Washington County is taking the next step to having its own ambulance service by selecting a director. At Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, it was announced that a total of 17 people applied for the position. The five-member interview committee includes Washington County Human Resources Director Amber Day, Supervisor Abe Miller, Supervisor and current director of Washington County Ambulance, Inc. Richard Young, Washington Police Chief Jim Lester, Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen and a designee from the sheriff’s office.

Young laid out the next steps, “So those are the people that we chose to interview, to start the process, go through those 17 applicants and decide which ones we will call for an interview,and we would like to start doing this within the next week or so, 10 days. Because this week we’re pretty full with budget meetings for us on the board, so next week we need to get this process started, so we can get these people called, decide on who we want to interview and get this process moving.”

The current contract for ambulance services in Washington County ends at midnight June 30th. The county’s goal is to have continuous service that begins July 1st. At this time the county owns two ambulances and five LUCAS devices that provide compressions for CPR.