Making a difference in your profession is more than just talk, it requires a commitment to act from a policy-making seat of your town, city, county, or state's government. Running for office with the goal of impacting change in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is the most powerful way to address critical issues within our profession including reimbursement, workforce, mental health, systems of care, and more. This session will help you to understand the basic questions you need to answer before running for office and how to build an effective grassroots campaign as well as how to pick your issues and build effective stakeholder teams that are essential to identify pressing issues and develop comprehensive solutions that enhance emergency medical services. I will take participants inside my time as both a local and a state legislator, pull the curtain back on policy-making strategies and share in some of the key progress we have made for EMS because EMS professionals like myself decided to run for something. Non-Core: Additional