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January 17, 2023

WGU Names Kevin Collopy a Distinguished Graduate

Wilmington resident receives university honor

A picture of Kevin Collopy, who was recently named as a WGU Distinguished Graduate. Kevin Collopy '21 presently serves as the Clinical Outcomes & Compliance Manager for AirLink/VitaLink at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center

WILMINGTON, N.C. – Western Governors University has named Kevin Collopy of Wilmington as one of the school’s 25 Distinguished Graduates. Collopy earned a Master of Healthcare Leadership degree from the accredited online university in 2021 and presently serves as the Clinical Outcomes & Compliance Manager for AirLink/VitaLink at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center

WGU’s Distinguished Graduate award recipients were honored as “examples of inspiration and dedication.” Their work and volunteer efforts go above and beyond, significantly impacting their communities and career fields. WGU has more than 301,000 alumni in the United States, including more than 6,800 graduates across all 100 counties in North Carolina.

Collopy is an accomplished prehospital and critical care transport medicine leader who has been engaged in supporting his community and advancing his profession for more than 20 years. He launched AirLink/VitaLink’s prehospital blood administration program while simultaneously developing an outreach program that improved supplies of blood in the region. Since the program’s inception, it has collected double the amount of blood it has administered to patients, enough to impact more than 2,500 patients and their families.

Collopy also developed the country’s first prehospital point-of-care laboratory testing program to be accredited by the College of American Pathologists as a mobile laboratory. He was recognized as a top EMS10 Innovator in 2014. He has authored more than 250 magazine articles, textbook chapters, and research papers, and has presented on prehospital care medicine more than 200 times across the United States, Taiwan, Canada, and Belize.

Since graduating from WGU, Collopy has served as chair of the Global Critical Care Transport Higher Education Council, where he led the development of the inaugural Accreditation Standards for A.S., B.S., and Graduate Critical Care Transport Education Programs. Additionally, he has partnered with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative as the prehospital trauma course director to develop and deliver a trauma education program for prehospital providers in Ukraine, part of an integrated effort to support the Ukrainian health and trauma systems during the ongoing conflict. He continues to teach paramedic programs at Cape Fear Community College and is the principal investigator for six ongoing prehospital research studies. Collopy was also recently honored with the 2022 Top Clinical Research award at the International Scientific EMS Symposium.

“Kevin is an outstanding professional who has not only contributed to his local community, but to the field of prehospital medical care around the world,” said Ben Coulter, Ed.D., Chancellor of WGU North Carolina, the university’s state affiliate. “On behalf of Western Governors University and WGU North Carolina, I extend my congratulations to him and his family.”

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Leslie Reed, Director, External Communications
385-428-9433

leslie.reed@wgu.edu
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