Rocco Morando assisted in establishing not one, but two of the main unifying voices integral to EMS in our country today. In 1970, a multidisciplinary task force made up of EMS stakeholders-a group that ranged from the Ambulance Association of America to the National Forestry Service to funeral directors-met to address the charge given by President Lyndon Johnson and the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish uniform standards for training and examination of personnel delivering emergency ambulance services.

Morando was also instrumental in establishing educational guidelines by serving on the task force that set up the first EMT-Ambulance program. Another result of this task force was the creation of the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT); Morando was selected to serve as its founding executive director. That year the first NREMT-Ambulance exam was administered simultaneously to 1,520 ambulance personnel at 51 test sites throughout the U.S. But there were no national-level associations or organizations to link the newly certified EMT-As being created around the country.

In 1975, starting with just a handful of state EMS organizations, Morando and the NREMT organized and funded the first meeting of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT). From this humble beginning, Morando worked tirelessly as a consensus builder, serving on the organization’s board of directors as it grew from a loose group of affiliated state associations to a leader in the world of EMS. He persevered at a time when EMS was largely unknown, supporters were few and barriers were plentiful.

Submitted to NEMSM June 2008 by Cygnus Business Publications