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funding for this program was provided by Community Trust Bank serving the communities of North Louisiana Texas and Mississippi for more than a century Community Trust Bank is a proud partner of LTVs Louisiana legends funding for this program was provided by the foundation for excellence in Louisiana public broadcasting [Music] Pennsylvania native Richard Zeus log came to Lafayette in 1970 as a communications engineer for Westinghouse married a Cajun girl and made Louisiana his home a graduate of the Capitol Institute of Technology he was a born leader at his best during a crisis when Lafayette Funeral Homes discontinued their ambulance services due to new federal regulations he answered the call co-founding Acadian ambulance in 1971 Richard got the print got TV got radio to do free PSAs to create this excitement that unless you were member of this ambulance organization there would be no ambulance service Friday at 6 o'clock people were still lined up at the banks to get this membership it's quite it's quite amazing which is this leg in my judgement is an example for so many of us Richard came to the Lafayette community and plunged himself wholly and wholeheartedly into the endeavors of this community endeavors that would reach out and help the neighbor he and my mom taught us the importance of being generous they've been great role models they're very generous to the community to our family and he's always taught us that there's nothing that we can't obtain that no goal is unachievable I think that's been really important to my two brothers an eye to shoot for the moon seriously Richard Richard as a as a workaholic we grew up together sort of like a fraternity what started somewhat by accident has evolved into a corporate family of nearly 3,000 employees caring for more than twelve hundred and fifty patients every single day Acadian companies medical safety transportation and educational services have revolutionized pre-hospital emergency care in Louisiana and beyond saving countless lives he never backs down from a challenge and he's always surrounded himself with good people that can help him make quick decisions in a hurry he's very good under the gun and can really turn a situation around Romans never was that more evident than in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we basically told them to to break the rules keep in mind that they had been there for days with no electricity hot water on the floors so it was like do whatever you can to get him out slashing through red tape Akkadians her rogue staff came to the rescue constructing makeshift helipad voting semis with stretchers using every ounce of energy and ingenuity they had to evacuate thousands Richard poured his heart and his company so very much into assisting the poor people of New Orleans who were so devastated tremendously devastated and he was so moved by their suffering he cares about everyone from his children to his employees to the people he serves and I certainly think there are many people whose lives he's saved to it attest to the fact that he is a Louisiana living legend hello I'm Beth Courtney welcome to Louisiana legends we've come to Lafayette and the beautiful home of Richards Uche log for a conversation that promises to be both poignant and informative well Richard seeing a bit of your life story is that a little humbling or does it make you think wow I've come a long way sure does bring back a lot of great memories over the last 40 years well 40 years now almost 41 years Acadian ambulance has expanded all over the place Richard I mean you're now in Texas as well right you know Texas is our newest market and there's a tremendous opportunity for our company now that it's an esop to be able to have our employees be able to help us expand into those areas and there's much need for a service like Acadian in the Texas market so that's our growth area for the next five years well you certainly as a Pennsylvanian you've adopted Louisiana that we will let you go to Texas but we won't let you forget your Cajun heritage now if you will was that a big shock when you first moved down here I tell you Beth when I first came to Lafayette it was in July 22nd 1970 it was the hottest day of the year and when I got here I had no air-conditioning in my vehicle and that whole summer was the hottest time of my life I mean I still have a hard time dealing with the heat here in Louisiana but you know I did fall in love with the people and I fell in love with the way people work hard and they seem to learn how to have a good time together and I love the Cajun food and when I married the Cajun gal Elaine from Breaux Bridge I kept wanting to be a Cajun they kept saying no you have to be born here in Louisiana be occasion but I think now they have finally adopted me and for sure I can call my children Cajuns well that's absolutely true I I look back on it though and you think you began with such a small number of people hard core people right you know I came down here to work with Westinghouse Basin defense for that first year on a field assignment and I was supposed to go back up to Baltimore and I actually got a KD name was started as a way of staying here in Lafayette in that first year of ambulance operations we had just two ambulances and eight Vietnam medics and that initial corps was the group that helped me get this company