Responding to a growing market with annual increases in the number of students enrolled in EMT training, Portland Community College in Portland, OR, is seeing packed classrooms for all of the half-dozen EMT course times it offers.

     "It is a remarkable thing," says Cliff Morgan, EMS student adviser at the college. "We accept up to 24 students in each of the six different courses we offer here, which means we usually end up with more than 100 students for these classes each term."

     Morgan notes that a large percentage of EMT graduates from Portland Community College ultimately find jobs with Oregon's growing fire protection industry, which includes wildfire work. "If the ongoing interest in this program is any indication, we could probably add additional course times and do just as well," he adds.

     Across the continent, at MassBay Community College in Wellesley, MA, John Bellino has observed a steady increase in demand for EMT training classes, which last year brought in more than 40 students per semester. He believes the demand is only going to increase in the immediate years ahead, due to population shifts within Massachusetts. Rural growth in the western part of the state has resulted in a large number of smaller communities getting rid of their volunteer rescue services in favor of professional services - thus creating new job opportunities for EMTs, he says.

     The job growth pattern has appeared for different reasons across the country. In Lafayette, LA, South Louisiana Community College has entered into a partnership with the local Acadian Ambulance Service to offer EMT training in a local market where job demand is dramatically exceeding supply.

     "Our staff currently exceeds 2,600 employees,"says Richard Zuschlag, Acadian's chairman and CEO, who adds that he currently has openings for up to 100 people. "The demand here started before Hurricane Katrina and has only been aggravated since. That's why these college-based training programs are so essential to our industry, because they are giving us the manpower we need to essentially stay in business and do our job."

     Such programs are increasingly being developed and offered by the nation's two-year schools, notes Joann Freel, executive director of the National Association of EMS Educators in Philadelphia.

     "According to our statistics, 57.9% of our association members work in community colleges, which is a significant number," says Freel.