Health & Safety Institute began with the MEDIC First Aid® and American Health & Safety Institute (ASHI) program brands, which were created to provide easy-to-use, effective emergency care training.
MEDIC First Aid
In conjunction with Buck Ambulance Service, founders Maryl Barker and Peder Heineman created the first MEDIC First Aid program in 1976 when a patron at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, Oregon, was stricken with Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA).
That initial training program taught seven basic response skills and came to the Instructor as 650 presentation slides packed into an actual footlocker. Today’s more user friendly MEDIC First Aid programs still remain true to that original vision of a systematic, “hearing, seeing, doing, speaking, and feeling” methodology that prepares students to respond with confidence.
The American Safety & Health Institute
ASHI was founded by Gregg Rich and Tim Eiman, who were providing competitive training services in central Florida. Following their vision of creating cost-effective training with reduced administrative burdens, they worked with other professional trainers to develop ASHI’s Basic First Aid for the Community and Workplace as their first training offering.
Rich and Eiman began to promote the ASHI line on the national level in 1996.
Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond
Health & Safety Institute was created in 2007 when private equity investor The Riverside Company acquired ASHI and MEDIC First Aid, uniting the two companies to bring more choices in training, programs, and products to those respective customer bases.
In 2009, HSI added 24-7 EMS and 24-7 Fire for audience-specific continuing education for professionals. With the launch of First Safety Institute (FSI) in 2010, HSI now offers OSHA compliance training.
EMP Canada joined the HSI team in 2009 to provide emergency care training tailored to meet the requirements of national and provincial regulations.
HSI's vision is to be the preferred training resource for safety and health training centers.
Through more than 16,000 training centers and 200,000 professional emergency care, safety and health educators in the United States, Canada, and many countries around the globe, HSI companies have certified more than 13 million emergency care providers.