going I'll tell you people here in Acadiana are very special people it was not too long before we started to expand into all the neighboring parishes and the medical society and the physicians were very supportive of our program so when you began you did a remarkable thing being in broadcasting I was always faster than I remember you used to have those big telephones it's sort of like we have in public broadcasting and you had to sign up to be a member right that's correct you know back up in Pennsylvania I worked my way through college as a part-time disc jockey I was known as dick Richards dear other DJ on a local radio station back up north of Pittsburgh what did you spend what kind of rec well I used to do country in western and at night I would do a Symphony Hall so I did all kinds it was a small radio station I didn't do a little bit of everything but I'll say that we had an ambulance crisis in Greenville Pennsylvania and the people that came in to provide ambulance service used this concept of a subscription ambulance service where they paid $15 a year to be a member of the ambulance company and the gentleman that started that learned that when he was in World War two over in Belgium that's where it came from and it scattered all across northwestern Pennsylvania so I copied that idea when the funeral homes went out of the business here and left yet and that's how we got started here in Lafayette so you would go on the air and you tell everyone you have a window of time to sign up that's correct when we first started 71 we had 10,000 families that joined our subscription program here in Lafayette and back then there was no cable TV there was only two Lafayette TV channels and everybody watched those two channels and I was fortunate enough to have both of them be very supportive as public service announcements the first two years to get enough people to subscribe so we could have an ambulance company here in Lafayette so if you were a member you didn't pay anything if you use the service and if you weren't a member back in the 70s you paid like $100 for Annapolis true Wow and you now have three thousand employees yeah almost four thousand other expansion into Texas so we really have grown and besides providing what I think is a very good pre-hospital care service I think we also do a lot to stimulate the economy here in Louisiana with all these good paying jobs so we're excited that we're part of the community and that we can make a difference between life and death you you have ambulances but you also and you have helicopters how many helicopters we have eight air ambulance helicopters that we deploy throughout Louisiana and I must say if you look across the country we have the highest volume our first response missions because we're serving such a large rural area when you look at the type of hunting accidents the industrial accidents highway access that we respond to many times that makes a difference between life and death being able to get the patient back to the appropriate Hospital well I have to move and ask you these because questions because I've been wanting to know more and more about it but all of us who live through hurricanes Katrina and Rita certainly remember the presence of Acadian ambulance and what was that time like for you I think that I'm a doer and that I like to do things logistically and it happens so fast for me that I just automatically compartmentalised each of my departments on who was gonna handle the helicopters for the military who was going to handle the civilian look up days we all worked long long hours and I was blessed to surround myself with such capable competent dispatchers and communication people but what really surprised me is how the people throughout the southern part of the state came and asked us what they could do to help the mayor of Lafayette put together a cooking team with some 20 people and went out across South Louisiana and set up cooking stations for our employees to see to it that we were fed the president of the University here in Lafayette opened up the dormitories to house all the people that came in from out of state so if the medics would have a place to sleep and be able to go take a shower there were so many people that rallied to the cause to help us it was hard for me to imagine just how many people came to our aid but when I look back on some of the employees that went for 10 days without a change of clothes some of them having lost their own homes it was a very difficult time but everybody just did what they thought they had to do and we were very fortunate to have so much help you know Beth even a couple weeks after this was all over with I would be sitting around and visiting debriefing and I'd find out that medics that I didn't know about gone to Walmart stores here in Lafayette but a hundred ironing boards and rolls of duct tape to take to New Orleans because they ran out of back boards so if they could unload patients in that Charity Hospital came through all that water and go up eight flights of stairs on the Tulane parking garage so that the military could medevac them out and be able to get their lives saved you actually even appeal to the first lady didn't she when she came yes Laura Bush came to the Cajun dome and she came by our communication center with congressman Bruce Danni and I gave her a special message asking her to go back to the president say you know our