Organizational Case
Why EMERGENZ
EMERGENZ is not a conference organizer that decided to do a public safety event. It is a public safety infrastructure organization that has been building toward this moment for two years — in two geographies simultaneously, with an operational board, an active federation, and validated programs already in the field.
The Problem We Solve
Not a shortage of capability. A failure of infrastructure.
American emergency medical services are not failing for lack of effort. They are failing because of how the system is structured — and who that structure was built to serve. Federal stockpiles, mutual aid frameworks, and surge infrastructure exist in abundance. They are, with few exceptions, inaccessible to the agencies that need them most.
EMERGENZ was founded on a specific diagnosis: the problem is not a shortage of emergency response capability in the United States. The problem is that the infrastructure connecting that capability to the agencies that need it does not exist. Building that infrastructure — deployable logistics, credentialed surge capacity, workforce education, and intelligence-driven technology — is the work EMERGENZ is doing.
Signal & Response is the AI literacy and field-bridging arm of that infrastructure mission. The same gap that exists between federal resources and local EMS agencies exists between the AI safety research community and the practitioners who will live with the consequences of AI deployment. EMERGENZ is positioned to close both.
"EMERGENZ is positioned at a specific inflection point: the moment when the EMS field has accepted that technology transformation is necessary but has not yet determined who builds the shared infrastructure. A nonprofit organization with deep field credibility, an openly governed technology architecture, and a federation governance model designed for national scale is the right answer to that question."
Organization
EMERGENZ Corporation · EIN 93-4070519 · Delaware 501(c)(3), backdated to October 2023 formation · California foreign entity registered 2026 · Candid Platinum Transparency 2026 (EMERGENZ and federation affiliate ARES) · Co-working presence: Tides Converge at the Presidio, San Francisco
Operational Track Record
Build first. Validate second. Fund deployment third.
EMERGENZ does not apply for funding before building. The programs named here are already built, validated, and in operation. That orientation distinguishes this organization from most early-stage nonprofits at comparable funding stages.
Organizational Architecture
Six hubs. One mission.
EMERGENZ operates through six mutually supporting hubs. Signal & Response draws on at least four of them simultaneously.
🚨 EMERGENZ Response
Disaster response, disaster logistics, mass care deployment, surge capacity. Home of the Mass Care Logistics Support Program, National Surge Support Network, and Specialty Equipment and Apparatus Program.
📡 EMERGENZ Dispatch
Emergency communications innovation and dispatch intelligence platform deployment — home of the dispatch intelligence platform, the AI-powered CAD and triage platform.
🎓 EMERGENZ Education
Workforce training, CEU-accredited programs, Mobile Health Branded Education Series, LMS platform in development. Signal & Response CE content lives here — including the pre-series: four free CE-accredited programs delivered before the East Coast event.
🏥 EMERGENZ Health
Envisioned to support mobile integrated healthcare, community paramedicine, telehealth integration, and provider wellness. Connects Signal & Response to the clinical community.
⚙️ EMERGENZ Systems
Technology development, data platforms, AI integration, predictive logistics. The Signal & Response evidence base and technology framing originate here.
🤝 EMERGENZ Resources
Operational support, consulting, grant navigation for under-resourced agencies. Provides the federation broadcast channel for East Coast event outreach.
Federation
Not a mailing list. A structured governance model.
Each affiliation is governed by an executed MOU with defined hub placement, mutual obligations, and explicit scope. ATEC is a federation member providing CE partnership services — not a co-equal producing organization.
| Organization | Status | Geography | Role in Signal & Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile Health Alliance (MHA) | Executed MOU | NY / NJ | 5 hospital-based and volunteer EMS orgs; East Coast venue pathway; attendee pipeline |
| Allied Rescue & Emergency Services International (ARES) EIN 84-2954255 · Independent 501(c)(3) · Candid Platinum 2026 | Executed MOU | USA / International | Disaster response and capacity building — field operations, equipment caches, and surge capacity rooted in international disaster response operations. |
| Allied Training & Emergency Consulting (ATEC) EIN 92-1932911 · Independent 501(c)(3) | Executed MOU | NJ / NYC Metro | CE partner — NJ OEMS submission, CE administration, facilitator coverage, event staffing. EMERGENZ is the producing organization and program lead. |
| Operation Green Star (OGS) EIN 85-0500039 · Independent 501(c)(3) | Executed MOU | NJ | First responder mental health and peer support; relevant to shadow use and wellbeing framing in East Coast sessions |
Why This Team
No figurehead board members.
