Welcome >> Our Mission
We believe that every individual has the potential to make a difference in time-sensitive emergencies. We are committed to empowering citizens, professionals and organizations through comprehensive education, training and advocacy. Together, we will create stronger community support systems that will improve sudden cardiac arrest outcomes.
To achieve our mission, we focus on strengthening the Chain of Survival — a series of critical actions that must occur to increase the chances of survival for individuals experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. The Chain of Survival includes:
Promptly identifying cardiac arrest and calling emergency services.
Healthcare professionals providing further medical intervention.
Provided by bystanders until professional help arrives.
Comprehensive care for recovery and rehabilitation.
Rapid use of an AED to restore normal heart rhythm.
The Citizen CPR Foundation (CCPRF) was established in 1987 to “strengthen the Chain of Survival” for sudden cardiac arrest victims. Since then, CCPRF has focused on educating lay rescuers and emergency professionals at all levels to enhance community response capabilities.
For over 30 years, CCPRF hosted the Emergency Cardiovascular Care Update (ECCU) Conference, bringing together a wide array of resuscitation professionals, survivors, and advocates. In a significant milestone, ECCU evolved into the Cardiac Arrest Survival Summit (CASSummit), which now includes expanded content to engage a broader global community in lifesaving initiatives.
“Today’s survival rate after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is generally less than 10 percent. If communities can increase the rate to 20 percent, 60,000 lives could be saved in the U.S. each year. It will take more cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training, more automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and more recognition of lives lost.”
Vinay M. Nadkarni, MD
Immediate Past President, Citizen CPR Foundation
President, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
President
Immediate Past President
Chair Secretary
Emeritus Member
At-Large Member
Treasurer
2025 Cardiac Arrest Survival Summit Program Chair
Treasurer Pro Tem
The Citizen CPR Foundation began with, and continues to thrive through, the steadfast support of our Founding Members.
© 2024 CPR Foundation, Inc.
President
Dr. Berger is Executive Director, Heart Center; Pediatric Heart Center, Lurie Children’s Hospital Vice Chair; Clinical Affairs Pediatrics, Lurie Children’s Hospital.
Under Dr. Berger’s direction, Project ADAM was established in November of 1999 after the sudden, unexpected deaths of several student athletes in southeastern Wisconsin. He, along with others, advocated for passage of the ADAM Act in the United States Congress, a bill that provides funding for a national clearinghouse for the dissemination of information that will assist schools in establishing AED programs.
Dr. Berger has published several papers and chapters, as well as editing books on the topics of pediatric cardiology and sudden cardiac death in children and adolescents.
Immediate Past President
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Vinay Nadkarni MD, MS is the Endowed Chair of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He directs the Center for Simulation, Advanced Education and Innovation at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and has served as the Chairman of the AHA Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee and International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation.
Chair Secretary
As a former Vice President of Regulatory and Clinical Affairs at Stryker, Paula was responsible for global regulatory leadership, clinical research, and clinical affairs. In this role since 2007, she worked with international regulatory agencies and standards organizations to maintain collaborative relationships and sustain regulatory compliance worldwide. In this role she led the effort to obtain Premarket approval for all the company’s AEDs, which became a new FDA regulation in 2015.
Paula has held a variety of leadership positions since joining Physio-Control in 1985, including Vice President of Clinical Research and Clinical Affairs and Director of AED Product Development. Previously, Paula worked at Harborview Medical Center in electrophysiology and cardiovascular research.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Wichita State University. Paula has served on the Executive Board of the Citizen CPR Foundation since 2008. Paula also served on the National American Heart Association (AHA) Nominating Committee, which followed a two-year term on the AHA National Board of Directors 2007-2009. Paula was an AHA volunteer for over 20 years and a CCPRF volunteer for more than 25 years.
Paula and her husband Greg live in Scottsdale, AZ and love spending time with their growing group of grandchildren.
Emeritus Member
Dr. William H. Montgomery was a co-founder of the Citizen CPR Foundation in 1987 and served as its President until 2004. He is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine.
He recently retired from the multispecialty Straub Clinic and Hospital in Honolulu where he was Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology for 38 years. He remains in private practice. During his career at Straub, he held many other administrative posts including Chief of Staff, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer. His activities outside Straub include active participation in the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). He is also a past President of the Hawaii Society of Anesthesiologists and a member of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.
