Matt Nickl, who began his career with Cranberry Township Emergency Medical Services in 2011, has risen through the ranks to become its new chief and executive director.

CRANBERRY TWP — Cranberry Township Emergency Medical Services' new chief doesn't look to make any big, structural changes, focusing more on growing the care that CTEMS, which won the 2020 Pennsylvania EMS Agency of the Year award, provides in its service area.

Matt Nickl, a 10-year veteran of the Cranberry ambulance service, has assumed the agency's helm as chief and executive director, replacing former chief Ted Fessides, after the board of directors named him to the position.

Nickl began his Cranberry EMS career in 2011 as a part-time paramedic, he said, before accepting a full-time position. Afterward, he rose through the organization's leadership ranks, first becoming a crew chief, then deputy chief and now the service's chief.

As chief, he will handle both the administrative side — including overseeing the office manager and handling outreach programs — and the operations, with scheduling and managing calls.

While the new chief will bring his experience and perspective to the position, he said he doesn't expect to make waves.

“Operationally, I want to continue to grow the care that we provide. I see our service as one of the best in the area,” he said. “We've always taken a proactive approach with training and quality improvement, so I want to continue that and build off of the stellar care that we provide to the community and make sure that continues and grows.”

One aspect on which Nickl wishes to focus is how the service reaches out to its service area.“I definitely want to continue to grow our outreach within the community we serve, and maybe even expand it even more,” he said. “I would rather take a proactive approach on pre-hospital care than just taking people to the hospital. If we can prevent things from happening before they happen, that's what I want to build off of and really grow that program.”These outreach programs include Cranberry EMS' car seat inspection program, its CPR training program and its home inspections for houses with newborns, all of which are considered part of Safe Landings, and all of which, Nickl said, can prevent hospitalizations.“Our car seat program focuses on the correct installation of car seats,” Nickl said. “In an accident we can prevent injuries by making sure that car seats are installed correctly.”Roughly two-thirds of Safe Landings focuses on preventing injuries and hospitalization. But what happens if somebody already is hurt? Nickl said the CPR training program is there to make sure cardiac events don't get worse.“If that happens, we want to be able to train bystanders to handle that,” he said.