BUILDING a Community

     Responding to a growing market with annual increases in the number of students enrolled in EMT training, Portland Community College in Portland, OR, is seeing packed classrooms for all of the half-dozen EMT course times it offers.

     "It is a remarkable thing," says Cliff Morgan, EMS student adviser at the college. "We accept up to 24 students in each of the six different courses we offer here, which means we usually end up with more than 100 students for these classes each term."

     Morgan notes that a large percentage of EMT graduates from Portland Community College ultimately find jobs with Oregon's growing fire protection industry, which includes wildfire work. "If the ongoing interest in this program is any indication, we could probably add additional course times and do just as well," he adds.

     Across the continent, at MassBay Community College in Wellesley, MA, John Bellino has observed a steady increase in demand for EMT training classes, which last year brought in more than 40 students per semester. He believes the demand is only going to increase in the immediate years ahead, due to population shifts within Massachusetts. Rural growth in the western part of the state has resulted in a large number of smaller communities getting rid of their volunteer rescue services in favor of professional services - thus creating new job opportunities for EMTs, he says.

     The job growth pattern has appeared for different reasons across the country. In Lafayette, LA, South Louisiana Community College has entered into a partnership with the local Acadian Ambulance Service to offer EMT training in a local market where job demand is dramatically exceeding supply.

     "Our staff currently exceeds 2,600 employees,"says Richard Zuschlag, Acadian's chairman and CEO, who adds that he currently has openings for up to 100 people. "The demand here started before Hurricane Katrina and has only been aggravated since. That's why these college-based training programs are so essential to our industry, because they are giving us the manpower we need to essentially stay in business and do our job."

     Such programs are increasingly being developed and offered by the nation's two-year schools, notes Joann Freel, executive director of the National Association of EMS Educators in Philadelphia.

     "According to our statistics, 57.9% of our association members work in community colleges, which is a significant number," says Freel.

     "The ongoing and increased need for more EMTs across the country has turned out to be a tremendous opportunity for community colleges," agrees Susan Chapman, director of Allied Health Workforce Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, who notes that in 2000 there were only 132 primarily community college-centered EMT training programs nationally. The number had increased to 220 as of 2005.

     "The reason community colleges have become so central to this kind of offering is fairly simple," adds Chapman. "These schools are primarily interested in workforce development issues, but they are also very flexible and can adapt relatively quickly to rapid changes in workforce needs. That's important when you consider the overall projections of job growth within the industry."

     "The key to our success is that we have gone out of our way to cultivate good relations with our transport agencies, clinics and hospitals, so they are willing to give our students the opportunity to train," says Morgan. "But equally important, these ongoing relationships give us the opportunity to know what the needs of the EMS community are, and to respond to changes as they come along."

     The South Louisiana Community College/Acadian agreement is typical of the many community college/private industry EMT training programs. "The school gives college credit to students, and they can acquire an associate's degree on the way to getting their EMT training," says Ray Bias, Acadian's government relations manager.

     "Within that structure, we do most of the actual training ourselves with our own staff," says Bias, who adds that not all graduates of the South Louisiana Community College EMT training program go on to work for Acadian Ambulance Service. "Ideally, we want as many of them to become our employees as possible because our needs are so great. But once they go through the program and become certified, they can work anywhere they want."

     Bellino, at MassBay, thinks EMT training enrollment is also likely to increase because of the advent of distance learning, which is particularly well-geared for community college students, who often have full-time jobs and family responsibilities: "We are experimenting with that sort of thing, offering a hybrid class where the students do the didactic part of their EMT course online and spend the rest of their time in a lab."

Garry Boulard is an Albuquerque-based writer.