Dr. Montgomery’s interest in CPR and resuscitation began in 1973 at the Hawaii Heart Association where he began teaching American Heart Association (AHA) CPR courses. In 1975, he was invited to join AHA activities at the national level and has been active in teaching, writing educational materials and administering ECC programs. He served as chair of the AHA national BLS, ECC and program administration committees, to name a few. He was chair of the 1985 Silver Anniversary National Conference to review the Standards and Guidelines for CPR and ECC and has coordinated subsequent conferences, including the 2010 International Consensus Conference on CPR and ECC. His special interest is fostering international cooperation in the resuscitation field, expertise he applied as an organizer of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) and chairman from 1998-2006.
He has received numerous awards recognizing these achievements, including the American Heart Association’s Meritorious Achievement award in 1995, induction as an Honorary Member of the European Resuscitation Council in 2004 and honored as a “Giant” in resuscitation by ILCOR and the AHA in 2000.
Dr. Montgomery served as the program chair for several of CCPRF’s CASSummits, formerly known as the ECCU Conference. In gratitude, CCPRF created the William H. Montgomery, MD Excellence in Education Award in 2006. This award, sponsored by the Laerdal Foundation for Acute Medicine, is named in his honor and serves as encouragement to CASSummit concurrent session presenters to strive for excellence in their presentations.
At-Large Member
Dr. Tom Aufderheide is a Professor of Emergency Medicine with Tenure and Associate Chair of Research Affairs and Director of the NIH-funded Resuscitation Research Center in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is a nationally and internationally recognized researcher in the field of emergency cardiac care whose scholarly achievements include numerous state-of-the-art research studies and over 250 peer-reviewed publications that have made a significant impact on the practice of emergency medicine, including prehospital identification and treatment of the ischemic patient with the use of prehospital 12-lead electrocardiography and predictive instruments. He has served as principal and co-principal investigator on many important national studies, including the Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Trial, which doubled survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and provided the objective data on which to base national healthcare policy.
Dr. Aufderheide is one of a handful of nationally recognized researchers actively engaged and NIH-supported in the complex area of out-of-hospital cardiac resuscitation research that is likely to significantly change national and international CPR education, training, and clinical practice, including the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT), and Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials (SIREN) networks.
Treasurer
John C. Amato is President and CEO of WorldPoint, whose mission is to advance healthcare training by providing innovative products and outcome-based curriculum to healthcare instructors. WorldPoint is driven by a vision that providing the most memorable service to every customer by listening to them, understanding their needs, and delivering solutions promptly, attentively, and completely helps our customers save more lives. In short, WorldPoint strives to be a trusted and reliable advisor to our customers.
John has been working with the American Heart Association (AHA) and their Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) Division since 1996, helping to grow and strengthen AHA’s critical mission to build healthier lives free of cardiovascular disease and stroke. John has also served on the AHA Metro Chicago Board of Directors from 2005 to 2012 and was Chairman of the Board from 2007 through 2012. At the national level, he served as Co-Chair on the American Heart Association’s Vision for Volunteerism Initiative and the Citizen CPR Foundation Board of Directors, Committee Chair for the 50th Anniversary of CPR and the 2006 Survivor Celebration.
John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
2025 CASSummit Program Chair
Dr. Ed Racht has been involved in Emergency Medical Services and healthcare systems for more than 30 years. He currently serves as Chair of the Texas EMS, Trauma and Acute Care Foundation, an organization that provides advocacy, strategic planning and healthcare system credentialing in the State of Texas.
Dr. Racht has been Chief Medical Officer for Global Medical Response (GMR) since 2010. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs for Piedmont Newman Hospital in metro Atlanta. Dr. Racht was the first full-time Medical Director for the Austin/Travis County Emergency Medical Services System, where he spent 13 years. The System was nationally recognized in the Institute of Medicine’s Report on the state of emergency care for its collaborative approach to challenging healthcare integration issues.
Dr. Racht received his undergraduate and medical degree from Emory University in Atlanta and completed his residency at the Medical College of Virginia.
