Rob Ravndal is a paramedic program director and instructor at Southeast Community College and spent 17 years as a paramedic and firefighter/paramedic in urban, suburban, and rural EMS systems. After developing PTSD following a critical incident in 2015 and retiring from first response in 2018, he began using a service dog as part of his treatment, an experience that revealed how unprepared he was for calls involving legitimate service-animal teams. Rob holds a master’s degree in history from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and is currently a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studying equity issues in education and healthcare. His lived experience, academic training, and ongoing research inform his work to improve EMS understanding of service-animal access.