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Company Profile

McKnight Associates is owned and operated by J. Michael Riley. Mr. Riley has been a paramedic, police officer, and instructor for over 20 years. 

The instructors at McKnight Associates are a team of individuals that each have numerous areas of concentration and expertise. The combined skills and proficiency of these individuals allow McKnight Associates to offer a wide variety of Operational Medicine Programs and Tactical Emergency Medical Training (TEMS) to a wide variety of audiences. The team has extensive experience as tactical medical providers and instructors, police officers, and medical directors. McKnight Associates enjoys a proven track record of teaching proficiency. The team has worked with EMS agencies, Federal and State law enforcement, fire departments, government agencies, schools, businesses, and municipalities of all sizes to improve the safety and effectiveness of tactical emergency medical responses.  Mr. Riley and several other members of the training team have recently returned from from Iraq, after providing tactical medical support and protective services in Baghdad.

The consultants at McKnight are often the same dedicated, experienced individuals described above.  We provide on-site and remote consulting services as well as contracted operational support.  

McKnight Associates is proud to be associated with Emergency Medical Visions International (EMVI).  Greg Ciottone M.D., president of EMVI, holds the position of medical director for McKnight Associates. 

Dr. Ciottone is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School where he is the Director of International Emergency Medicine. He also serves as Director of the Division of International Disaster and Emergency Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where he works clinically in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

 Dr. Ciottone was the Commander of the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) Massachusetts-2, a Level-1 response team of the National Disaster Medical System, United States of America. He is Editor of “Disaster Management for Terrorist Events”, a training manual to be published by the United Nations Development Program, and is the Editor-in-Chief of “Practical Approach to Disaster Medicine and Terrorist Events” to be published by Mosby in 2005. He is nationally and internationally known in the field of Disaster Management, and has extensive field experience, including 10 years as a Flight Physician for a LifeFlight rescue helicopter system.

 Since 1993 Dr. Ciottone has taught extensively in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He played a key role in the development of 16 Disaster and Emergency Medicine training centers in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), funded by the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). His division has developed curricula in Disaster Management and Emergency Medicine that have been used to instruct over 40,000 medical and non-medical personnel in the CIS. With the first center opening its doors in 1994, they continue to be self-sustaining and in operation today.

 Through his role as Commander of the DMAT Massachusetts-2, Dr. Ciottone led this level-1 federal disaster response team on numerous deployments, the most notable of which was the World Trade Center response on September 11, 2001, where his was one of the first federal disaster teams into Ground Zero. Remaining on site for 2 weeks, his team treated 400 casualties per day in five field stations. His team also responded to the Anthrax attacks in New York City where they screened and treated over 5,000 postal workers. He remains an integral part of the American counter-terrorism disaster preparedness program.

 In 2001, Dr. Ciottone became an Implementing Partner of the United Nations Disaster Management Training Program. This prestigious title is given to select international experts, allowing them to work as consultants to the family of United Nations organizations. Through this role Dr. Ciottone has become the Editor for the UN training module “Disaster Management for Terrorist Events.” Currently in production, this manual will be used by the United Nations to train personnel worldwide on the planning and response to terrorist attacks.

 Dr. Ciottone  lectures nationally and internationally on disaster management and counter-terrorism related issues. He is consistently requested as a Key Note Speaker or Chairman at Disaster Preparedness and Response congress’ around the world, and is a Founding Member of the United States Department of Homeland Security.  He has served as a Disaster Fellowship Director for the International Atomic Energy Agency and as the Medical Director for the Tactical EMS Training Program for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA Academy) in Quantico Virginia. He holds an advisory role with the Centers for Disease Control Project “Wildfire” and maintains an active research program, searching for innovative approaches to Disaster Management.