Dr. Racht is the recipient of numerous awards including being named EMS Medical Director of the Year for the State of Texas, the American Heart Association’s Paul Ledbetter MD Physician Volunteer of the Year Award and was named a “Hero of Emergency Medicine” in 2008 by the American College of Emergency Physicians. In 2015, he was the first recipient of the Joseph P. Ornato Excellence in Clinical Leadership Award, and in 2011 received the Slovis Award for Educational Excellence by the U.S. Metropolitan Municipalities Medical Director Consortium. He is also the third Inductee in the Texas EMS, Trauma and Acute Care Foundation Hall of Fame.
Treasurer pro tem
Mr. Hamilton retired as Senior Vice President from ZOLL Medical in 2017. He joined ZOLL in 1992 as Vice President of Marketing. He was elected President of the ZOLL Foundation in 2018. Prior to ZOLL, Mr. Hamilton was employed by the City of Pasadena Fire Department, Datascope Corporation and Laerdal Medical. He has worked in the field of resuscitation and devices for more than 40 years. Mr. Hamilton received his BA in Political Science from Hartwick College and holds a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Citizen CPR Foundation and Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and has also been active in the American Heart Association.
Dr. Bradley is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Chief of the Division of EMS and Disaster Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He has over 30 years’ experience as an emergency physician, 9-1-1 dispatcher and firefighter/paramedic.
His responsibilities include serving as the program director for the fellowship in Emergency Medical Services that will prepare future medical leaders in Emergency Medical Services and the emerging field of Homeland Security. Before this assignment, he accumulated seven years of experience as Medical Director or Chief of Service at two major hospital Emergency Centers in Houston. Dr. Bradley is a 1990 graduate of Santa Clara University. He completed his medical training at Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1994. Before graduating from college, Dr. Bradley accumulated 10 years’ experience as a firefighter, paramedic, and 9-1-1 dispatcher. Since graduating from medical school, he has completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at the Stanford-Kaiser Combined Emergency Medicine Program and a Fellowship in Emergency Medical Services with the Houston Fire Department. Dr. Bradley served as the Assistant Medical Director of the Houston Fire Department for eight years.
He has 14 years of experience in the Air National Guard, where he holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and is assigned to the 147th Medical Group in Houston. He has completed two active-duty tours of duty, serving as the senior Critical Care Air Transport Physician in Iraq for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and in Germany with forward deployment to Afghanistan for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. He also has extensive experience in Disaster Medicine, and currently has additional duties as Associate Director for EMS Preparedness for the UT Health Science Center at Houston’s Center for Biosecurity and as Public Health Preparedness and Medical Team Manager for Texas Task Force One, a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Team. His deployments include the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Space Shuttle Columbia recovery, and Hurricane Katrina.
Marc Gay is Executive Director for an Emergency Medical Dispatch Center in Sherbrooke, Québec.
He currently chairs the College of Fellows and the Dispatch CPR committee for the National Academy of Emergency Dispatch. He has served as chair of the ECC committee for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada from 1996-2003 and was a member of the AHA BLS subcommittee from 1996-2005.
Program Director, HEARTSafe Communities
David Hiltz is Director of Innovation and Customer Experience at Code One Training Solutions, LLC. In this position, he works to ensure responders are ready, willing and able to act when faced with a medical emergency. David is committed to helping organizations improve their systems of care for cardiac arrest. David has an extensive background in cardiac arrest response through his work at Code One and nearly two decades with the American Heart Association, where he was responsible for education, implementation, strategy development, and helping responders achieve improved outcomes.
In addition to his work at Code One, David is an active volunteer with several organizations including the American College of Cardiology and the Citizen CPR Foundation, where he serves as the Director for their HEARTSafe Community initiative.
Dr. Rea is Medical Program Director for King County EMS and Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Rea has published widely on cardiac arrest and resuscitation and is very involved in ongoing research and evaluations programs. He is director of the HeartRescue program, which aims to improve survival in participating states and communities.
David Saltzman is the Senior Manager of Strategic and Corporate Accounts at Philips Healthcare, Emergency Care and Resuscitation Division. As a member of the Philips Leadership Team, David works to ensure enterprise clients and strategic accounts are supported in their efforts to combat sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) with comprehensive AED solutions.
David has an extensive background in cardiac arrest response and defibrillation through his 15 years of work at Philips Healthcare and, prior to that, his five years with Laerdal Medical. As a Philips Emergency Care and Resuscitation sales representative, David achieved the prestigious Pinnacle Award, the top sales honor within the organization, six of his ten years in that position. He has been responsible for some of the largest AED programs implemented both locally and nationally and currently supports global implementations in dozens of countries around the world.
