IN APPRECIATION

Jim O’Connor, Empress’s Vice President of Corporate Development, has been involved in EMS for nearly five decades. His career began in 1976 as one of the first paramedics in Westchester County, where he worked for a private ambulance service, Abbey Richmond Ambulance, providing 911 and inter-facility transportation.

He started out in a job delivering oxygen tanks to people’s homes. This work awakened a desire to help people, as he realized that for many of them, the contact they had with the person delivering the oxygen was the only interaction they might have in a day.

“I was delivering oxygen tanks to people’s homes working for a respiratory company in the Bronx, and the person who owned the company heard about an EMT course being offered. He thought it would be good if the people delivering the tanks and interacting with patients were EMTs.”

O’Connor took what was then an approximately 40-hour EMT course and discovered he enjoyed the work.

“It was taught by some of the paramedics from the first Jacobi Paramedic Program class at Jacobi Medical Center,” he said.

“When I got married in 1975, I was 20 years old and wondered if I wanted to keep delivering oxygen. I was living in Yonkers at the time, so I went to the local ambulance company, which ironically was Empress Ambulance (under different ownership). At the same time, I applied for an EMT job with Abbey Richmond Ambulance in White Plains.”

A few weeks later, the manager of Abbey called him back, and O’Connor’s EMS career journey began.

“The owner of Abbey offered to sponsor me in what was then an EMT-III Critical Care program, so that’s where Advanced Life Support started for me. By ’77, I was a paramedic, by ’78, I was a supervisor, and by ’79, I was general manager of the company. I stayed there until 1981, when I got hired by White Plains Hospital to be their first EMS coordinator.”

White Plains Hospital was then designated as the Area Resource Hospital for Advanced Life Support (ALS) for all of Westchester County; there were only a handful of places doing ALS in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

“At White Plains Hospital, we started the first Level IV paramedic program in Westchester, which earned college credits through Westchester Community College. Additionally, we created an accepted New York State Department of Health curriculum to “bridge” EMT-III to Paramedic-IV.”

In 1987, O’Connor was recruited to join the staff of Saint Francis Hospital (now known as Mid-Hudson Regional) in Poughkeepsie. At this time, he also served as the executive director of a small, nonprofit ambulance service in Dutchess County.

O’Connor returned to Westchester County in 1992, taking a position as vice president of operations for Empress Ambulance, which was by this time owned by the Minerva family. The company was providing EMS for the City of Yonkers, and soon added New Rochelle.

“Many successful programs started during these years with some wonderful people working at Empress,” O’Connor reflected.

In 1997, he joined a regional ambulance company, where he held executive positions, including a promotion to president in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy. He worked with his team to expand services in New York City, Westchester County, the Hudson Valley; Philadelphia and its suburbs; Wilmington, Delaware; Baltimore, Maryland; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 2015, he joined Empress’s senior leadership team as vice president of business development and government affairs. Since then, the company has seen significant growth and strategic development of new business opportunities.

O’Connor has also been active with many EMS organizations and held board positions locally, regionally and nationally. He continues to work tirelessly for EMTs and paramedics as well as the healthcare facilities and municipalities that contract for emergency medical services.

Recently, O’Connor was honored by the Westchester County Association, Hospice of Westchester, the American Ambulance Association and at the Day of Golf by the United Way of Westchester and Putnam.

“It was a great day to be out with my adult kids and my wife,” O’Connor said of the Day of Golf, “Empress and PatientCare EMS Solutions (Empress’s parent company) have allowed me the opportunity to be in a position to be out in the community. I tell everyone that the men and women working 24/7 in the ambulances and in all the departments that support the company are the folks to recognize. They do the hard work, and I am always inspired by them.”

O’Connor said he looks forward to seeing what the future holds for all the employees of Empress and PatientCare Solutions as he continues to do whatever he can to make it a great place to work.

Reflecting back on his career, O’Connor said, smiling, “It’s been a good run, and there’s still gas in this tank. I love the people; I love the idea we want to keep growing and giving people an opportunity to have jobs, grow in those jobs and do good things in the community.”