Rommie L.Duckworth
MPA · EFO · CFO · CEMSO · NRP
Career fire chief and nationally registered paramedic. Textbook author, national instructor, and Northeast Region Director on the NAEMT Board of Directors. Current work runs from traumatic cardiac arrest guidance to officer development, and it all points the same direction: turning evidence into practice that holds up at three in the morning.
Municipal Fire & EMS
Fire chief of a combination fire and EMS department in a town of about 25,000, with a record 4,500+ emergency responses in 2025. The department has 39 career personnel and nearly 60 volunteers, with ALS ambulance and paramedic engine operations.
Teaching & Program Design
More than 150 conference sessions, webinars, and invited teaching sessions since 2021. Connecticut Fire Academy adjunct instructor, former National Fire Academy adjunct (2017 to 2023), and faculty for NAEMT, NAEMSE, FDIC International, and EMS World Expo.
Writing & Standards
More than 100 published articles and chapters in national EMS and fire textbooks. Co-author of the 2024 joint position statement on prehospital antibiotics for open fractures, and NAEMT representative to the workgroup developing joint guidance on traumatic cardiac arrest.
NAEMT World Trauma Symposium. Final session of the symposium: Trauma Patient Extrication. Orlando, FL.
FDIC International. More Than Just Batteries: Universal Steps to Calls Involving Alternative Fuel Vehicles. Indianapolis, IN.
‘We’re still heading up’: The 9/11 lesson carried forward. EMS1. A 25-year look back at the Ground Zero response and the lessons responders still carry.
AAOS Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured, 13th edition. Chapter author.
Sixty programs across nine domains
Clinical, operational, educational, and leadership sessions, built for mixed EMT, paramedic, officer, and chief audiences. Every program can be scaled to a conference session, a workshop, or a keynote.
EMS Today 2020 opening keynote
The Strength Within Us, delivered to the opening general session in Tampa. Webinars, podcasts, and news coverage are collected on the media page.
Where the work goes
- NAEMT
- Board of Directors, Northeast Region Director · since 2023
- NAEMT
- Chair, Lighthouse Leadership Program · since 2024
- ACS COT
- NAEMT representative to the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma · since 2023
- NFPA
- NFPA 1900 technical committee, alternate representing NAEMT · since 2024
- NHTSA
- Post Crash Care Trauma Expert Group, Quality Measures Project · 2025
- Editorial
- JEMS, EMS1, FireRescue1, Fire Engineering, and FDIC International advisory boards; Fire Engineering contributing editor
- Sepsis
- Sepsis Alliance Advisory Board; The Sepsis Institute Medical Advisory Board
Selected honors
- 2023
- Star of Life, Unit Citation, and Education awards · Ridgefield Fire Department
- 2021
- Presidential Leadership Award · NAEMT
- 2019
- Lifetime Achievement Award · Danbury Hospital EMS
- 2019
- EMS10: Innovators in EMS, 2018 class · JEMS and EMS Today, for a free online sepsis module built with Sepsis Alliance
- 2015
- Sepsis Hero · Sepsis Alliance
- 2001
- Special Service Award · September 11 response, BSI EMS
Bring a program to your agency or conference
Programs are delivered through the New England Center for Rescue & Emergency Medicine and can be customized to the focus, theme, or concern of your event. Sessions run from sixty minute conference blocks to multi-day workshops.
Independent services. The education, speaking, writing, and consulting described on this site are Rommie L. Duckworth’s own professional work, provided personally or through the New England Center for Rescue & Emergency Medicine, LLC. They are separate and distinct from his municipal position and from his work for any other employer, company, association, board, or publisher. They are not offered by, for, or on behalf of the Town of Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Ridgefield Fire Department, or any other organization named here. No NECREM work is done on Town time or with Town equipment, vehicles, or staff. Titles, affiliations, and photos in uniform describe professional background only, and views expressed are his own. Naming an organization does not indicate its endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation.