BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Union County’s Board of County Commissioners unanimously voted to hire Brent Allen as their new emergency medical services director, replacing retiring director Toby Witt.
The board followed the recommendation of a committee chaired by Sheriff Brad Whitehead. Witt, former EMS Director Allen Parrish, County Coordinator Jimmy Williams, Board of County Commissioners Chair Channing Dobbs, and county Human Resource/Administrative Assistant Michaela Clemons were also on the committee.
Before commissioners made their selection, Allen told them he had been a paramedic for 14 years, with 10 spent in Union County.
“I believe that I was the first captain ever promoted here, when that position was created by Mitch Andrews,” he told commissioners. “I started here under Chris Drum. I was over training. I’ve got my bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida.”
Allen operated a ShandsCair helicopter base in the Villages and then managed Columbia County’s emergency medical services, which had been contracted to the private ambulance service Century Ambulance. Later, Century also acquired the contract for Taylor County, so Allen managed the EMS departments for two counties simultaneously.
Century later, promoted Allen to chief of operations over the entire state, where he managed around 350 employees.
Allen told commissioners the experience with the private company was a good opportunity to learn about billing and the importance of efficiency.
However, he said he also saw the downside of privately owned healthcare.
“After Century was acquired,” he said, “I asked if I could step down and just run the EMS services. The inter-facility side and trying to care more about making money than patient care wasn’t really what I’m here for.”
“I’m here for patients,” he added. “That’s the Number 1 priority, to be able to do that. You have to be efficient with money, but trying to make money and affecting patient care by doing that wasn’t something that I was really interested in. So, I asked to step down.”
Allen told commissioners he has trained future paramedics and EMTs at Santa Fe College for the past 10 years. He added that the teaching position will aid him in running the county’s EMS department because he can actively recruit potential employees when working at Santa Fe.
Allen told commissioners he hoped to bring stability to the department.
“I think we’ve had four full-time directors and two interim, and it’s only been about 12 or 13 years,” he said. “I want to bring stability. This is somewhere that I can see myself retiring and being here for the long haul.”
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