National Guard troops are mainly overseas helping in Iraq and we really need the real military to come in and be able to help us get these people out of the hospital because if you look at it the first disaster was the hurricane the second was the flood and the third one that I was afraid was gonna happen but fortunately it didn't was people dying inside those hospitals because we didn't get them out in time and the military came in and helped and the job got done and we were fortunate tell us about the babies that were evacuated I was reading some stories about how babies were had to be put in boxes little almost like shoe boxes is this amazing that he used Kentwood water boxes there was a whole bunch of them in a closet in the medical in there and found a whole bunch of extra blankets so he would put four babies in one court board box and package them up and give them to the helicopter because normally those small helicopters could only transport maybe two incubators at a time and so some of those helicopters were taking 12 babies at a time and flying them up the Women's and Children's Hospital in Baton Rouge some over here to Lafayette we even had Little Rock Arkansas Children's Hospital fly down to Alexandria meet us halfway so we could send some of those young children that were having more problems than needed intensive care unit to be sent up to Arkansas so people really did come to our rescue it was amazing to me how well everything did go in the middle of that disaster and I think a large part of that was because of our communication system you know I'm a communications engineer and I have a backup to the backup to the backup a good plan yes and we used every bit of that in order to be able to talk to a lot of people and that did in the end help us out tremendously because others weren't as fortunate to have that kind of communication you shocked that that others couldn't communicate you know at one point I found that governor Blanco was receiving written messages on tablet paper that physicians were writing to her from inside the Superdome that the state police were driving to the mansion because they didn't have any communications initially and that we helped provide some of those in later days but that's almost like going back to the Pony Express days that's how messages were initially getting through I don't think people realize that once the water came up and the telephone system went underwater so that the central switching station couldn't even switch any landlines or cell phones I think we may have had 12 Parish 9-1-1 system to go completely off the air that really impeded the rescue efforts and since then of course everybody's put in new redundancy systems so that won't happen again people talk about government running like a business and of course it can't really government has a role business has a role but at this point in time it appeared to be that entrepreneurs and private business was doing an awful lot to help yes I think everybody rallied the cause of did the best they could I think that the government had trouble responding for a number of different reasons forget the politics I think when you can't communicate with each other that makes things even that much worse it's one thing if you talk and you debate how you're gonna do it but if you can't even talk from time to time I think that just exasperated already a bad situation well you we certainly seem to have a lot of disasters here in south Louisiana I mean were you involved there was I remember there was a prison riot at Oakdale in that were you all involved with that yes we weren't serving that area but we received a call from the sheriff up in Alan Parrish asking us for help and we responded up there with the ambulances and I think we stood by for some 10 or 12 days and you you know that was the one that made the national news but there's been a lot of other prison wives from local sheriff's it's about the southern part of the state that we have been involved in I couldn't one over the st. Martin parish where we were there from almost 14 days on a standoff and a lot of our equipment was used including our helicopter and there was a lot of problems afterwards trying to get reimbursed for that that's why I remember that one and in the end senator Mary Landrieu came through for us with a special budget item from Congress to be able to reimburse us and so oftentimes when we get called into line of duty we're not always certain how we're gonna get reimbursement we do what's right for patient care save lives knowing that later on if the state and federal government will come together somehow find a way to reimburse us how long did it take him to reimburse you for all the activities around Katrina and Rita we were very blessed we had gotten an order from the FAA in Dallas to take every means possible to use every helicopter we can locate in every ambulance we could locate to evacuate those hospitals and about the third day into it I convinced the people in Dallas with the FAA to send us a fax letter confirming that so when it was over with it actually was easier for us to deal with the FAA than to deal with FEMA they were a little bit more efficient and we were one of the first ones to get reimbursed now we didn't gather the government we marked our rates up about 20 to 25 percent over normal rates because of all the overtime our people incurred and all of our additional expenses many companies charged a lot more than that and because we kept proper reco
