Phipps Becomes DeKalb EMS Director

DeKalb County has named Trent Phipps as the new county’s new EMS Director.

Phipps has worked with DeKalb County EMS for more than 27 years, with the previous two years serving as the EMS Assistant Director. The Overton County native replaces former EMS Director Hoyte Hale, who passed away earlier this year.

“I’m hoping that I can continue doing things similar to what he did and keep this a good ambulance service and providing the best care for everybody around,” Phips said. “I’m trying to live up to the legacy of somebody that had done it for so long and had been very successful at it,”

Phipps said he has received support from staff within the EMS Department to help with the move. Phipps said shifting over from Assistant Director to Director has been a big transition.

“As an Assistant Director, I mainly dealt with personnel issues and reaching out to other entities such as hospitals and other EMS agencies and dealt with them,” Phipps said. “I’m on a pretty good learning curve for a lot of the things that happened in the office that I was never aware of. You know, I’ve got a good start and I’ve gotten a lot of support from friends and EMS Directors.”

Phipps said Hale kept a lot of things close as Director and that now he is learning how to do the day-to-day chores and paperwork. Phipps said one change he looks to make is to modernize the department.

“We are going to move over to some more computer-based paperwork for things around the ambulance service and tracking some of the equipment and medications that we do,” Phipps said.

Phipps said the change is an ongoing process but is hoping to have the change completed by the beginning of the new year.