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“To be honest I thought the Co Response Team and Logistics were just as deserving of the award due to the extraordinary work they do,” says James.

Nominated by his peers, James was recognised for his exceptional ability to work together with his colleagues as part of a team; continuously striving to improve processes and outcomes for patients and staff alike.

Feedback from a nominee credits James with putting significant effort and high-level expertise into the development of the new Tactical Emergency Medical Support Team (TEMS).

“Wellington Free is extremely lucky to have an expert on side who is so proactive and passionate about developing and future-proofing emergency medical care during hazardous and large-scale coordinated responses,” says the nominee.

James says he engages in regular physical training around his operational commitments and also connects people with organisations to improve specialised emergency response in the Wellington region.

His goal is to further develop Wellington Free Ambulance’s capability to provide patient care in high risk environments. “Instead of planning for current threats and events we should always look to what the next major incident is that could cause major disruption to our response and capability,” says James.

When he joined the New Zealand Army 20 years ago, most training was based around the last operational deployment - at the time it was UN Bosnia operations, despite the next deployments being to countries where there were non-conventional threats. 

The same sentiment goes for his work at Wellington Free, instead of only training for the last major disaster we should also study what happens in other countries and train accordingly.

James says he loves working with the Wellington Free team because of the diversity of the work and the experiences they all share

“To me our organisational value Keep Getting Better together means continuing with an unrelenting pursuit of excellence regardless of your position or time spent here.”

“In regards to being true to your own values, I believe it’s always important to do the right thing regardless of witness or reward,” he says.