Virginia Beach, Virginia

Inducted in 2010, Edward R. Boyer has been rightly called the “Father” of charitable air transportation. Ed devoted over 30 years of his life to the development of a comprehensive worldwide charitable air transportation system in both the medical and disaster arenas. Ed Boyer is the founder, CEO and president of Mercy Medical Airlift, located in Virginia Beach, Va. MMA is a nationwide network of programs that include Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic, Angel Flight of Virginia, the National Patient Travel Center, Mercy Medical Airlift, the Homeland Security Emergency Air Transportation System (HSEATS), Air Compassion America, and Air Compassion for Veterans. These programs help thousands of patients every year to access life-saving or life-improving specialized medical care that would otherwise not be available to them due to barriers of distance, time and finances. In Virginia alone during the 2008 calendar year, 322 Commonwealth pilots completed 273 Angel Flight missions, with a public benefit of $214,461. Mr. Boyer helped create Air Charity Network, formerly known as Angel Flight America, whose over 7,500 pilots and their regional organizations are bound by common training requirements and protocols necessary for safety, cooperation and quality of service. Mr. Boyer developed a homeland security component of his organization, known as HSEATS, that mobilized volunteer pilots and utilized corporate planes during Hurricane Katrina to aid in disaster relief by performing over 2,600 missions. An engineer, private pilot and former federal senior officer with the Department of Health and Human Services, his visionary insight has led him to foster partnerships with dozens of organizations in the fields of health care, government services, commercial and corporate aviation, disaster relief, and charitable lodging. His commitment to help in the healing of military veterans and active duty service members and families led to the creation of Air Compassion for Veterans, which provided over 3,634 free flights for veterans and families affected by deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. He has been a pilot for 47 years with commercial, instrument, single and multi-engine and glider ratings, and served on two FAA advisory committees.