Ray Florida Steps Down From Rockland Mobile Care and Rockland Paramedic Services

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY—Rockland Mobile Care and Rockland Paramedic Services announced Feb. 16, 2022 the retirement of founder and long-time CEO/executive director Ray Florida after more than three decades of service.

Florida will continue to serve as a consultant to both agencies and act as a non-voting board member for both organizations. His successor is Tim Egan who has been with Rockland Paramedic Services (RPS) since its inception and worked alongside Florida even before the founding of RPS. The two have been working on the transition for more than a year.

Florida began his emergency medicine career as a student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the late 1970s. He worked as a paramedic and a captain, as well as a paramedic/EMT instructor, for New York City Emergency Medical Services in Manhattan for 13 years before coming to Rockland County, where he joined Good Samaritan Hospital as an EMS coordinator to launch a paramedic program for the town of Ramapo.

Eventually, Good Samaritan joined forces with Nyack Hospital as well as the local volunteer ambulance corps to form a nonprofit organization (RPS) to run a single paramedic service for the entire county, with Florida at the helm.

In 1998, Florida oversaw RPS’ launch of a wholly owned subsidiary, Rockland Mobile Care (RMC), to offer better transportation services between healthcare facilities throughout the county. Today, RPS and RMC are the primary providers of advanced life support 9-1-1 response and emergency and non-emergency ambulance transportation in Rockland County.

Florida helped spur RPS and RMC to forward-thinking offerings, including the use of cellular telemetry to transmit EKGs and launching a home-based crisis intervention program, as well as a mobile mental health crisis team—Rockland’s Behavioral Health Response Team (BHRT).

Today, RMC maintains a fleet of 18 ambulances, employs a staff of over 100 employees, and runs a 24-hour communications center. RPS operates seven rapid response vehicles serving towns across Rockland County. Together, RPS and RMC both respond 24/7 to a combined call volume of more than 45,000 EMS calls per year. 

“What I'm most proud of is that the EMS system has progressed significantly, and we have been able to save thousands of lives of Rockland County residents,” Florida said. “It has been a 30-year collaborative effort between our organization and all of the town governments, communities, and ambulance corps. And I have had the honor of working with wonderful staff who have dedicated their lives to help make many of these accomplishments happen.”

“I am grateful to Ray for all of the opportunities he afforded me throughout my career at Rockland Paramedic Services,” said Egan. “For more than three decades Ray and I have worked together to provide the best prehospital care to the residents of Rockland County. I am proud to assume the executive director/CEO role and to follow the example set by Ray over the years.”

Moving forward, Florida hopes to see local, state, and federal governments working together to help alleviate the pressure on the country’s emergency health care system, as well as additional funding for emergency medical programs and a greater focus on education and training for the next generation EMS/EMT workforce.

“I’m hopeful that we can get to a point where EMTs and paramedics will make a better rate of pay and have more opportunity to advance themselves in the areas of emergency medical service,” he said.

Rockland Paramedic Services is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit ALS service operating in Rockland County, in conjunction with the local volunteer ambulance corps. Visit www.rocklandparamedics.org