ds FAA we flew to Dallas and they were able to reimburse us for our missions so we were real proud of that so where did you spend most of your time did were you at the control center and and and did you sleep very much you know I spent 18 days in a row in the control center with a hundred and fifty phone lines ringing and a staff of about forty five of us and we worked around the clock averaged about five hours sleep a night during that time food I look back on it as something at the time it wasn't I wasn't thinking about stress I was thinking about how to get things done how to make sure our people were being fed properly how to make sure that the ones that had worked for two or three days could get some sleep and get some new recruits into the area of course I was concerned about their safety some of the medical people in those hospitals became so delirious because they had no contact with the outside world that some of them even made up stories in trying to seek additional help to get more people to come to help them inside the hospitals and I don't feel bad for them for having done it they were stressed beyond belief they had people dying in their hands and they didn't have enough water and food and they needed help so they were saying a lot of different things that might not actually be going on just to create a sense of urgency get more people to come to the hospital the other thing a lot of people didn't know that if a hospital had four or five hundred patients they had a staff of maybe another seven or eight hundred people there taking care of those patients and each staff member had one or two relatives or family members there along with some dogs and cats so a hospital with four or five hundred patients end up with 3,500 people in that building and they all had to be evacuated and that's what a lot of people didn't understand it wasn't just the patients it was all the rest of the staff members and family members that needed to be evacuated too so certainly we have had our share of disasters as we've been talking about which on a routine basis on a on a weekend in Louisiana you provide an awful lot of support to sports everyone in Louisiana seems to be sports obsessed but that is another obligation you all take on you know I think it's a blessing that we're able to do this and our people for the most part where do you enjoy this it sometimes gets to be a little difficult in the hot summer months but we do provide ambulance service to all these high school football games and we do that as a community service it's important for us to be visible and be there to help in case something does go wrong and we do it for all the universities and colleges and now we do it for the professional teams too and we enjoy being able to provide those kind of services Louisiana loves to have people go to school and work when the weekends come they like the lights our hair that I don't have a good time and sometimes people have so much of a good time and it amazes me the kind of accidents that occur in this state on the weekends with people that drown and with people that get hurt in vehicle accidents these four wheeler accidents so we stay pretty busy on the weekends do you go to the sporting event or so often times I do I am a big fan of you all football and also of LSU football I do not get involved in too many of the other sports now and then maybe a baseball game but I'm I'm a fanatic when it comes to the Saints and LSU football I really enjoy those outings and it's a good way to network and mix with other people from across the state well it sounds like you enjoy your work do you relax other than watching sporting events do you know I am kind of a workaholic I'm fortunate that my parents I'm the oldest of four taught me how to work and work hard and so I do work a lot but I enjoy my work I look forward to going to work every day and I have found some ways to relax I love to duck hunt I take a lot of dignitaries a lot of employees and family down to my beloved duck camp down in Cameron Parish I love to attend the sporting events and I try to play golf but I'm not very good at that you know I'm taking some lessons this summer I hope to be better this fall well your your parents just celebrated a wedding anniversary didn't they yes correct I snuck up to Pennsylvania unannounced for their 65th wedding anniversary they're both 85 years old they're both still okay health-wise and they come down to visit from time to time and as a family my brothers and sisters when I decided to celebrate their anniversary over the fourth of July holiday but I decided to sneak up on Aniston with my wife and boy were they excited that we came to see them that's wonderful I know they must be proud of you and you told them that you were a Louisiana legend and we're we're pleased to be able to honor you on that that score but I've often wondered do PR people ever trying to get you involved in politics or delay get you through the years people try to get me involved and you know I think I can do better to help people in this state if I'm not a politician I think as a business person I can help work on boards and Community Foundation's to help the state be better and I've often told people if I was to run them for election I think I have too many skeletons in my closet and I don't want any of those to come