Candidate: CHRIS HANSEN

Chris Hansen is a Community Liaison working in the Business Development and Marketing Department of Park Royal Behavioral Health Services. Hansen is responsible for Community outreach and business development in Charlotte, Sarasota, Glades and Hendry counties. Hansen is a lifelong resident of Southwest Florida with a passion for healthcare advocacy and public service. He began his over 30-year career in public service as an EMT and paramedic for Lee Co. EMS. His early experience included many aspects of emergency medical care, both “on the road” as a first responder and in the emergency rooms of Lee Memorial Hospital and Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center. Hansen cultivated a diverse background health care with experience in adult continuing education, quality management and most recently in healthcare governance, serving as the Vice Chairman of the Lee Memorial Health System and Trauma System District Board of Directors, a publicly-elected, non-partisan position. Hansen has taught as an adjunct faculty member in the EMS Technology Program for Edison Community College (now Southwestern Florida State College) and was a First Responder Instructor for both Lee County Vocational Technical Center\'s SWF Criminal Justice Academy and the Fort Myers Fire Department Academy. In the late 80’s, Hansen also was one of the charter members of the Tri-County Stress Debriefing Team, which served emergency responders dealing with critical incident stress secondary to major incidents. This team serves Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties still today with improved methods of the now recognized effects of post-traumatic stress. Hansen’s experiences as a caregiver, teacher and leader helped propel him to a leader in the EMS industry where he served Lee County Government as both their Chief of EMS and Deputy Director of Public Safety. In these positions, he collaborated with other first response leaders at the local, regional, state and national level to help develop a state-of-the-art system for Southwest Florida. He was instrumental in working with other local and state public safety and governmental officials to develop and implement various public-public and public-private initiatives, carrying out ideas from the concept and planning stages through funding and execution to vastly improve local government service delivery. Hansen was the 2008 Director of the Year, awarded by the Florida Association of County EMS Directors. After retirement from his public safety career in 2008, Hansen joined the award-winning local marketing, PR and advertising firm of Priority Marketing of SW Florida, Inc. where he served as a governmental liaison, project consultant and operations manager.