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Larry Camerlin

Providing Access to Lifesaving Medical Care

Editors’ Note

Larry Camerlin founded Angel Flight Northeast in March 1996 and is an active volunteer pilot for the organization. Prior to founding Angel Flight, he established and ran Life-Line Ambulance Service in Wakefield, Massachusetts, which provided emergency medical care to more than one million people in nine communities. The company was sold to a national public entity in 1993. He developed his philosophy of caring and compassion, and his interest in health care, during his years as a Franciscan friar in hospital ministry.

Company Brief

Founded in 1996 by Larry Camerlin, Angel Flight Northeast (www.angelflight.com) is a nonprofit organization that provides free air transportation to patients needing medical treatment and their families, whose financial resources would not otherwise enable them to receive care. Angel Flight operates under FAA rules and regulations and depends on more than 7,000 volunteer pilots, who donate their time, flying skills, fuel, and resources. Angel Flight has flown more than seven and a half million miles since it began, with about half the passengers being children suffering from cancer, severe burns, or crippling diseases, or who are in need of surgery.

When you created Angel Flight, why did you think such an organization was necessary?

My wife and I had just sold the emergency medical services business that we had started from scratch. It was an ambulance company in Massachusetts, and I loved providing people with high-quality access to emergency health care. Shortly after selling that to a national company, I think I had a bit of seller’s remorse, because I found myself looking for other ways in which I could continue to help people. I wanted to give something back for all the blessings I have had in my life.

One of the things I’d always wanted to do but never had the chance to do was to learn to fly. So I started flying lessons. Of course, in the first few hours I was scared to death in those little airplanes. But very quickly, I overcame that and really began to enjoy it. After about seven or eight months, I got my private pilot’s license, and I started wondering what to do with it. One night, I was reading a flying magazine and I came across an article on an “angel flight” out in California. It was a very, very compelling story describing a private pilot in a Cherokee Six single-engine airplane, flying this 10-year-old boy home from the John Wayne Cancer Institute. I said to myself, “My God, what a great thing this is,” and that led to the creation of Angel Flight Northeast.

Back in May 1996, we flew our very first flight. There were three pilots and I. That year we scheduled 114 flights. I think the uniqueness of Angel Flight is that it allows people to use the gifts that they have to make a profound difference in someone’s life. It’s something that’s so simple, yet so profound.

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Just a few of the angels given flight
thanks to Larry Camerlin and his organization

How can people and organizations get involved with your work?

There are many, many ways for people to get involved on both the individual and the corporate levels. On the corporate side, the watchmaker IWC has been an absolute godsend to us. This is the fifth year of their corporate partnership with us. Corporations can help us through financial contributions, through the power that they have in the community, and through their own advertising and marketing departments helping us get the word out about Angel Flight.

As for individuals, a huge amount of our contributions come from individual giving, and individuals who want to volunteer can get involved as a pilot or as a nonpilot. The individuals who are nonpilots help us in many ways. One way is driving patients from the airport to the hospital. We call them our “Earth Angels.” Another group helps us to organize events and carry out fund-raising by staffing Angel Flight booths at air shows and other aviation-related events. They also help us get the word out to the local community by giving talks on Angel Flight at Lions Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary Clubs, Chambers of Commerce, and places like that. Plus, they go into schools to give presentations to assemblies. There are many people in this world who are very, very quietly doing a huge amount of good every day in helping other people by just using the resources that they have inside themselves.

You mentioned your relationship with the watchmaker IWC. How did that develop?

IWC approached us about five years ago because it specializes in aviation watches. The company has a huge aviation history, so officials there asked if they could sponsor some of the events that we do, because they wanted exposure to the aviation community. Then, because their headquarters are in New York and we are in the Northeast, they asked if they could become a major sponsor. So they sponsored one of our early Evening of Angels galas in Boston, which was a milestone event for us. And over the years, the relationship has grown.

For every dollar that we receive, because of the enormous generosity of our pilots and other corporate sponsors, we are able to provide five dollars of medical air transport services. So IWC’s generosity has absolutely stabilized Angel Flight, giving us a very, very firm foundation. Because of the company’s generosity, we’re able to fly hundreds of thousands of flights that we would not otherwise have been able to fly. And, in turn, we feature IWC on our brochures, on our pilot shirts, and in a welcome package to all of our new pilots in our orientation program. At all the aviation events we attend, we have the IWC logo and banners there, to let the aviation community know that there is a major corporation in this country that really cares about what it does.

In my view, the aviation industry should acknowledge and support the 7,000 pilots nationwide who are flying for Angel Flight. We have 1,500 active pilots in the Northeast alone. When pilots are flying for us, they pay for those flights out of their own pockets. They pay for all the fuel in their planes, the oil, the wear and tear, the maintenance, and everything else. That’s coming out of their own pockets. So it’s great when a corporation like IWC steps up and says, “Hey we really, really respect you and value you for what you’re doing and the depth of your giving.”

When you started Angel Flight, did you imagine the impact it would have?

No, I never, ever imagined that. I thought maybe we’d end up with 20 or 25 pilots. Maybe we’d be flying 100 or 200 flights a year at the most. We were a very small group of people that was very, very determined to make sure that no one was denied access to lifesaving medical care simply because they couldn’t get to it. In about 11 and a half years, we have flown more than 50,000 children and adults on 22,000 flights. And we’ve safely flown, thank God, more than seven and a half million miles.