Mary Bridge Critical Care Transport Team has been blessed to have a leader who has emerged as our Nurse Manager; even though he was close to retirement, he took on the task of contributing to our team and delayed his retirement. Since Greg has been on our team, he has managed to incorporate electronic charting (which has been attempted multiple times in the past without fully obtaining success). Greg has a rich background in Critical Care Transport medicine, coming from decades of experience as a flight paramedic, flight RN, and also a background in engineering. This has provided an excellent platform for finding answers to equipment challenges as he pushed forward with getting our team up with appropriate ventilators and equipment while being educated and ensuring compliance with existing standards in the field. Greg is an equipment knowledge expert and digs for the details that make equipment and users safe for our tiniest patients. Our team transports neonatal and pediatric patients who have very small margins when it comes to medication or ventilation doses.

Greg has guided our team from two separate locations to now being combined as we join the Tacoma General NICU team and now combine as all one Mary Bridge Transport Team. Greg has maintained and elevated our level of excellence by establishing standards that make our team relevant in the world of Pediatric and Neonatal Critical Care transport. Greg has advocated for our transport team to become one team as well as a free-standing team available 24/7 for ground and air transport in our region. Greg has also elevated the standards for education and TNCC certification. Greg has worked hard to work with leadership as well as our partners in NW Ambulance for new ambulances that we are looking forward to be in soon, maintaining transport safety and reliability standards with our equipment as it is being worked on. Greg has also worked diligently with our partners at Airlift NW to establish a great partnership and improve in the flow of communication for air transport as well as increasing volume and availability with our improving relationship. Greg has also focused in on the need and coordination of the return of a Transfer Center for Mary Bridge as we have had increased focus on bringing more patients through the doors of Mary Bridge. Greg has networked with the Transfer Center as well as leadership and shared his insight with the concerns and solutions necessary for that partnership to grow so that our team can be available and out in the field at every opportunity and increase our presence in the communities we serve.

Greg has put a lot of effort into team building our staff as well as advocating for us to all be the best in our field. Greg has utilized creative teamwork while still maintaining contract compliance in order to give more "approved" responses to our time off requests and maintain a work-life balance. Being a transport team member requires all of us to be very persistent and tenacious, which means that managing a crew like ours certainly will have its challenges. I have watched and appreciated all of Greg's efforts and belief in us individually as well as a team, and he moved us forward, sometimes like herding cats; he gets us all heading in the same direction and does so with a great attitude and no complaints. Greg finds time to give recognition to our team members, and he deserves recognition for what he does as well. Greg has done so much more to contribute to our team and grow it. Greg has a vision for what our team can become and has worked hard to do everything he can to build it, even at the expense of the extra time and effort that has been required to see it come together. Just one more thing, and it is not a little fact, but his wife makes THE BEST cookies, and he brings them and shares them with us often. Thank you, Greg, for all that you have done for our team.