Soaring to the top of the list of nominees, Metro Aviation has landed the prestigious J. Pat Beaird Industry of the Year award for 2018, presented by the Greater Shreveport Chamber of Commerce, 318 Forum, Chase Bank and the J. Pat Beaird Memorial Fund.

“Metro Aviation is one of our city’s hidden gems,” said Dr. Timothy Magner, president of the Chamber. “They are the largest air medical completion center not just in Louisiana, not just in the U. S., but in the world as well as the largest traditional air medical provider. We are excited to honor Mike Stanberry and the rest of the Metro family for their industry leadership and their contribution to our community.”

Stanberry, president and CEO of Metro Aviation, founded the company in 1982 as a helicopter charter, flight training and maintenance operation.

Today, they are the largest air medical completion center in the world and the largest traditional air medical provider with 190 employees in Shreveport and a payroll of $14.9 million.

“We are delighted to be honored with the J. Pat Beaird Industry of the Year Award,” Stanberry said. “It's a fantastic achievement not only to be awarded but to be recognized by the place we call home. This is especially important because our employees, our clients and our community are so important to us and all part of our family."

“We’ve been in this industry for over 35 years and have learned one valuable lesson: Always make your customers and community feel like a priority,” he continued. “It’s profound how big of an impact we’ve had with that mindset.”

Metro’s spirit of evolution and innovation comes at a high cost to the company, but their commitment has always been to safety and service over profit.

Todd Stanberry, director of business integration for Metro, said of their approach, “We have never had sales goals. In fact, there are no salespeople at Metro. We are not growth-driven. We are customer-driven. We focus on our customers and their needs, while operating and maintaining aircraft in the safest manner possible.”

“As a traditional AMS operator, Metro Aviation provides pilots, mechanics and all aviation services for our customers, whether we use our own aircraft or manage our customers’ aircraft on their behalf,” said Kenny Morrow, Metro Aviation’s COO. “This is different from the community AMS model being followed by our competitors, where they hire the medical crews and bill insurance/ Medicare/Medicaid directly.”

All told, Metro Aviation is keeping its long-time commitment to putting customers first, while seeking new and better ways to perform AMS missions and more.

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