When he first started as a paramedic in Burke County, James Robinson was looking for a paycheck. It turned into a career.
Robinson left the county early in his career and climbed the ladder at Atrium Health from a paramedic to a manager overseeing a fleet of almost 300 vehicles and about 30 employees. Now, Robinson is going back to the county as the director of Burke County EMS.
Burke County Manager Brian Epley said Robinson was one of about 15 finalists for the position. His experience working with Burke County EMS, wilderness medical experience and time managing a staff for a large health care organization made him stand out.
“His presence, his command knowledge, his energy, really suited what we thought was needed from a leadership perspective,” Epley said.
Robinson had an almost 20-year career with Atrium Health.
“I went into the critical care realm, I oriented on the aircraft, I did everything that you could do,” Robinson said. “I transported some of the sickest patients that I’ve ever seen in my life, even yet to today … and that’s humbling, to know that you’re there at one of the most delicate stages of life for those people, to be able to take them to a trauma center or a physician specialty care center.”
He has volunteered with Chesterfield Fire Rescue for about 20 years, the past nine of which he served as the chief of the department. He will continue to serve as the department’s chief in his new position.
Epley said he wants the EMS department to strive toward improving response time, outcomes and survival rates for calls. When he officially starts his job on Sept. 2, Epley said he wants Robinson’s focus to be on the team.
“Over his first 100 days, I want him to embed himself with our team, build trust in the community and inside the department, and then start really working on some of those performance indicators that we know are so critical,” Epley said.
Robinson has already hit the ground running. He helped an EMS crew over the weekend with a call at a vehicle recreation area near Johns River.
Robinson was the first on scene because he could access the patient in just a few minutes from his house. He did an initial assessment and started stabilizing some things, he said. When the EMS crew arrived, he gave a report and helped the team through the situation.
“I said, ‘How many of these have you done?’” Robinson said. “And he (a paramedic) looked at me and he said, ‘This is the first one.’ And I said, ‘I’m here to support you. Director aside, it does not matter. I’ve got a paramedic patch, you’ve got a paramedic patch. I’m here to support you. This is your patient.’”
Robinson said he talked the paramedics through the situation, and the patient was flown to a trauma center, which Robinson said was the right decision. He said it’s an example of how he plans to lead the entire team at Burke County EMS.
“I want them to have the confidence to do the right thing and be patient-focused,” Robinson said.
Robinson said he learned about servant based leadership when he was working on his bachelor’s degree at Liberty University. He watched a Simon Sinek TED Talk where Sinek asked, “What’s your why?”
“It just got my wheels turning. What is my why?” Robinson said. “And everybody says, ‘Well, I want to help people.’ Or everybody says, ‘Well, I want to do this,’ or ‘I want to do great things,’ but what truly drives your why? … For me, it’s providing the support to get (others) to the next level of their career, whatever that is. If they want to be a paramedic, great. How do I … enable you to be the best paramedic that you can be? If you want to be a firefighter, great. If you want to go onto nursing using paramedic as a stepping stone … how do I make the connections to get you to the next level?”
Robinson wants to work with Burke County Public Schools and Western Piedmont Community College to inspire the next generations of EMS leaders. He said there are students who graduate high school and don’t have a good idea of what to do next.
“Finding those folks that might not have ever thought about this, if I could get 5% that (to) take an EMT class and they join their fire department or they join emergency services — that’s five more percent that we didn’t have before,” Robinson said.
He said there are thousands of paramedic jobs open in North Carolina alone.
“We don’t have a paramedic shortage, what we have is more opportunity than we’ve ever had since COVID,” Robinson said. “We’ve got paramedics that are working in paramedicine that takes them off a truck. We have paramedics that are working in doctor’s offices and in the hospital setting and all these things. We’ve got to figure out how to bolster and feed back into that.”
He said he wants his team and community partners, like fire departments, to know they can always come to him.
“I’m always approachable and I’m always learning. I’m going to be a career learner,” Robinson said.