Corporate Angels of Mercy

By Robert T. Grieves

Giving cancer patients a lift on the company plane

Karen Janszen, 34, had never flown in a small aircraft. She was therefore apprehensive last May 17 as she boarded the eight-seat Hawker Siddeley jet of AMF, the sports-equipment and industrial-technology manufacturer, for a trip from Houston to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y. Two years ago, Janszen underwent surgery in Methodist Hospital to remove a malignant brain tumor, and she was returning from Houston after chemotherapy treatments. AMF Chairman W. Thomas York, who was in Houston for business meetings, was giving her a free lift on the company plane. The in-flight accommodations delighted Janszen. Said she: "Everyone was wonderful. They served us food and drinks and told us a little about their company."

Janszen and AMF got together with the help of the Corporate Angel Network (CAN). Based in White Plains, CAN provides free rides on corporate aircraft for cancer patients, either singly or in groups, to and from hospitals across the U.S. CAN uses a computer to match lists of all the flights that corporations will be making with the departure and destination cities requested by patients. A nonprofit organization begun in 1981, CAN in its first year flew 24 patients; it now arranges that many trips each month. So far, CAN has flown 259 sick people, many of them accompanied by a companion, more than 600,000 miles. Last month CAN won the President's Volunteer Action Award.

Other patients share Janszen's enthusiasm for CAN. A. Donald Hodges, 52, pastor of the United Methodist Church in Westport, Conn., in recent years has undergone surgery twice for cancer. Thanks to the Corporate Angels, on both occasions he was able to deliver his Sunday-morning sermon and still arrive at Leigh Memorial Hospital in Norfolk by Monday morning. Says Hodges: "I'm impressed by the fact that someone cares and is offering a helping hand." Concurs Harry Kass of Brooklyn, 23, who last April flew on an AT&T company plane from San Francisco to Morristown, N.J., following treatment for bone-marrow cancer: "It enabled me to avoid crowds on a commercial flight when my immune system was weakened by drugs."

CAN is the creation of Priscilla Blum, 59, a freelance writer and pilot who had a mastectomy in 1969. She knew that cancer patients have to spend heavily on commercial flights to get the best treatment possible and that those expenses are rarely covered by medical insurance. Blum, who keeps a single-engine Comanche at the Westchester airport, also knew that many corporate jets have empty seats when they take off. Her idea was simply to put patients on the planes. To help make her plan work, Blum enlisted the aid of her friend Jay Weinberg, 66, a former cancer patient and owner of an Avis car-rental franchise. Unfortunately, corporate sponsors were initially slow to sign up. The turning point came in January 1983, when David Mahoney, chairman of Norton Simon, was forced to cancel a corporate flight that was to carry a cancer patient to the West Coast. As a consolation, Mahoney wrote a letter to 1,500 leading American companies, urging them to help CAN. In response, 100 firms signed up. Today more than 270 firms participate in CAN, including American Express, AT&T, Champion International, General Foods, Merrill Lynch, Reader's Digest and Time Inc.

Nonetheless, CAN is able to assist only 20% to 30% of all the cancer victims who request trips. Blum hopes eventually to expand the service to include almost all of the 15,700 American corporate aircraft now aloft.

-- By Robert T. Grieves.

Reported by Jane Van Tassel/New York

With reporting by Jane Van Tassel