Additionally, David has vast experience supporting grassroots efforts toward combating SCA with numerous foundations, municipalities, school systems, PAD programs, youth sports organizations and first responders.
David is married and the father of three boys and currently resides in Sea Cliff, NY. His passion is his family and friends, and interests include the New York Yankees, live music, Peloton and, of course, saving lives!
Erik leads the Stryker global R&D team for Defibrillators, AEDs, Mechanical CPR, Data Solutions and Patient Transport Solutions. In addition, he is also Chairman of the board for Avidicare AB, developing a unique system for ultra-clean air for operating theaters, and BiBB Instruments AB, which develops innovative biopsy instruments to improve cancer diagnoses.
Erik has over 29 years of experience from leadership roles in the medtech industry. Before Stryker, Erik served since 2004 as CEO for Jolife AB. During his leadership the company developed the LUCAS CPR device to a market-leading product and divested the company to Physio-Control in 2010. Since the transaction, Erik transitioned into the role as GM Circulatory Solution at Physio-Control. Before this Erik was the CEO of Jostra AB, a global company developing heart lung machines and ECMO devices. This company was divested to Getinge/Maquet in 2003. Prior to this Erik served in several leading positions in Sweden and Japan at Gambro AB. He has also served as Communication Officer in the Swedish Royal Navy.
Erik holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Lund University and an Executive MBA degree.
Jody P. Wacker brings more than 20 years’ experience to her position as Chief Marketing Officer, Field at the American Red Cross. As the marketing lead for the Red Cross Training Services portfolio, Wacker oversees all facets of marketing, specifically developing and executing marketing strategy, communications, programs, advertising, and events.
Prior to joining the Red Cross, Wacker served as Vice President of Marketing for Cellebrite, a digital forensics corporation, where she oversaw global marketing for the company’s North American, Latin American and South American operations. Prior to that, Wacker held positions in the Customer Success division for Cloud products and services at Oracle Corporation.
Wacker’s career has included additional Vice President of Marketing and Sales positions for several management/technical consulting firms. At Apropos Technology, she managed the marketing organization from startup through a successful IPO. She began her career as a technologist and marketing executive with AT&T.
Wacker holds a bachelor’s degree from Montclair State University and a Master of Business Administration with a specialty in marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Neil Weber is President of Laerdal Medical, North America. Laerdal is a pioneer and world leader in the field of resuscitation and simulation education with a long-standing mission of helping save lives. Laerdal serves healthcare providers and educators with products and services for medical simulation, CPR training, Basic Life Support, Advanced Life Support, medical procedures and patient care, airway management, immobilization, and medical education. Our vision is that no one should die or be disabled unnecessarily during birth or from sudden illness, trauma or medical errors.
Neil has spent over twenty years in the medical device and healthcare IT industries in a wide range of environments. He has developed growth strategies at start-ups as well as both new growth and turnaround strategies at Fortune 50 companies. Previous roles include commercial leadership positions at Johnson & Johnson, GE Healthcare, BD (Becton Dickinson), and Salient Surgical Technologies. His responsibilities at different times have included organizational leadership, corporate strategy, brand management, product management, business development, marketing and sales.
Neil holds a BSE degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Mr. White was named President of the ZOLL Resuscitation division in October 2018. He joined ZOLL as Vice President of Marketing in 2012 with responsibilities for the global marketing and strategy of the company’s resuscitation portfolio. Prior to ZOLL, Mr. White led North American marketing efforts at Haemonetics. Earlier, he held general management and marketing leadership positions at Orthofix and Medtronic cardiology.
Mr. White has also served as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and holds an MBA and a B.A. from Harvard University.
Sandra Zambon is Manager, Stakeholder Engagement and Special Programs with the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada. She brings over 18 years’ experience in developing partnerships with North American and international stakeholders and collaborating with resuscitation researchers, EMS professionals and educators, as well as corporate partners.
Sandra’s main focus is on community development, engagement and advocacy to help build programs aimed at increasing awareness programs to strengthen the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s mission to help the public and communities become ready, willing and able to take action when a cardiac emergency occurs.
