Rescue Inc. today has announced the appointment of Drew Hazelton as interim Chief of Operations. Former Chief of Operations, Mark Considine will assume new duties within the organization, as announced earlier in June. Both Drew and Mark will work together to facilitate a smooth and seamless transition.
Hazelton has an impressive career in emergency service. Throughout the last eighteen years, he has served as a volunteer EMT and firefighter for Newbrook Fire and Rescue and a volunteer with Grace Cottage Ambulance service which later became Division II of Rescue Inc. He started as a full time paramedic with Rescue Inc. in July of 2000.
His formal education in EMS started at Rescue Inc. taking classes to become an Emergency Care Attendant. He later completed a Rescue Inc. sponsored EMT class. After high school Hazelton attended Southern Maine Technical College, majoring in Fire Science and Paramedicine and graduating in the spring of 2000. During that time he lived and worked at the Gorham Maine Fire Department. After graduation, he returned to Rescue Inc. as a new, “green” paramedic.
Over his thirteen years at Rescue he has received recognition as squad member of the year, as well as Vermont advanced provider of the year. He was promoted to the rank of Captain and has been managing daily operations for seven years. In his position as Captain, he managed the agency’s Technical Rescue Team, which has remained a strong, totally volunteer arm of the organization. Local and state officials have recognized the team for outstanding response to Tropical Storm Irene and other high profile rescue and recovery operations. Rescue’s Board of Directors has commended him for fiscal oversight and management of the vehicle maintenance program, reducing the maintenance costs nearly in half, in addition to controlling expenses associated with medical supplies.
Outside of Rescue Inc., he has participated in local and district school boards for nearly ten years including work on action plans and budget development. He has also been teaching leadership to area youth for years and will bring those skills to this new interim position.
Mark Considine is looking forward to putting his skills as a paramedic to use more often. He has a passion for the primary work of saving lives and says he’s looking forward to spending more time on the trucks doing just that. He will also be focusing on critical high quality pre-hospital care and compliance with developing federal mandates. This is part of the agency’s rapidly expanding program concerning professional standards and quality assurance.
With these new changes, Rescue Inc. is also working on management structure and new strategies to deal with current and emerging industry trends. In the mid-1990s, the federal government began to tighten reimbursements for Medicare, a large source of funds for ambulance providers, while the amount of federal dollars available began to dry up. New guidelines issued under managed care have had the effect of restricting reimbursement emergency medical transport. The combination of lower federal reimbursements and managed care restrictions challenges Rescue to become more efficient in the future.