abbreviations mean

Each credential below is awarded by the body named. The Paramedic Foundation is not a certifying body and does not endorse any of them; the links go to each organization’s own page so an applicant can confirm current requirements at the source.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities

• Keeps a multi-stream work plan current and usable, so a dependency shows up before it becomes a delay.
• Knows when to decide and when to escalate, in a structure where the Project Director is accountable.
• Works well with a spread-out team of working professionals in several time zones.
• Leaves partners better disposed toward the work than they were before the meeting.
• Holds credibility with paramedics and EMTs, with state staff, and with rural community leaders, and moves between them with ease.
• Writes things down as they happen, so a file opened a year later shows what was done, when, and who accepted it.

Working conditions and physical requirements

• Setting: remote, within the United States.
• Hours: substantial and sustained availability, aligned to Central Time. Some evenings and weekends come with the work, because local meetings happen when local people can attend. The load peaks in the first five business days of each month and before each state report is due.
• Travel: periodic trips to Nebraska by rail, air, or car. Trips are more frequent while the hubs are being set up.
• Physical demands: seated computer work, phone and video calls, long stretches of reading and writing, driving on regional trips, and carrying meeting or training materials.
• Reasonable accommodation is available to enable a person with a disability to perform the essential functions of the position. If a disability makes any part of the application process inaccessible, write to info@paramedicfoundation.org and TPF will arrange an alternative.

Terms of engagement

This is an independent contractor engagement, and it is fully remote. It runs under TPF’s standard Consultant Agreement and one or more Scopes of Work. Those state the services, deliverables, schedule, fees, and availability. The term runs with TPF’s Nebraska contract, stated above.

TPF asks a few things of every consultant. Answer TPF messages within one business day. Treat client deadlines as firm. Raise a schedule risk before the deadline, not after. Create and keep all project work in TPF’s Microsoft 365 environment.

The contractor supplies their own equipment, workspace, taxes, and insurance. TPF may extend its own insurance to an individual who is not incorporated, if both sides agree in writing. Where fees are charged to a federal award, the federal salary cap and federal cost rules apply.

Checks before a contract is offered

TPF verifies a few things before it offers a contract. None of this happens without the candidate knowing.

• Credentials: any credential a candidate claims must be evidenced. TPF checks it with the issuing body.
• Federal exclusion: TPF checks that the candidate is not excluded from federal health care programs or from federal contracting.
• Background: a candidate who can be verified on the EMS Compact registry has already had a background check through that process. A candidate not on that registry may be asked to complete one.
• Work authorization: TPF confirms the candidate is authorized to work in the United States.

How to apply

1. Send a letter of interest, a resume or CV, a writing sample, a work plan or schedule you built, and three professional references to info@paramedicfoundation.org.
2. Use the subject line “Project Manager, Nebraska”. Applications are reviewed as they arrive until the role is filled.
3. In the letter of interest, describe how artificial intelligence (AI) was used to prepare the application, and include the prompts. TPF reads that as work product. TPF uses AI in its own work, so the point is not whether a candidate used it. The point is how well they directed it, checked it, and stayed responsible for the result. An application that used no AI should say so.

Equal opportunity statement

The Paramedic Foundation is an equal opportunity organization. TPF does not discriminate in its contracting, engagement, or program activities. This applies to race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It applies to age, disability, and veteran status. It applies to sexual orientation and gender identity. It applies to any other characteristic protected by law.

Closing disclaimer

This description covers the general nature and level of the work. It is not a full list of every duty or skill. The engagement depends on TPF’s contract with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services continuing.