EDITORIAL BOARD

The Safety Squad Staff & Editorial Board draws its talent from across the emergency service, medical and teaching spectrum. Our staff are CPS certified firefighters, paramedics, nurses, police officers and educators with decades of real-world experience. Our team members have responded to thousands of vehicle crash scenes and know that prevention though education and training will save lives. Additionally, Safety Squad's Editorial Board has over 45 years of car seat education and instructional experience.

Contributors

Brooks Watson

Brooks is a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician. He has been a firefighter since 1991. In 1998, he helped found the Fire Rescue Development Program (FRDP). FRDP is a U.N. recognized non-governmental organization that provides education, training and equipment to fire, rescue and emergency services in developing and war-torn nations. Brooks worked with FRDP to empower community-based emergency service and safety organizations in Kosovo, Mozambique, Iraq, Mexico and Haiti. In 2005, Brooks left FRDP to concentrate on domestic safety issues closer to home. He is a co-founder of Safety Squad.

Steve Breden

Steve is a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, and has served as a firefighter for over 11 years. Beyond his expertise with Child Passenger Safety, Steve brings years of IT experience to Safety Squad. Steve previously served as an Information Technology Consultant for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Steve is a co-founder of Safety Squad. Steve lives on Chicago's north side with his wife.

Tom McQueen

Tom is married and has raised two daughters and a son. He's now spoiling his first grandaughter. He spent almost 30 years as a police officer, starting in Romeoville (IL) and retiring in 2002 from the Naperville (IL) Police Department. Most of his law enforcement career was spent in traffic safety and crash investigation. In 1989, Tom was certified as a Traffic Crash Reconstruction Specialist. He also taught in the Criminal Justice Program at the College of DuPage County from 1986-2001 and the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy from 1994-2001. Tom has been a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician Instructor since 1999.  In 2001, Tom became the Northern Illinois Coordinator for Child Passenger Safety for the Illinois Department of Transportation and served in that role until 2005.  At that time the position was expanded to include adult occupant protection and Tom became one of the Regional Occupant Protection Coordinators for IDOT.  Tom retired from that position in 2008.

Ashley Gold

Ms. Gold is a Project Manager for the Injury Prevention and Research Center at The Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She has been the Director of Safe Kids Chicago since 2001. Ashley is a certified Child Passenger Safety Instructor.

Ashley has been an adult education provider since 1996. She has taught many subjects, including injury prevention and car seat safety classes to new and expectant moms throughout Chicago, most notably at the University of Chicago and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Ashley has also contracted with corporate clients to teach the standardized child passenger safety curriculum. She is a 2002 graduate of the Injury Prevention Summer Institute at Johns Hopkins. Ashley received her BA from the University of Texas at Austin, and completed her Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Arkansas. She is a licensed clinical social worker. Ashley, her husband, 4 year old daughter and infant son live on the north side of Chicago.

Pamella Holt

Pam Holt, RN, BSN, is the Chair of the Missouri Injury and Violence Prevention Advisory Council and is an advisory committee member of the Springfield Safe Kids Coalition. She just completed a term as Chair of the National Child Passenger Safety Board. Pam is well established as an educator and resource for injury prevention on a local, state and national level. Pam serves as the Trauma Prevention Education Coordinator for St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Missouri and has developed many educational programs which are designed to teach about preventing injury to diverse populations.

Pam is active in the legislative process to improve Missouri’s occupant protection laws. In 2006, Pam drafted language that became the child passenger safety and booster seat law for the state. For her efforts, Pam was honored with the National Highway Traffic Administration’s People Saving People Award in July 2006. Pam also developed the National Task Force for Child Passenger Safety in Healthcare and takes an active role to establish child passenger safety programs across the country. Pam works tirelessly in advocating the growth of injury prevention education as a means to reduce the impact of injuries on the lives of children and their families.

Katrina Hubbard

Katrina has a background in critical care and emergency nursing which inspired her to seek opportunities in advancing injury prevention.  She has worked as an injury prevention specialist for the past 13 years at Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago and also at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Illinois.
Katrina has been involved with multiple organizations which champion injury prevention activities including Safe Kids and Emergency Nurses CARE (ENCARE).  She has been honored to receive a national award from ENCARE and was a recipient of the Kuska award which is an Illinois state award given for excellence in child passenger safety.

Katrina has been a Child Passenger Safety Technician Instructor since 1998.  She is an original member of the Illinois Child Passenger Safety Board since 1999 and currently serves as Chair.  Katrina is not only passionate but probably addicted to injury prevention education and specifically child passenger safety issues.  Katrina lives in Naperville, IL with her husband and has 2 children who have long ago outgrown car seats

Darren Qunell

Formerly an electrical design engineer at Fermi National Laboratory, Darren is now a domestic engineer managing day-to-day operations of a residential facility and three school-age employees.  He has been a Child Passenger Safety technician since 2002 and serves as coordinator of DuPage County Safe Kids.  Darren is the founder of the Car-Safety.org and Car-Seat.Org websites.  He lives with his wife in Naperville, where he operates Seatcheck.net, a child seat fitting station.