People who have done this work, not just studied it

Sarah is an executive leader with deep expertise in operations, process improvement, and financial performance in large-scale healthcare settings. Her work centers on deployment modeling, workforce strategy, and financial performance analysis, applying structured analytical methods to TPF engagements. A parallel thread runs through process improvement at scale: she is a GE-certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and led a regional performance improvement program as Director of Process Improvement at a major university hospital. She has served as Director of Supply Chain at Colorado’s largest regional health system, and earlier ran her own consulting firm delivering revenue cycle and operational improvements to healthcare and EMS organizations. She holds a BS in Emergency Medical Services Management from The George Washington University and an MBA from Fordham University.

Sean is an emergency services executive and consultant with nearly four decades of experience spanning field, clinical, regulatory, and executive leadership. His work centers on organizational assessment, executive development, governance, and funding strategy for fire districts, county governments, and hospital-based EMS systems. A parallel thread runs through professional association leadership: he is Past President of the National EMS Management Association, Chairman of the American College of Paramedic Executives, and a past President of the EMS Association of Colorado. He is Chief Executive Officer and Commissioner of the Crested Butte Fire Protection District and has been a principal consultant with CCA Associates since 2000. He holds an MBA from the University of Denver and a BS in Emergency Services Administration from The George Washington University.

Pete is a healthcare operations executive with expertise in value-based medical care and hospital-at-home delivered through multidisciplinary community paramedicine. His work centers on care-delivery models that move acute and urgent care into the home and the community. A parallel thread runs through scaling: as Chief of Paramedicine at Medically Home he helped scale a hospital-at-home model into a national, EMS-supported network operating in fourteen states, and earlier built one of his region’s first community paramedicine programs at North Memorial Health. He is Vice President of Operations at Lifespark, where he holds profit-and-loss accountability for an enterprise care-delivery arm serving older adults across clinic, in-home, virtual, and urgent-response teams. He holds an MBA from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and is a Nationally Registered Paramedic.

Anthony is a clinical leader with 34 years across the EMS continuum: BLS and ALS 9-1-1 operations, tactical EMS, ground critical care transport, air medical services, and senior clinical leadership. His work centers on financial sustainability analysis, GEMT feasibility assessments, and performance metrics and QA/QI framework development on TPF engagements. A parallel thread runs through education and oversight: as Director of Quality, Education, and Training at a large New Jersey health system he oversaw clinical quality, an EMT school, a paramedic sciences school, and medical oversight for multiple agencies. He served on a state police special operations unit and responded to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He holds an MS in Emergency Health Services from UMBC, an MSN as an Adult Geriatric Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, and a BSN.

Andi is a critical care flight paramedic and medical educator with experience across military, academic, and international austere environments. Her work centers on operational medicine curriculum, scenario-based instruction, and instructor development for austere and high-stress environments. A parallel thread runs through international practice: she has delivered clinical care and medical education in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Republic of Congo with the Asclepius Snakebite Foundation, including co-authorship of the Joint Trauma System clinical practice guideline on snakebite envenomation. She is Chief Training Officer for Anyone Not Ready and Badge Med, Community Paramedic for Eagle County Paramedic Service, and an EMT Instructor at Colorado College. She served as a Critical Care Flight Paramedic and Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army, including assignments with the 10th Mountain Division and the U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence, and is a bilingual presenter in English and French.

Dr. Charlton is an EMS physician with more than 20 years of experience who began as a firefighter and emergency medical technician before medical school. His work centers on EMS medical direction for ten fire-based agencies across southwestern Ohio, from busy urban departments to rural volunteer services, and on the regional EMS protocols he co-chairs with one of his paramedic captains through the Academy of Medicine of Cincinnati, which agencies in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky use. A parallel thread runs through community paramedicine and mobile integrated healthcare: as National Medical Director for Optum Urgent Care he scaled a mobile integrated healthcare program into more than 20 states, he serves on the State of Ohio work group developing a statewide strategy for community paramedicine and mobile integrated health, and he sits on the boards of the Community Paramedicine Association and Registry and the Global Paramedic Higher Education Council. He is Medical Director of EMSDoctors, holds appointments to State of Ohio medical oversight and advisory committees, and serves on the executive boards of the Ohio Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival and the Tri-State Peer Support Team. He is board certified in emergency medicine and EMS, a Nationally Registered Paramedic, a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and of the Academy of Emergency Medical Services of the National Association of EMS Physicians, holds a Master of Science in Health Services Administration, and was named the 2026 Ohio EMS Medical Director of the Year.