Every board member brings specific domain expertise that directly addresses what an organization at this stage would otherwise need to hire for — or go without.
Michael Migliaccio, NREMT
NREMT with field experience spanning EMS, mobile health, emergency communications, heavy and technical rescue, HazMat/CBRNE, law enforcement intelligence, and international and domestic disaster operations including COVID-19 pandemic operational leadership.
20+ years of executive mobile health leadership including scaling EMS operations from startup to $12.5M. Built a county-integrated Mobile Integrated Health platform during COVID connecting EMS with county government, a Public Safety Communications Center, and telehealth — a direct operational precedent for Signal & Response.
Certified AI in Healthcare specialist. Graduate certificate in Homeland Security. Former two-time delegate to the National Summit on Critical Care Policy. Participant in Maverick's Rescue 2025 Ocean Safety Summit and 2025 Google.org Generative AI Accelerator demo day.
Richard Van Der Wall Jr.
Career EMS professional and veteran 911 dispatcher with expansive leadership experience in regional 911 communications. Founding board member of Operation Green Star. Co-founder of Allied Training & Emergency Consulting (ATEC) — EMERGENZ's CE partner.
21-year history in volunteer EMS and Rescue leadership and roots in the NJ/NYC Metro emergency services community give EMERGENZ operational credibility in its primary deployment geography. The fact that the federation's most operationally active partnership runs through a board member reflects how EMERGENZ structures accountability.
Melissa Crocker
Nine years as Director of Administration for a regional commercial EMS system alongside 16 years as a volunteer EMT, including a term as Chief of Operations at Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps in New York City.
That combination — commercial EMS administration and volunteer sector leadership simultaneously — is rare and specifically relevant. EMERGENZ serves both ends of the EMS spectrum, and Melissa understands the operational and financial reality of each from the inside.
Eamon Daul, RN, MPH
Chief Flight Nurse at JEMSTAR Air Medical / University Hospital Newark — a joint NJ Department of Health and NJ State Police program. 25+ years in EMS, critical care transport, emergency trauma, and ALS education. MPH in Epidemiology from St. George's University.
Expansive experience in technical and heavy rescue and HazMat in leadership capacities. Adjunct faculty at Bergen Community College — directly connected to the provider pipeline the Education Hub serves. The board's clinical authority and a practicing field provider simultaneously.
Disclosure: Board role is uncompensated and voluntary. Bergen Community College and JEMSTAR affiliations disclosed to program partners and funders.
What this board represents collectively is not a set of complementary resumes. It is a proof of concept for the federation model itself: people from different corners of the EMS ecosystem — field operations, clinical care, administration, education, dispatch — working under a shared governance structure toward a common infrastructure goal.
Why Now
Three conditions that won't converge again.
The AI Moment
Consumer LLM adoption by frontline personnel is happening now, without agency awareness or policy response. The first wave of purpose-built public safety AI tools is entering the market. Procurement decisions will be made in the next 12–24 months. Intervention now has maximum leverage — before harmful deployments and before the shadow use problem becomes a documented liability crisis.
Post-Pandemic Acceptance
COVID-19 forced EMS into contact with technology — telehealth, remote operations, data-driven public health response — in ways that created lasting acceptance for approaches that would have faced years of resistance. The workforce crisis has created urgency that makes the case for infrastructure investment easier to make than at any prior point.
The Right Organization
EMERGENZ is the only organization with simultaneous operational presence in the NJ/NYC public safety community, co-working infrastructure at the Presidio, active CE credentialing through ATEC, and documented standing in the AI safety and emerging technology community. No other organization has all four.