Making a difference: Guardian Flight transports with 'heart' not 'profits' in mind.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: TRANSPORTATION - Cover story

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

One early summer afternoon, a cramped office in a warehouse near Fairbanks International Airport is humming with activity. Five sheets of paper are spread out on a desk with a kitchen timer ticking away on each one. A computer monitor in a corner shows the flight paths of several planes. Clocks set to various time zones line the wall overhead.

This is the communications center for Guardian Night, the largest medevac company in Alaska. The atmosphere is laid-back, but focused.

"It is a different kind of transportation business," says Tim Baker, director of Guardian Flight Air Care. "People, they get involved with their hearts here."

Each sheet of paper represents a patient being transported, some for routine care, others for emergency treatment in such places as Kansas, Washington, Seward and Fort Yukon. The timers are set to ring when the planes land so the dispatcher in Fairbanks can check in with them.

It's a typically busy afternoon. Dr. Eric Stirling, Guardian Flight owner and medical director, jokes that he hasn't been able to get Alaskans to schedule medical emergencies four hours apart--they always seem to happen in bunches. And they happen often.

A BIG PIECE OF THE PIE

One of every 100 Alaskans is medevaced each year, Baker says. Guardian staffers work 24 hours a day, every day, to provide medical services to far-flung reaches of Alaska, the Yukon and the Lower 48 from bases in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Sitka, Ketchikan and Dutch Harbor. Guardian also provides ground ambulance service in the Anchorage area. The service uses a fleet of Beechcraft King Air 200 turboprops as well as two Lear 35 turbojets. It averages 3,000 flights each year and has received the highest level of medical care accreditation available from the Commission of Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems.

That is an enormous source of pride for Guardian Flight.

Stirling emphasizes three things to employees: good career opportunities, patient care and safety.

PATIENTS FIRST

Putting the welfare of their patients first is a mantra at Guardian Flight. Staffers talk about the importance of patient care with an almost missionary fervor. Much of that is due to Stirling, who founded Guardian Flight as a branch of Frontier Flying Service in Fairbanks in 1997. It became a standalone company three years later.

Stirling is a lanky, soft-spoken man with short graying hair. A conversation in a hallway at Guardian was frequently interrupted by the ring of...