Opening of Bids - Spec S - One or More 2018 or Newer Emergency Medical Vehicle - Horton Emergency Vehicle - Part 2

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being accepted at a rapid pace. In fact during the early 1970's the Cadillac and Travel - AI style of ambulance was rapidly dwindling and soon disappeared. In the beginning, building one ambulance a month was a lot of work. By 1972 business was prospering. The employee count reached 15. Both Ford and Dodge van style chassis were being utilized. In 1972 a new design was shown to the public that provided more headroom in the patient area. A 'low -raised roof soon became very popular. The look was strange when the original cab roof was cut out, but the resulting increase room was a hit. In 1973 a higher raised roof came about, providing 64" of interior headroom. Many other great features were being incorporated. An electrical oxygen system was developed with the help of the Columbus Oxygen Company. Production had even reached 4 units a month. Sales were still focused primarily in Ohio. Carl at that point had a sales manager and one Ohio Sales Representative. Business was booming. In 1973 Carl decided to move the Stimmel Road facility. A new location was found at 500 Industrial Mile Road. The building totaled 45,000 of space. All of production and sales were now in one building. The move took a while, but once complete Carl's reaction was 'What are we going to do with all of the vacant spacer and most importantly 'How are we going to pay our monthly bills?' There were about 30 employees at the time and at our first plant meeting Carl put forth his updated mission statement which was 'We still need to continue to build the best ambulance possible, but we better sell a whole lot more to fill this space and pay the bills'. Advice heeded. He even took on a partner (Ken Underwood) at that time to run production as Carl would focus more on being in the front office and developing new ideas. Around that time Carl had a great idea that needed to be implemented. The idea was to build an ambulance with more working space. Because of all of the updated requirements mandated by the 'new' DOT Ambulance Design Criteria space in the patient area was being challenged. The small van -style ambulance was now becoming cramped. Some ambulance manufacturers such as Springfield Ambulance and Modulance were building what was known as a 'box style' ambulance. A large modular style steel box or combination steellaluminum' box was being mounted on the back of a pickup chassis. The idea made some sense in that more working space was created. The down side is that the steel box was extremely heavy and the combo steel/aluminum box had its own set of problems with corrosion of dissimilar metals. Carl's brilliant idea was to build a light weight box. His idea centered on an all aluminum box. With that idea now in tow Carl now needed to find a 'quality' manufacture to build the box. Carl had attended some of the national Fire and EMS shows. He stumbled upon a small local manufacturer of fire trucks known as Pierce Fire Apparatus. They put out a high quality fire truck and also had experience in building a small tactical truck built that