2023 Speakers
-
Dr. Ed RachtCMO - Global Medical Response
-
Dave SeastromBSN, RN - Program Manager, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas
-
Dr. Baxter LarmonPhD, MICP, Professor of Medicine, David Gessen School of Medicine, UCLA
-
Steve BerryBA, NRP, Cartoon Illustrator - Southwest Teller Co. EMS, Colorado
-
Will Krost, MDSystem Medical Director of Emergency Medicine- University of Louisville
-
Chris WayParamedic, BA, Fire Chief - Kootenai County Fire & Rescue
-
Scott LailEMT-P, FP-C, Fire Chief, Cleburne Fire Department
-
Bill JusticeFF (Ret.), NREMT-P, TEMS-I, (Ret.) Capt. Oklahoma Fire

Dr. Ed Racht
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 American Medical Response (AMR) since 2010. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs for Piedmont Newnan 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.
Dave Seastrom

Dr. Baxter Larmon
Dr. Larmon is currently a professor emeritus of emergency medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and Founding Director of the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care. He has been actively involved in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for more than 50 years.
Dr. Larmon has a vast amount of experience in EMS. He has worked as an ambulance attendant, NREMT-B, Lifeguard-Paramedic, Firefighter, Firefighter- Paramedic, EMS Educator, Researcher, Author, and Professor.
Dr. Larmon is an innovator and a pioneer in the area of EMS Research. His goal has been to develop EMS as a recognized and respected medical profession. Dr. Larmon founded the Prehospital Care Research Forum (PCRF) more than 15 years ago. This organization’s goal is to promote, educate and disseminate EMS research. During the last 20 years, under the direction of Dr. Larmon, PCRF has published more than 600 abstracts, in two major EMS Journals, and has educated more than 500 EMS professional’s in EMS Research Workshops.
Dr. Larmon has dedicated his life to the professionalism of EMS. Research has been his instrument to reach this goal. Dr. Larmon’s current interest is in the areas of Best Practice, Evidence Based Medicine, Community Health and Patient Safety.

Steve Berry

Will Krost, MD
Will Krost is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University (Washington, DC). Will was the Director of Emergency Services and Health system Access for Blanchard Valley Health system (Findlay, Ohio) and a former Flight Paramedic with SVMMC Life Flight (Toledo, Ohio). He has over eighteen years of experience in emergency medical services including prehospital education, flight medicine; critical care medicine, cardio-pulmonary perfusion, clinical research, and pre-hospital administration.
Will began his EMS career in 1992 at Put-In-Bay EMS in Erie County, Ohio. He received his paramedic training at Providence Hospital in Sandusky, Ohio, his Adult Critical Care training at the Medical College of Ohio and his Pediatric/Neonatal Critical Care training at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Most recently, he was the Program Manager for the Division of Emergency Medical Services and the Emergency Medicine Special Operations Institute at the University of Cincinnati. Will also served as the Clinical Coordinator of Prehospital Research and is an Instructor of Emergency Medicine while at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
Will holds Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences degree in Allied Health Management from Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio and an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. Will also completed Lean Six Sigma Black belt training at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. Will is currently in the process of completing his Medical Degree (MD) and will graduate in 2016.
Will is the author of several articles for “Emergency Medical Services Magazine” on topics such as medical protocol development, pediatric pulmonary emergencies, pediatric cardiac physiology and congenital heart defects. Along with Joseph Mistovich and Daniel Limmer, Will was a co-author of the monthly CE article in EMS magazine entitled “Beyond the Basics”. He is a subject matter expert and author for “Fire & Emergency Television Network” (Pulse Multimedia Video series), 24-7 EMS Publishing, and Brady, Prentice-Hall publishing on various clinical subjects. Will has also lectured extensively at the local, national, and international level on numerous topics. He is an advisory board member of “Emergency Medical Services Magazine” and former board member for the Ohio Chapter of ACEP EMS Division. Most notably, Will was selected as one of eleven group leaders selected nationally to direct the development of EMS Education Standards to replace the U.S.D.O.T. Emergency Medical Services National Standard Curriculum.

Chris Way

Scott Lail
Scott began his EMS career in 1992. Shortly after his arrival into pre-hospital medicine, he became a Firefighter with the City of Cleburne, Texas. With his love for education, Scott became the EMS educator for his Fire Department and other local agencies in need. He also joined Tarrant County College in Fort Worth as Adjunct EMS Faculty.
In 1999, Scott became a Flight Paramedic with CareFlite in Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas. For over 27 years, Scott continued to work both Fire and EMS as well as Flight.
He is currently the Fire Chief, a certified Master Firefighter and an EMS Instructor with the Cleburne Fire Department as well as a Certified Flight Paramedic (FP-C). He recently “hung up his wings” after 19 years as a Flight Paramedic with CareFlite, though he still maintains his flight status just in case!
Scott has lectured at state, national, and international conferences with a reputation as a dynamic speaker. He also recently appeared in an episode of “Miracle Detectives” on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
