Dr. Greg Santa Maria has been serving in the responder community for over 30 years and is the visionary force behind Emergency Management Community Partners (EMCP). He has served in numerous roles, his first being a volunteer firefighter/EMT for the Massapequa Fire Department on Long Island, where he responded to his first disaster in 1990 when Avianca Flight 52 crashed in Cove Neck, Long Island. He served with the fire department for 12 years, attaining the role of Engine Company Captain.
Greg served as a paramedic in New York City, and as the Paramedic Program Director at Saint Vincents Hospital in Lower Manhattan. While at Saint Vincents, he trained under the DOD Nunn-Lugar-Domenici grants in domestic terrorism response. Greg was a paramedic responder to the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, and was recognized by Saint Vincents Hospital in NYC for his role in that response.
In 2003, Greg relocated to South Dakota, where he worked for Sanford Health, one of the nation’s largest rural health systems. Greg had emergency management oversight of over 200 hospitals, long-term care, and clinic facilities across 26 states in that role. At Sanford Health, he created plans for mass vaccinations during the H1N1 pandemic and worked on Ebola transport protocols with EMS agencies and healthcare partners. Greg then produced one of the first ESF-based corporate healthcare response plans, which supported the organization during evacuations of long-term care facilities in Florida during Hurricane Dorian, the emergence of the COVID pandemic, and a high-risk cyber-attack.
Greg also provides leadership for the South Dakota Health Care Coalition, where he worked to transition that coalition to a healthcare response support organization, creating one of the very first healthcare coalition Area Command models. Over his career, he has worked with partners nationwide, including the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), The RAND Corporation, Deloitte, Juvare, and others. Juvare recently awarded Greg the William Ryan Honorary Award for Excellence for his commitment to excellence in disaster response initiatives.
Greg holds a Master’s Degree in Emergency and Disaster Management and a Doctorate in Health Science, focused in Global Health and Politics. His research includes investigating the immediate impact of critical stressors on the decision-making of first responders in large-scale incidents. He has created a training program focused on reducing the impact of stress on decision-makers and now offers that training here with EMCP. Greg’s knowledge and experience have been responsible for numerous positive changes in healthcare preparedness, and his work continues with EMCP as the CEO and technical strategist for the organization.
