EMT community loses longtime instructor

By Nick Stern, Copy Editor | Photo provided by Wildmed.com

Since Thursday, May 15, the CNM community has been at a loss for words and has been mourning the passing of Health, Wellness and Public Safety instructor Cy Stockhoff, who was also an icon of the Emergency Medical Services community, said Michael Voss, Associate Dean of Health, Wellness, and Public Safety.
Stockhoff was survived by his wife Jan and his two children Paul and Maren, who he put before anything and everything else, Voss said.
“First and foremost he is a father and husband and then beyond that he is an icon in the Emergency Medical Services, from seeing a need to create an EMS system in Northern New Mexico when there wasn’t one—Cy Stockhoff was a great man who knew where his priorities were,” he said.
Even though his family was his priority, he still managed to reach a well-known status through his many different endeavors and accomplishments, Voss said.
One of Stockhoff’s many achievements include working as one of the first supervisors for Albuquerque Ambulance when it was much smaller than it is now, Voss said, and he also saw the need for an EMS system in Eagle Nest, NM, where he succeeded in establishing one, Voss said.
Stockhoff has also helped in developing CNM’s paramedic program, worked as the EMS Program Director and followed his passion for teaching as an instructor at UNM and CNM, Voss said.
His influence as a teacher and mentor has had a huge impact on the EMS field across New Mexico, from the curriculum which he developed and is used throughout schools in New Mexico, to the massive population of students and instructors that have been taught by him, he said.
“I think he was really a humble man who could have had an amazing ego for all the things he did. Over the course of 39 years, I think it would be fair to say he personally taught 20 to 25,000 students. I can’t think of a person in the EMS field right now that has had a more profound impact. If you mention his name to pretty much any provider in the state, or certainly any educator in the state, they know who Cy Stockhoff was and they have a personal account,” Voss said.
Stockhoff had a great eye for potential, which he saw in Voss and many others, which Voss said had an especially large influence on his life and personal career after they met.
Voss had heard of Stockhoff, who already had a huge reputation, but they had the pleasure of meeting when Voss had him as an instructor in med school, and then again for an instructor coordinator class when Voss was wrapping up paramedic school, he said.
Voss was also compelled by Stockhoff’s expansive vision for CNM’s paramedic program and was talked into leaving his full-time job with a fire department in Santa Fe in favor of a position at CNM where he has since then been successful and worked his way to leadership positions, eventually becoming Associate Dean of HWPS, he said.
“From being sort of like my boss, hiring me and then being a mentor, but then over the years just being a friend— and for me, in a lot of ways, he became a father figure because I am originally from Minnesota and all my family is from up there,” he said.
Voss said there are a lot of people who have had the fortune of knowing Stockhoff and plenty of them would also consider him to have been a “surrogate father” to them, because he was incredibly wise and good at giving advice to anyone who needed it, and also had great core values, which he also shared, Voss said.
Stockhoff was cherished by everyone and was also known for his unique habits, always wearing shorts every day throughout the year, no matter what season or weather it happened to be, which was just another reminder of what kind of a “cool customer” he really was, Voss said.
New Mexico and especially the CNM community are better places because of Stockhoff and that his involvement in CNM; like the large amount of the school curriculum that he has helped to establish, or the countless instructors and students whose education he devoted so many years to, has truly left his mark on the community in many ways, Voss said.
“His legacy at CNM will live on for a long time. There is an amazing instructional cause right here tremendously influenced by him. Much of what we have, and we have lots and lots of curriculum, has got his fingerprints all over it,” Voss said.