About

CHRIS
HARPER

A decade in EMS.
A career built on making operations work.

I started as an EMT and spent close to ten years at Royal Ambulance in Santa Clara County — working my way from the field to Field Training Officer to Operations Supervisor. Along the way I learned that the biggest problems in EMS aren't clinical — they're operational. Safety systems that don't learn. Documentation that creates billing delays. Supply chains nobody's looked at in years. Processes held together by institutional memory instead of actual design.

I've always been drawn to the gap between how things are and how they could work. That instinct pushed me toward Lean and DMAIC methodology, toward building dashboards that didn't exist, toward rewriting SOPs that weren't working. The three case studies on this site are the clearest evidence of what that instinct produces when given the right scope and support.

I'm now building ChatIR, an AI-powered incident investigation platform for EMS — and consulting with agencies that want to move the needle on safety and operational efficiency. I'm also open to the right full-time role at the intersection of EMS, public safety technology, and operations leadership.

I'm based in San Jose, CA. I'm married with two young kids, which is the real reason I care about doing work that actually matters.

2014–2015
EMT
Royal Ambulance · Santa Clara County
2015–2018
Field Training Officer
Royal Ambulance · Santa Clara County
2018–2024
Operations Supervisor
Royal Ambulance · Santa Clara County
2024–2025
Branch Manager / Program Manager
24 Hour Home Care · Concord, CA
2025–
Founder + EMS Operations Consultant
ChatIR · Independent Practice

How I Think

FAILURE IS A
SYSTEMS
PROBLEM.

Most organizations treat failure as a people problem. Someone made a mistake, someone gets retrained or disciplined, and the organization moves on — until it happens again.

That model doesn't work in high-stakes environments. I know because I spent a decade in one.

I'm less interested in who messed up and more interested in what conditions made that mistake likely, why the system didn't catch it, and how to prevent it at scale. That perspective comes from real operational experience — not theory.

The Question I Always Ask

Not "who made the mistake?" — but "what made this mistake inevitable?"

Every time I investigated an incident at Royal Ambulance, the interesting answer was never in the immediate cause. It was in the conditions that existed before the person even showed up for that shift — the training gap, the policy that hadn't been updated, the technology that couldn't catch what it needed to catch.

What That Looks Like in Practice
  • Investigate incidents to find system-level causes, not just individual ones
  • Build feedback loops so frontline reality reaches leadership strategy
  • Design training and policy around actual failure patterns, not assumptions
  • Create measurement systems that sustain improvements after the project ends
  • Ask "how do we prevent this at scale?" before "how do we fix this case?"
Why This Matters for ChatIR

ChatIR exists because most EMS incident reporting systems are built to document what happened — not to understand why. The report gets filed, the box gets checked, and nothing changes. That's a systems design failure, not a reporting failure.

The platform I'm building is designed around the idea that incident data is only valuable if it produces organizational learning. Better analysis. Faster pattern recognition. Fewer repeat failures. The same thinking that drove my work at Royal, now built into a tool that scales beyond a single supervisor.


"If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are an excellent leader."
— Dolly Parton  ·  Personal north star
Working With Me

PERSONAL
USER
MANUAL

I've learned that clarity about how you work is a gift to the people around you. This is mine — honest, unfiltered, and as useful as I can make it for anyone thinking about working with or hiring me.

⚙️
My Style

Problem-solver and process improver. I'm energized by fixing things and finding better ways to do them. I have a natural tendency to "solution jump" — I've been working on taking time to understand the root cause before proposing fixes. When you bring me a challenge, expect me to dig into the "why" before we touch the "how."

Calm in the storm. I aim to be the stable, steady presence during high-pressure situations. This is both my strength and something that can be draining for me. What looks like distance is usually focus.

Empowerment-focused. I'd rather teach someone to fish than hand them a fish. I find deep satisfaction in developing people and watching them grow into problems I used to carry myself.

❤️
What I Value
  • Root cause thinking. Let's fix it right the first time — not treat symptoms.
  • Service. I've been helped by others in hard moments. Paying it forward drives everything I do.
  • Team development. Nothing makes me happier than watching someone I've mentored step up and own something.
  • Continuous improvement. There's always a better way. I value people who embrace that rather than defend the status quo.
  • Family. My family is my "why." Everything professional is downstream of wanting to create a better life for them.
💬
How to Communicate With Me
  • Be direct. I appreciate honest, straightforward communication. If there's a problem, let's name it.
  • Give me processing time. I think through problems thoroughly before responding. Don't expect an instant answer on complex issues — but I'm working on it.
  • Give me the full picture. When bringing me a problem, help me understand the context. I want to solve the right problem, not just the visible one.
  • Questions aren't criticism. When I ask a lot of questions, I'm trying to understand — not questioning your competence.
What I Don't Have Patience For
  • Preventable problems. Issues that could have been avoided with proper planning feel like wasted energy that could have gone somewhere meaningful.
  • Surface-level solutions. Band-aids don't fix systems. If we're going to fix something, let's fix it right.
  • Constant task-switching. I do my best work in focused blocks. Fragmented attention produces fragmented results.
🤔
What People Misunderstand About Me
"Calm" doesn't mean "don't care." When I'm being the steady presence during chaos, some people interpret this as distance or indifference. I care deeply — I'm just trying to be the stable force everyone can rely on.
I'm not "too serious." Yes, I document everything and like following processes. But one of my personal success metrics is making the people around me laugh. Structure and fun aren't mutually exclusive — good process creates more space for both.
High expectations = belief in potential. When I push people, it's because I see what they're capable of. I'm not demanding because I think you can't do it — I'm pushing because I know you can.