As a Paramedic, Dan Blom saved lives. As a sales rep, he helps others do so.
Dan Blom
There are many cool things in life. For Dan Blom, having a loving family tops the list. But there is a close second: Bringing clinically deceased people back to life. Helping others do the same is right up there as well. Blom is the Mid-Atlantic regional director for Bound Tree Medical.
His interest in emergency medical services goes way back. Growing up in Fairfax County, Virginia, he had a friend in high school with an interest in emergency services. “He told me the fire department would let you join when you were 16,” explains Blom. “My mom would tell the story this way: ‘Danny came home from school one day and announced, ‘Today I joined the fire department, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’”
Whether it happened exactly that way or not, Blom did indeed spend the next year attending the Fire and EMT academy, and though he could not do any hands-on work, he learned much in the classroom and on ride-alongs. He became an EMT at age 16.
For college, he attended Rochester Institute of Technology in Upstate New York, where he began studying film and video. But he changed his major to criminal justice and emergency management. It was at RIT that he became a Paramedic, and he worked part-time at the job. He was also a member of the RIT Ambulance Corps, a student-run emergency medical services volunteer organization, which responds to the medical needs of the RIT community 24/7. It was there that he met another member of the Corps, Tiffany Chapin. The two married 19 years ago, and have four children.
Food sales
Though he had anticipated a career in criminal justice or emergency medical services, another opportunity arose at graduation – selling food to restaurants on behalf of Kraft Foodservice.
“I loved the people aspect of calling on restaurant customers and helping them to create and serve their patrons with quality menu offerings we had developed together,” he says. “But over time, I would find myself daydreaming at my Kraft job. I had a hard time calling on restaurants when my heart and brain were always thinking about my next shift as a Paramedic and how much fun it was going to be.
“Tiffany – who was still my girlfriend at the time – could see that I was much more passionate about being a Paramedic, and she told me I should leave Kraft Foodservice and become a full-time Paramedic. At first, I did not want to make that decision, knowing well that Kraft paid much better than being a Paramedic. As time passed, it was clear to both of us that I was meant to be in an EMS role as a Paramedic more than I was meant to sell food to restaurants.” So in 1992, he joined Henrietta Ambulance in Henrietta, N.Y.
Hands-on
“I for sure enjoyed hands-on patient care,” he says. “As a caregiver, a special feeling occurred for me whenever we had a CPR save happen in the field. There is something magical and hard to describe about a patient who is clinically deceased, without a pulse, when you arrive, but who, after some interactions, is back breathing and with a beating heart again. That is a truly cool feeling, and one I will never forget.”
Seven years later, he was named chief of career staff at Henrietta. “I was in charge of payroll and benefits all the way down to the operations, staffing, and day-to-day decisions of the entire organization. All of a sudden, I had not only patients to care for, but also over 35 employees and more than 70 volunteer members counting on me. That was a big responsibility and one that I took very seriously. It helped me to become a stronger coach, for sure.”
In 2005, Dan and Tiffany made a decision to move closer to family in Virginia and North Carolina. So he started searching for EMS/Fire jobs in that area.
Back to sales
“Then Tiffany asked me what I would think about being a sales rep again. I told her I liked selling, but I did not really want to sell food again. She asked me if I would be interested in selling medical supplies to Fire and EMS customers.” It was the right question.
It turns out that Henrietta bought its EMS supplies from Tri-anim (which merged with Bound Tree in 2008). After making inquiries, Blom was given the opportunity in an expansion sales territory in Virginia and the District of Columbia. Three years later, shortly after Tri-anim and Bound Tree merged, he was named manager for the mid-Atlantic region.
Being a Paramedic is a challenging job – one best done by the young.
“When you carry patients in and out of homes every day, the job becomes a healthy workout on most days,” he says. “The emotional stress mainly came from seeing things during traumatic calls, the kind of stuff that no person should ever need to see in a lifetime. But the emergency services industry is a large, extended family, and having an outlet to talk as a family is what always gets people through those harder days and calls.”
Selling to Fire and EMS agencies can be strenuous too.
“In my first year, I traveled a lot within the territory and found it harder to catch up with my customer contacts in person then I had originally anticipated. This was especially true at the busier and larger Fire and EMS agencies within the territory. Many times, this happened because they were out on emergency calls when I would arrive. I had to become very good at making localized travel plans around a particular area of the state each day. This way, I could maximize my efforts to circle back and catch up later in the day with customers when they would returned from being out on life-saving calls.
“As an EMT and Paramedic, I learned that life can be fragile and can change in an instant. I learned to make every day count. This skill set was important to help me show customers quickly how, as a distribution company, we could help them save more lives with our products offerings while also saving them some money.”