Andrea is a sociologist and public health researcher with over two decades of qualitative and mixed-methods research on health equity, the health workforce, and community-engaged practice. As a research collaborator, she brings expertise in study design, interviewing, document review, and analysis to advance programs and policies that support the communities served. Andrea’s research appointments at the University of Washington spanned family medicine, psychiatry, general internal medicine, and social work, including studies of the rural health workforce, behavioral health integration, and collaborative care billing. She contributed to the qualitative arm of The Paramedic Foundation’s 2016 King County Emergency Medical Services Division Advanced Life Support Study. Andrea holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of California San Francisco and an MPH in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan.

Kyle is a United States Marine Corps combat veteran and business executive with a background spanning medical, intelligence, and austere operations. His work centers on operational medicine training for military units and civilian agencies. A parallel thread runs through instruction and analysis: in the Marine Corps he served as an Intelligence Chief and Civil Affairs Specialist and instructed officers in analysis, intelligence preparation of the battlespace, and targeting. He is co-founder and chief executive officer of Anyone Not Ready, of All Hazards Response, and of Badge Med, and serves as an Emergency Services Technician at University of Colorado Health in Colorado Springs, where he has been the mass casualty incident and disaster response education champion for the Emergency Department. He lectures at the Special Operations Medical Association and the Australian Tactical Medicine Conference and has presented to United States Army units on lessons from the Russo-Ukraine War. He holds an MPA and an MA from George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and is completing his paramedic certification.

Dr. Hurtado is a board-certified emergency physician with more than 25 years in emergency medicine, EMS medical direction, and austere and wilderness medicine. His work centers on prehospital clinical oversight, protocol validation, and prolonged field care in wildland, tactical, and high-altitude settings. A parallel thread runs through military and expedition medicine: he served as an emergency physician in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and in South Korea, holds the Bronze Star, and is faculty for the Wilderness Medical Society’s Diploma in Mountain Medicine. He is an emergency physician and EMS Medical Director with US Acute Care Solutions at Penrose-St. Francis Hospitals in Colorado Springs, where he has practiced since 2010, and Chief Medical Officer of Anyone Not Ready. He holds EMS medical direction appointments across public and private agencies in Colorado, including the Colorado Springs Fire Department, El Paso County Search and Rescue, and Bureau of Land Management wildland firefighters, and is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Dr. Jonk is a health economist with more than 25 years in health services research. Her work centers on rural health economics, insurance coverage, access to care, and cost and utilization analysis in rural and frontier communities. A parallel thread runs through ambulance deserts: she is first author of the Maine Rural Health Research Center’s 2023 chartbook on geographic disparities in the provision of ambulance services. She is Research Professor and Director of the Maine Rural Health Research Center at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service, Co-Director of the Northeast Rural Health Research Center, and leads the university’s participation in the Rural Telehealth Research Center, a national HRSA-funded consortium. She holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Leggio is a health system administrator and paramedic educator whose career spans paramedic practice, program coordination, and emergency department and trauma administration. His work centers on paramedic education and curriculum, certification and examination standards, and emergency department and trauma program administration. A parallel thread runs through paramedicine scholarship: he is founding and managing editor of the Creighton Journal of Interdisciplinary Leadership, serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Paramedicine, and is an associate editor of the Irish Journal of Paramedicine. He is Administrator for Wisconsin emergency departments, the trauma program, and urgent care at Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, with responsibility across multiple emergency departments including a level-II trauma center, a multi-million-dollar budget, and a 65-physician practice, and serves as an independent certification examination content expert for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. His international paramedic education work contributed to the first internationally CAAHEP-accredited paramedic education program.

