Thomas ‘Tom’ Ryan joined the Rescue Squad in 1991. His inspiration for joining the Rescue Squad was the care that the Rescue Squad provided to his father after an accident that took his father’s life in the late-1970s. To this day, Tom considers many of the people that cared for his dying father as friends. Tom has spent the majority of his 25 years involved in mastering heavy and technical rescue in order to continue the tradition of providing life-saving rescue services to the community in which he grew up. Tom previously served as a Lieutenant and on the Board of Directors. Most days, Tom is joined in his service at the Rescue Squad by his dog, and unofficial firehouse mascot, Laszlo.

Tom lives in the Rescue Squad’s Washington, DC service territory with his wife Emily, an avid ultramarathon runner. He is a partner in a boutique consulting firm that provides risk, emergency and crisis management advice to Fortune 500 companies. Tom has also worked in national security, state-level emergency management, and urban trauma medicine.