New captains named at Bonner EMS

SANDPOINT — Keith Cutter and Mark Zandhuisen have been named as field supervisor captains for Bonner County EMS, Chief Rob Wakeley has announced.

Cutter, who has been with Bonner County EMS since its inception in 2005, has been providing emergency medical services for the last eight years as a medic for Big Sky Paramedics and Newport Ambulance. He is current certified at the EMT-Advanced level.

Prior to his EMS career, Cutter worked for high-tech industry leaders Apple and Hewlett-Packard. He has more than a decade of management experience. Before moving to Bonner County in 2000, Cutter was area vice president for Micron PC. He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematical science from the University of California and has had continuing education from London Business School, the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and other universities.

Cutter’s duties at Bonner County EMS will focus on planning and operations.

Zandhuisen, who joined Bonner EMS in early May, has been working in the field for more than 33 years. A paramedic since 1991, Zandhuisen has worked as a field operations supervisor with American Medical Response in Spokane, Wash., where he was responsible for establishing Advanced Life Support services for the city of Cheney, Medical Lake and Airway Heights.

Zandhuisen also worked as a firefighter/paramedic in Ephrata, Wash., and spent six years as a diagnostic paramedic and safety officer for Spokane Cardiology. He is nationally certified as an instructor for pre-hospital trauma life support and pediatric EMS, basic life support, advanced cardiac life support and pediatric life support.

Zandhuisen was also lead instructor and director of the paramedic program at Spokane Community College and most recently has been working with North Idaho College to develop a distance-learning EMS education program.

Zandhuisen will be responsible for clinical practice, protocol development, and implementation and continuing quality improvement.

“Between Keith’s management background and formidable organizational skills, and Mark’s clinical expertise, we have the right people in the right jobs to help Bonner County EMS into the future,” Wakeley said.