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During our first year of operation we received much praise from our citizens and our governing officials. In an article in the Concord Tribune, a quote from an official in Raleigh stated that, "We were one of the top three ambulance services on the East Coast." What an honor for a small service like ours. In February 1975 our new satellite station at Highway 49 & 601 was completed. It was very small, cold, and uncomfortable, but we managed to survive. In December of 1979, construction of the present Station One was started. During construction we relocated to the basement of the Emergency Operations Center on Cabarrus Avenue. There were no windows in our quarters and therefore we never knew what the weather was like outside. It was really tough getting up in the middle of the night in 15 to 20 degree weather to climb into a cold ambulance to respond to a call. But again, we toughed it out. Finally in September of 1980, our new station was completed. We were ecstatic. We hardly knew what to do with all of the space that we now had. It was especially nice to have our ambulances inside now. No more freezing, ice-covered ambulances. Even though we always tried to do everything right, there was still something missing. So in the summer of 1981, we finally got it right. We hired our first female employee. In the spring of 1982, Cabarrus Ambulance Service combined with Emergency Management under the direction of Ben Mabrey. We also changed to the existing work schedule of working 24 hours and off 48 hours. This was also a very welcome change. It's now fall 1984 and we're still growing. George Orwell's predictions obviously did not come true. Training was always important and we continued to strive to be the best. At this time we were operating at the EMT-Intermediate level with our ultimate goal to be Paramedics. In January of 1986 our dream was starting to come true. We started our Paramedic training in February of that year. After a year of classes and hundreds of hours of clinical time, we took the state Paramedic test on February 7, 1987. In mid March we got our results. Everyone of us had passed. We were finally Paramedics! Also in 1987 we changed the name of our service to Cabarrus County Emergency Medical Services, which has more of a professional sound. In December of 1989 a major reorganization took place. We were once again separated from Emergency Management. Applications were accepted for a new Director of Cabarrus EMS. In March of 1990, Aubrey Attkisson became the new Director. Immediately many positive and productive changes were made.