We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ernie Houston. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ernie below.

Ernie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Yes, Arizona’s Professional Car Seat Installation (APCSI) serves underserved communities throughout Maricopa County, with our home base in South Phoenix.

A recent example comes from one of our car seat safety checks at a local daycare in South Phoenix. We met a single mother of two who had been using a secondhand car seat that was expired and missing key safety components. Like many parents we serve, she wasn’t aware of the risks or how to properly install a seat. She told us no one had ever taken the time to explain it to her, and that accessing help had always felt out of reach.

Thanks to a generous sponsorship from a local business, we were able to replace her car seat and provide hands-on education about proper installation and usage. She left our event feeling more confident and grateful, knowing her children were finally riding safely.

This kind of impact is common in many parts of Maricopa County, where families often face financial hardship, lack access to safety education, and rely on outdated or secondhand car seats. Without intervention, these conditions can put children at serious risk in the event of a crash.

At APCSI, we’re addressing this by bringing car seat safety education and hands on support directly into the community. We offer free and low-cost drive-up installations, mobile services, and monthly events at daycares and community organizations. Every service is designed to empower families, reduce preventable injuries, and make safety accessible no matter a family’s background or income.

Ernie , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Ernie Houston, and I’m a firefighter with the City of Phoenix and a Nationally Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician and Instructor. I’m also the founder and Executive Director of Arizona’s Professional Car Seat Installation (APCSI) a nonprofit dedicated to keeping children safe in vehicles by providing car seat safety education, hands-on installation support, and community outreach throughout Maricopa County.

I got into this work because I’ve seen firsthand the devastating consequences of improperly installed car seats. As a firefighter responding to motor vehicle collisions, I quickly realized that many of the serious injuries and fatalities involving young children could have been prevented with proper car seat use. That realization became a calling.
In 2018, I became certified as a Child Passenger Safety Technician, and in 2024, I became an instructor to train others in this life-saving field. I founded APCSI to bring accessible, expert level support directly to the families who need it most.

Our organization provides:
• Free and low-cost drive-up car seat safety checks
• Mobile car seat inspections at homes, schools, and daycares
• Community safety events and workshops
• Car seat replacements for families facing financial hardship
• CPST certification courses to train new technicians
• CPR and First Aid training for parents and caregivers

We serve underserved communities across Maricopa County, with our home base in South Phoenix. Many of the families we help are hardworking parents who want to protect their children but lack access to proper education, updated equipment, or trusted resources. That’s where we step in—to bridge those gaps and make child passenger safety something every family can afford and understand.

What sets APCSI apart is our mobile, hands-on approach, our deep community relationships, and the fact that we are run by certified experts who are also members of the community. We bring safety education to the doorstep—whether it’s a daycare, a church parking lot, or a neighborhood block party.

What I’m most proud of is the impact we’ve already made with limited resources. We’ve helped hundreds of families feel more confident and capable. We’ve replaced unsafe seats thanks to local business sponsorships. And we’ve trained new CPSTs who now serve their own communities.

If there’s one thing I want potential clients, partners, and supporters to know, it’s this: our work saves lives. Every car seat check, every installation, every conversation can be the difference between life and death for a child in a crash. APCSI is here to make sure every child in our community rides safer—and every parent knows how to make that happen.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One story that really reflects my resilience happened early in the journey of building Arizona’s Professional Car Seat Installation (APCSI). At that time, we didn’t have any major funding, partnerships, or even consistent access to supplies. I was personally covering the costs of gas, materials, and car seats—doing whatever it took to serve families who had no one else to turn to.

I remember hosting one of our first mobile safety events in South Phoenix. It was over 100 degrees, we didn’t have tents or equipment just a folding table, a few car seats in my truck, and a deep commitment to the mission. I honestly wasn’t sure if anyone would show up. But they did families lined up, many with expired or misused car seats, and several without any car seat at all.

One mother showed up with a toddler in a seat that had been through a crash something many families don’t realize makes a seat unsafe. She couldn’t afford a new one, and she was clearly overwhelmed. I was able to give her a safe replacement and walk her through proper installation. She broke down in tears, thanking me for something that seemed so small but made such a big difference.

What people don’t always see is what it takes to keep showing up. I’m a full-time firefighter, a husband, and a father. Balancing those responsibilities while running a nonprofit training techs, organizing events, applying for grants, and responding to families in need isn’t easy. There are days when I’m coming off a 24-hour shift, grabbing a couple hours of sleep, and heading straight to a community event. But I do it because I know the impact is real.

Resilience, to me, means showing up even when you’re tired, underfunded, and stretched thin because people are counting on you. I carry that mindset into every part of my life, whether I’m on duty at the fire station or helping a parent secure their child safely in the back seat of their car. That commitment is what built APCSI and what continues to drive it forward today.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn was the idea that I had to do everything on my own, that asking for help was a sign of weakness or that relying on others somehow made my vision less valid.

As a firefighter, husband, father, and founder of Arizona’s Professional Car Seat Installation (APCSI), I’ve always taken pride in being dependable, the one others turn to in times of crisis. But that mindset also made it hard for me to accept support when I needed it. In the early days of APCSI, I carried most of the weight myself—funding events out of pocket, planning everything alone, and trying to be everywhere at once. I felt like if I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done right.

But eventually, I hit a wall. The needs in the community were growing, and I couldn’t keep up on my own. I realized that if I truly wanted to expand our impact, I had to start asking for help whether it was applying for grants, partnering with local businesses, or building a reliable team of certified techs and volunteers. That shift in mindset changed everything.

It taught me that leadership isn’t about doing it all yourself—it’s about building something bigger than you, something sustainable, something that allows others to step in and serve too. Letting go of that self-reliance wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.

Now, I’m proud to say APCSI is a community driven effort, and I’ve learned that asking for help isn’t a weakness, it’s one of the strongest things you can do when you’re trying to create real, lasting change.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yoursafebaby.org
• Instagram: @azproinstall
• Facebook: Arizona’s Professional Car Seat Installation