NEMHS | 9
Rhode Island and New York to Maine. Kev-
in McGinnis had been an ambulance service
chief for volunteer and hospital-based initia-
tives, a regional EMS coordinator and a hos-
pital emergency department director before
his appointment as EMS Director for the
state of Maine, a position he held from 1986
to 1996. McGinnis had hands-on experience
in the developing of EMS systems two other
states, skills that would ultimately prove es-
sential as NEMHS sought to create a new
medical helicopter service. McGinnis joined
with Brockway and McCarthy, and over the
next few years this team guided NEMHS
through the advancing of initiatives that
have since taken on lives of their own. The
medical air service was established, and ul-
timately evolved into a separate non-profit,
known as LifeFlight of Maine. This was ac-
complished in concert with another North
East colleague, Thomas Judge, who went on
to become LifeFlight’s nationally renowned
director.
They also devised an entirely new ap-
proach to the dispatching of medical care
by creating a full service medical emergency
communication center known as MED-
COMM. Instead of simply engaging tradi-