Corey is an EMS systems professional and flight paramedic with more than 20 years spanning high-volume urban 911, fire-based EMS, pediatric emergency care, and regional critical care transport. His work centers on system performance, deployment modeling, and QA/QI infrastructure. A parallel thread runs through clinical education: he delivers education for an internal paramedic program, has served as clinical preceptor in a high-volume regional pediatric emergency department, and is a PHTLS Instructor. He serves with UCHealth EMS in Northern Colorado, providing critical care transport across rotor-wing and ground platforms in a multi-county regional system serving rural and frontier communities, and previously served as Division Chief there with accountability for system performance and the development of 130 EMS staff. As Interim EMS Chief and Lieutenant at Owasso Fire Department he led system expansion including siting and opening a new station and contributed to a formal Standard of Cover analysis. He holds a BS in Healthcare Administration, expected 2026.

Matthew is a paramedicine research scientist focused on community paramedicine, health system measurement, and rural EMS research methods. His work centers on assessment instruments and standards: he authored the interRAI Community Paramedicine Contact Assessment Form and serves as Vice-Chair of the CSA Group paramedic technical committee. A parallel thread runs through system leadership: he served as Director of Emergency Health Services for the Government of Prince Edward Island and as Executive Director of the Ontario Community Paramedicine Secretariat. He is a Health System Impact Scientist with the University of Prince Edward Island Health Research Network. He holds a PhD in Health Research Methodology and an MA in Geography from McMaster University and a BSc from Carleton University, and is a registered Primary Care Paramedic in Ontario.

Sandy is a paramedic, educator, and researcher with three decades across clinical practice, academic leadership, and EMS operations in Canada and Australia. His work centers on paramedic education design, simulation, and research into the physiological and cognitive demands the work places on practitioners. A parallel thread runs through operational leadership: he was Chief Flight Paramedic for a helicopter EMS company overseeing seven bases and 120 flight paramedics, Deputy Chief of Technical Services at Ottawa Paramedic Service, and Director of Educational Services at Medavie EMS, where he directed two paramedic training institutions through Canadian Medical Association accreditation and built training for Canadian Armed Forces providers deploying to wartime theaters. He is Assistant Professor of Healthcare Innovations at Bond University, a past Associate Editor of the journal Paramedicine, and co-author of a 2025 history of ambulance and emergency care spanning one hundred years. He maintains an active clinical caseload as a registered paramedic across remote, austere, event, and production environments. He holds a PhD in Paramedicine and an MBA from Charles Sturt University and a BSc from McGill University, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Australasian College of Paramedicine, and a Fellow of the Academy of Extreme Environment Medicine.

Robert is a fire and EMS GIS analyst with 20 years in spatial and data analysis. His work centers on master planning, service level evaluation, station location, response time analysis, and deployment optimization, across more than 200 fire and EMS agency studies. A parallel thread runs through teaching: he is a contract GIS instructor at the FEMA Emergency Management Institute and the National Fire Academy, and taught GIS as an adjunct at UNC Charlotte. He began his career as a firefighter and paramedic before moving into spatial analysis. He holds an MA in Geography from UNC Charlotte and a BA in Public Administration from Kean University, and his work has been published in Environment & Planning B and presented at ESRI, AAG, and national public safety conferences.

Dr. Peterson, known to the TPF team as Quigley, is an EMS medical director with experience across Southeast Alaska. His work centers on protocol design, patient safety frameworks, and the regulatory specifics of non-transport and alternative destination pathways in one of the most complex EMS authorization environments in the country. A parallel thread runs through international rural and remote care: he attended the inaugural International Rural and Remote Prehospital Collaborative meeting in Whitehorse in 2014, which connects his Alaska perspective to the networks that inform TPF’s work. He serves as clinical advisor for MIH, treat-in-place, and alternative response components in TPF engagements, ensuring that proposed programs are clinically defensible, medically appropriate, and compliant with applicable regulatory requirements.