A professor in the division of trauma and surgical critical care at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, TN, Mary Fran Hazinski, RN, MSN, combines her expertise as a pediatric clinical care nurse specialist, teacher and author to become a renowned resource on pediatric clinical care and resuscitation. In addition to teaching, Mary Fran has also worked as a clinical nurse specialist in pediatric critical care at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital in Vanderbilt. Her extensive list of accomplishments includes injury prevention as part of the Vanderbilt Children’s Traffic Safety Program, a study on the accuracy of AEDs in interpreting pediatric rhythms, serving as editor for the American Heart Association’s 2005 guidelines for CPR and ECC and authoring several textbooks. The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation named Mary Fran one of five “Giants of Resuscitation Medicine” in 2010.
David Johnson retired from Laerdal Medical in January 2020 after 32 years of service. He served as President and Regional Director for Laerdal Medical, Americas from 2010. Laerdal is a pioneer and world leader in the field of resuscitation and simulation education and is most widely known for the introduction of Resusci Anne in 1960.
David was instrumental in many of the company’s product development and marketing activities over the years and served as Vice President of Sales prior to taking the role of President. David served on the CCPRF Board from 2012–2019. He was also a Public Member on the Board of Directors for the National League for Nursing (2014-2018) where he was inducted into the Academy of Nursing Education Fellows (2018). David holds a B.S. in Business Administration with emphasis in Finance and Marketing from Susquehanna University (1981).
While retired, David remains active supporting the efforts of the CCPRF Strategic Development Committee, as well as advising several other companies and organizations.
Tore Laerdal is Chairman of the Board of the Laerdal Foundation for Acute Medicine, which since 1980 has provided financial support to nearly 2,000 practically oriented research projects.
Mr. Laerdal is also Chairman of the Board of Laerdal Medical, a world leading company within training material and therapeutic equipment for acute medicine.
Mr. Laerdal serves as Chairman of the Board of three external research foundations in Norway. He holds a degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, and has received an Honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK.
James (Jim) Niskanen served on the Citizen CPR Foundation Board of Directors for over a 10-year period (2011-2022). Among his many leadership roles with the Foundation, Jim led the development of the Survivor Committee serving as Chair for many years.
Jim also served as a park and recreation professional for 35 years in several cities in Northern California. A sought-after trainer and speaker, Jim was teaching when he was struck with Sudden Cardiac Arrest. Jim survived SCA due to the quick work of students who performed CPR and applied an AED. Today, Jim is a strong advocate of community-based CPR and placement of AEDs.
Jim is the Retired Director of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods for the City of Modesto, CA. Other positions he has held include: Interim City Manager; Interim Deputy City Manager; Interim Community and Economic Development Director and Interim Public Works Director. Jim also served as Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Modesto; Program Manager/Recreation Supervisor for the City of Sunnyvale, CA; Recreation Supervisor for the City of Alameda, CA; and Recreation Program Coordinator for the City of Sunnyvale. He received his B.S. degree in Recreation Administration and Leisure Services from San Jose State University (1976).
Some of his professional affiliations include: California Park and Recreation Society, Inc.; Golf Course Superintendents of America; National Institute of Golf Management; National Recreation and Park Association; Neighborhoods USA; and U.S. Golf Association.
Awards and honors he has received are: Member, Chair, Building Strong Neighborhoods Impact Council of the United Way of Stanislaus County, 2004-06; Club Service Director, Modesto Sunrise Rotary, 2004-07; Trustee, National Institute of Golf Management (since 2002); Chair, National Institute of Golf Management (2000); Chair, Chair-elect and Past Chair, National Institute of Golf Management (1999); and Past President, California Park and Recreation Society, Inc., District IV (1988-89); Fellow, American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (since 2000).
Since retiring in June 2009, Jim has been a highly sought after national speaker on telling his story of surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest in August 2008. He also is the Community Chair for the American Heart Association Heart Walk – Modesto in September 2010.
Jim also enjoys spending time with his wife of 34 years, Valeri, and their four children, spouses and two grandchildren.
Robert Niskanen has been active in biomedical engineering for more than 30 years with primary professional interests centering on resuscitation, emergency medicine and cardiovascular disease. Through Resurgent Biomedical, Bob consulted for several medical device companies — all related to improving survival from sudden cardiac arrest. Prior to starting Resurgent Biomedical Consulting, Bob was a Senior Principal Scientist at Physio-Control in Redmond, WA for more than 25 years. As the Director of Research and then VP of Clinical Research, he was involved in both technical and clinical research in CPR, defibrillation, ventilation, acute myocardial infarction triage, and medical data management. Bob is also Cofounder and past Chairman of the Board of Take Heart America™ Sudden Cardiac Arrest Initiative, pioneering the systems-based approach to improving survival from sudden cardiac arrest (www.takeheartamerica.org).