out and chase after me right now an Azusa blog too tough a name for a Louisiana well you know when I first got married my parents were a little bit concerned because my father wall alley do fleeing Burbridge he wanted to change my last name to Zoosh lo le au they want to call me Richard Zeus low so they were a little concerned about that but you know I am proud of the Cajun heritage and when I took my in-laws and my parents to Nova Scotia 25 years ago I found it interesting that not only did a lot of people from Nova Scotia come here to Louisiana but a number of them also went to Pennsylvanian I found that to be very interesting as did my parents and we bought a book and my mom and dad have read up on all that of who came down to Louisiana who came to Pennsylvania that's wonderful now looking out into the future you're expanding the company so five years from now what would you say what's your life going to be like if the Lord is willing allow him to be around five years from now I intend to slow down more and to continue to delegate more I still love going to work I spent too much time in my early years working and not enough time with my family so I have been spending a lot more time in recent years traveling and doing things with the family and I enjoy making trips like that we're planning as a family now a trip with the whole extended family over to Europe next year and those are the things that I'm looking forward to it's funny how the order we get our goals change in life I still love Acadian because that's the passion that I have inside of me but in my senior years I want to spend more time not only with the family but with the grandchildren coming along well is there any advice you have for somebody out there who's thinking of starting a business or something and saying gee here's here are a couple of key pieces of wisdom I want to share with you I think it's very important to do surveys and go out and talk to other respected community leaders one of the things that I think has helped me is to go ask for a lot of advice now you know you get a lot of diverse advice but I've been pretty fortunate to take people's suggestions and comments and put them in the pot like gumbo and stir them up and come out and do what I think is right I think too often people sit down to see how much money they can make and then they look for a business I think you have to go out and find something that's going to serve the best interest of your community and offer the best service that you can and let the money-making come down the road in other word I think if I had tried to make money initially that this program would not have succeeded our first 25 years we were all about providing the best service possible the money making for us has come in the last 15 years particularly once we did the ESOP because when I decided to share what we were doing with the employees and I might say that was a bill and a law that Russell long wrote and before he passed away he told me that of all the Aesop's in the country there's around 13,000 mm that mine fit his legislation the best to allow my partner's to exit the business and have their stock rid of the accounts of those that are working so hard to make it work and one of the I I think the hallmarks to is you have employed a lot of military people who have come out and and and trying to make a transition back to civilian life as well that's correct military people for the most part are more mature have served the country well overseas in some cases here in the United States and in the beginning the reason I did that we had no formal paramedic or EMT training and the military had trained them to be medics in the service particularly the ones from the Vietnam War those are the ones that gave us the credibility to help us get started you know many of them end up in key positions in our organization one things I've noticed is a lot of people have stayed with you for a long time so family include you know something I'm pretty proud that we had our employee meeting several weeks ago and I gave out all the awards for 25 years and greater and there were over 50 some employees that got that award but there were five they got their 40-year pin I got my 40-year pin last year but there were five more they got theirs this year and it was emotional for me to be able to share with the rest of the audience what those five did through the last 40 years particularly those early years to make the company so very successful I think in our case loyalty did a lot to help bring us together they worked hard and I shared with them and together we made a great team well thank you for sharing a little of your time with us and we appreciate so much in congratulations on being a Louisiana legend well I'm delighted the Louisiana legend means a lot to me and I appreciate you taking time to come visit and thank you for joining us we'll be back with another edition of Louisiana legends I'm Beth Courtney good day [Music] for a copy of this program call one eight hundred nine seven three seven two four six or go online to wwl-tv org funding for this program was provided by Community Trust Bank serving the communities of North Louisiana Texas and Mississippi for more than a century Community Trust Bank is a proud partner of LTVs Louisiana legends funding for this program was provided by the foundation for excellence in Louisiana public broadcasting [Music] you
