By Jim Kalvelage
Ruidoso News
RUIDOSO, NM — The week-long EMS Region III Partners for Life Conference in Ruidoso provides a big boost each spring to the Ruidoso area economy.
“Our event went from a seven-day to an eight-day event,” said Jan Elliot, executive director of Region III EMS in New Mexico said of the conference. “We actually opened up on Sunday morning.”
Workshops for emergency medical service personnel range from hands-on training to auto extrication and even wildland firefighting.
“Our pre-conference numbers are the largest we’ve ever had,” Elliot said. “Our core conference, which is Friday, Saturday and Sunday, is also the largest attendance so far to date.”
The annual instructional and tradeshow event has been held at the Ruidoso Convention Center for 17 straight years.
“With the conference participants, the faculty, the national and the New Mexico faculty and our staff, we’re looking at a little over 1,100 folks,” Elliot said of those that will be on hand for at least a part of the conference.
That pumps up the village’s lodgers tax and gross receipts tax revenues.
“We actually had a gentleman come in, a company, to do a fiscal impact on the village of Ruidoso,” Elliot said. “When that report was generated (several years ago), it showed that we brought in a little over $3.4 million into the village over a seven day period.”
The exhibitor portion of the conference, with 64 vendors, was sold out a couple of weeks ago.
Twelve national speakers will make presentations. The Partners for Life Conference draws many emergency responders from across New Mexico as well as from some neighboring states.
“Not only is this for the rural EMS services, the rural EMTs, this is actually a week for them to take off and bring their families to an event. They can’t take off like most paid EMTs so this is kind of a family week for many, many rural EMTs around the state.”
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