NE Montana Stat Air Welcomes New Executive Director

After a nationwide search following the retirement of Clay Berger, Northeast Montana (NE MT) Stat Air Ambulance cooperative welcomed Brad Varvil in July as their new executive director. Varvil, with his wife, Melissa, relocated from Tacoma, Wash., and are excited to become a part of the Valley County community.

Originally from southern California, Montana is not new territory for Varvil as he had spent a lot of time throughout his life traveling around the state."Between my school and military service, and various other things, we've bounced in and out of Montana. We have good friends near Rudyard so we got out through Great Falls and onto the Hi-Line a few times," he explained.

Varvil has always been about serving. With military experience on both sides of his family, mostly with the Navy and Marines, he was the first one of his family to join the Air Force where he served as an air force logistics officer for five years.

He always thought airplanes were cool growing up so he was able to pursue his interests by gaining a lot of aerospace logistics while on active duty. "It was something that is really boring to discuss at garden parties," Varvil laughed, "but aerospace logistics just kind of clicked for me and so it's been our livelihood ever since." He admits military programs has been most of his background and with that comes a community service element, which he hopes to continue within the area.

"When I was on active duty, I was obviously doing things for either the good of the country or the good of our allies or have the pleasure working with refugee repatriation in the Balkans when I was on active duty, so a lot of great humanitarian activities there," he said.

While serving, his first duty location was in Mountain Home, Idaho. Then he bounced around to Oklahoma, overseas and then come on working with Boeing, which brought the Varvils back to the northwest side of the states. After working on military airplanes bouncing between St. Louis, Mo., and Washington, he decided to to work logistics for an energy company, which he had been doing for four years prior to moving to Glasgow.

The motivation to work in the Middle of Nowhere at Stat Air was the opportunity to get back into what Varvil knows and is familiar with in addition to being able to help others.

"My wife and I always enjoyed the Montana area from the east to west and north to south, we have always enjoyed Montana. The work opportunities drew us here and so did the chance to do aerospace logistics again and working with aircraft, this time with a life-saving mission. This was a neat move for us to come back to a part of the country we have always enjoyed," explained Varvil.

Varvil explained aerospace logistics is the science of fixing and moving things, keeping aircraft running safely and efficiently while also planning the utilization of those assets not only for today but the future as well.

"How do we position Stat Air to constantly grow to improve and increase its reach and continue to do more for what, I'm sure are going to be, growing communities, all across this area and then our surrounding states and places where we can serve," he stated.

He admits Stat Air being a non-profit was another factor that drew him to take this opportunity. Stat Air has the ability to provide a service at a reasonable cost for the community while still getting the medical help that they need.

"It's not cheap to run airplanes, especially nowadays. The cost of managing and operating aircraft is expensive, the cost of just wages and labor for nurses and pilots, those are a very competitive professional group of people. So the cost of maintaining this kind of an operation is certainly not small but in terms of what we can do versus maybe some other for profit entities that do something similar, is we can provide services that is at a significantly lower cost and that encumbers our patients a whole lot less and allows us to serve these communities where people may not have the resources to otherwise pay for the services," explained Varvil.

In his free time, he also likes to give back. He is a certified chaplain and volunteers his time in helping with crisis chaplaincy and chaplaincy counseling. "That's one of the things I enjoy being able to help with in the communities where I serve," said Varvil. He also participates in playing Scottish Highland in addition to taking motorcycle tours.

He admits the community has been very supportive of what Stat Air does in addition to welcoming him and his wife into the area. He plans to keep the ties strong that Berger build with the community by being involved as well. He also stated Stat Air is currently recruiting new nurses and in the future a couple more pilots, so he also asks the community to also welcome them with open arms when they start.

"We certainly would love to see the community wrap around them and support them as much as they've been very charitable and kind to us as we've been arriving," Varvil strresses.