Bob delights in working with engineers, scientists, physicians, researchers, business professionals, and others to solve problems in emergency medicine. He is convinced that dramatic improvements can and will be made in the survival rate of sudden cardiac arrest through collaboration.
Bob is active with a number of professional organizations, including the National Association of EMS Physicians, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, American College of Emergency Physicians, AHA, European Resuscitation Council, Citizen CPR, and Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation.
Bob earned his MSEE at the University of Washington in 1976. He and his wife Judy live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest where they enjoy their five young grandchildren and three grown kids either at home, on the river, or at the cabin.
Maureen O’Connor is the Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Program Manager for San Diego Project Heart Beat (SDPHB) and has been in the field of emergency services for 18 years. SDPHB is one of America’s first defibrillation programs to offer such a unique opportunity for public and private venture.
SDPHB was recognized by the National Center for Early Defibrillation (NCED) as best Large Community Program of the year in October of 2003. Most recently SDPHB received the 2009 Heart Safe Community Award PAD Program, Large Community from the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association’s 2009 SCAA Public Service Award. Maureen takes great pride in her involvement with the development of this internationally recognized program since its inception in 2001.
Maureen has served the communities of San Diego County as an Emergency First Responder in many different facets. Maureen has worked on some of San Diego Cities busiest paramedic units for San Diego Fire-Rescue, served as a Firefighter for the City of Poway and worked as a Ranger/Diver for the City of San Diego.
Maureen’s passion for lifesaving PAD programs is apparent in the success of San Diego Project Heart Beat. Maureen and her team members have helped bring the dream and foresight of Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) and Early Access Defibrillation programs into fruition within the communities of San Diego County, saving 80 lives to date (March 2011) and deploying over 6,500 Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs).
Maureen won the San Diego Business Journal’s Annual Women Who Mean Business Award in October of 2004 for her success and accomplishments with the regional PAD program. She was also recognized by her department as EMS Administrative Support Person of the Year during National EMS Week in May 2005 and has been a recipient of VFW Post 3788’s 2005 Paramedic/EMT of the year award and 2008 – 2009 Outstanding Achievement Appreciation Award from the San Diego County American Heart Association Chapter. Maureen also served as Co-Chair of the Local Planning Committee for ECCU 2010.
In 2014, Ed celebrated his 47th year in the field of Emergency Medical Services. He started as a Basic EMT in 1967 in the New York City EMS System and served as a Combat Medic in Vietnam in 1968-69. Ed became one of the first paramedics in the New York City EMS System in 1975. He went on to become one of the first EMS Educators in the New York City EMS system.
From 1989 to 2005, Ed served on the National Basic Life Support Committee for the American Heart Association and co-authored the Basic Life Support Textbooks from 1997 to 2004 in his capacity as BLS Science Editor. During his career, Ed co-developed a large number of unique educational programs including five EMT and Paramedic programs in the New York City region and the first Associates Degree program in New York State at LaGuardia Community College.
He has conducted numerous scientific studies related to Emergency Cardiac Care and EMS and has authored over 120 scientific and educational works including textbooks, journal articles, videos, interactive CDs, student workbooks, and instructor guides. Today Ed is active in the development of cardiac arrest response systems for both in-hospital and pre-hospital care. Ed routinely lectures throughout the world on EMS, education, and emergency cardiac care. He is also the Co-Chairman of the Halla-Stony Brook Emergency Medicine Center in Jeju Island, South Korea.
As co-founder of the RedFlash Group, Keith has continued his four-decade commitment to the EMS profession. RFG is an award-winning national consulting firm that provides outreach, education and marketing for the health and public safety markets. Since 2000, it has served leading commercial firms, government agencies, national associations and foundations.
With the late Jim Page, Keith co-founded JEMS, the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, in 1979. The company went on to become a multimedia resource, with trade shows, peer-reviewed journals, books, videos and consulting services. Jim Page and JEMS were critical in the creation of the Citizen CPR Foundation and the Emergency Cardiac Care Update conference, the predecessor to the Cardiac Arrest Survival Summit.
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