Jules is a rural EMS administrator with more than 32 years in emergency medical services. Her work centers on EMS grant writing, rural agency system development, and education program design, with particular depth in EMS administration, ambulance billing, and system development for volunteer and combination agencies. A parallel thread runs through county-level governance: she chairs the Tama County Essential Services Advisory Council, overseeing policy and fund distribution for a county EMS tax trust serving nine agencies, and is President of the Tama County EMS Association. She has served as Director of EMS for two rural Iowa ambulance services and serves the City of Dysart as Grant Writer and Policy and Procedure Specialist. She taught EMT and AEMT programs at Kirkwood Community College for a decade, co-authored Fundamentals of Basic Emergency Care, served as a Director-at-large on NAEMT’s Board of Directors, and is Vice Chair of the National Volunteer Fire Council EMS/Rescue Section.

Barry is a retired Fire and EMS Chief with more than 28 years in fire service, EMS, and emergency management. His work centers on strategic synthesis and phased implementation roadmap development on TPF engagements. A parallel thread runs through incident command: a Type III Incident Commander, he has deployed to Hurricane Katrina, the Colorado Floods of 2013, and multiple other major incidents. He served for 16 years as Fire Chief of a Colorado fire protection district, leading a full organizational transformation and improving the agency’s ISO rating from 9 to 3, before moving to a senior leadership role at Colorado’s largest regional EMS provider. He holds a BA from the University of Colorado Boulder and is a graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program.

Mark is an EMS leader working at the intersection of operations and education, with more than 35 years in the field. His work centers on EMS workforce, education, and certification. A parallel thread runs through national standards: he serves on the Commission on Accreditation of Prehospital Continuing Education and the American College of Paramedic Executives, and his publication record spans AHA guidelines authorship, peer-reviewed journal articles, and national EMS policy documents including NHTSA’s National Guidelines for Educating EMS Instructors. He served as Chief Certification Officer at the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians for five years, leading certification, accreditation, and policy through the COVID-19 pandemic, and before that spent 11 years as Deputy Chief at Johnson County MED-ACT in Kansas, directing a system running 38,000 calls per year with 120 FTE and a $15M budget. He held executive leadership roles at MAST Ambulance in Kansas City, where he led the agency’s first CAAS accreditation, and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Kansas.

Sarah is a regional healthcare leader and registered nurse with more than 25 years of experience in prehospital care, trauma systems, obstetric and maternal-newborn nursing, public health, and nursing education. Her work centers on the regional planning, grant administration, and technical assistance that bring EMS agencies, hospitals, public health, healthcare coalitions, county governments, and state partners to shared system needs. A parallel thread runs through the bedside and the classroom: she began as an EMT in emergency department, rural 911, and interfacility transport roles, practiced in labor and delivery, postpartum, and home-based public health nursing, managed a Level III trauma program, and taught as a nursing professor and simulation faculty member. She is Executive Director of the Central Mountains Regional Emergency Medical and Trauma Advisory Council, serving six rural and mountain counties in Colorado, and a nurse home visitor with Eagle County Public Health and Environment. She serves on Colorado’s Statewide Trauma Advisory Committee and holds a Master of Health Leadership from Western Governors University and a Master of Science in Nursing Education from Excelsior College.

Robert is a rural fire and EMS executive with more than two decades in EMS and fire management. His work centers on operational efficiency, protocol implementation, response-time improvement, and funding. A parallel thread runs through service transitions: his background includes leading volunteer-to-combination service transitions and sustaining emergency services across rural and resort communities. He serves as EMS and Fire Chief and Chief Operating Officer of the Crested Butte Fire Protection District.

Scott is a healthcare executive and policy advisor focused on mobile integrated healthcare, community paramedicine, and sustainable patient-centric care models. His work centers on program design, regulatory innovation, value-based EMS models, and the integration of paramedicine into broader care delivery systems. A parallel thread runs through convening and standards: he chairs the International Roundtable on Community Paramedicine and is a founding board member of the National Association of Mobile Integrated Healthcare Providers. He is Director of Product and Strategic Partnerships at a health technology company, leading strategy and regulatory engagement for EMS and mobile care providers across North America, and created the Emergency Response and Readiness Index, a publicly available tool for identifying individuals at heightened risk during emergencies. He holds an MPH and is a certified Community Paramedic.