By Ray Paulick
On a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg during my August visit to South Africa, I struck up a conversation with a pleasant young man from Zimbabwe (the country known as Rhodesia some years back) who was on his way home from, of all things, a team break-dancing competition

I knew Zimbabwe had serious problems, but when I asked him what the biggest challenge was for young people in his homeland, his answer absolutely stunned me. “We have an unemployment rate of 80 percent, and an average life expectancy of 37 years,” he said. When I returned home, I went online to see if those numbers he quoted me were accurate. Sadly, they were. (Actually, the life expectancy for Zimbabwean women is 34 years, three fewer than for men.)

HIV/AIDS and other diseases have ravaged Zimbabwe and many other African countries, including neighboring Botswana, where in the early 1980s a young Johnathan Miller served as a director for the Peace Corps. Miller went on to successful careers in both the private and public sector, working in the State Department during the Reagan Administration and later as a political director to President George H.W. Bush. He is currently president of Bluemont International, an advisory firm based in Washington, D.C.

A Louisville, Ky., native who now lives on a farm in Paeonian Springs, Va., with his wife Elizabeth (Lisa) Thompson, Miller is also a Thoroughbred owner and breeder committed to providing retirement homes to ex-racehorses—both personally and industry wide. It’s in the latter capacity that I came to know Miller while he served as president of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation over a three-year period. He loves racing, particularly in Europe, but even more so loves the horses who make the sport go. He and Lisa are high on a 3-year-old filly named Southafrican Queen, a daughter of the South African champion Horse Chestnut, who won a graded stakes in the United States but then suffered a career-ending injury. Horse Chestnut started his stud career at Claiborne Farm, then returned to his homeland.

Miller stepped down as TRF president recently to devote more time to two of his other passions—aircraft and Africa—and they’ve reunited him with Botswana.

In 2006, Miller and his wife established a 501(c)3 charity called Airborne Lifeline Foundation, which uses small aircraft to transport health care professionals and medication to remote areaas of Botswana. He came up with the concept while consulting on a commercial project for a client who wanted to find a use for turbo-prop aircraft. “I saw a scarcity of medical resources and an inability to move it efficiently to where it could do the most good,” Miller said. He approached some people in the United States who panned the idea, saying it would be more efficient to use ground transportation. But Miller persisted, getting an enthusiastic endorsement from Botswana’s Ministry of Health and from then U.S. Ambassador to Botswana, Joseph Huggins.

“Since it was a brand new idea and it had never been tried, we had trouble funding it,” said Miller. “We basically mortgaged our farm and went ahead. It was like the ‘field of dreams’–build it and they will come. We borrowed several hundred thousand dollars and started flying the flights in 2007.”

Gradually, those Westerners who thought Miller’s idea was foolish came onboard. In 2008, $350,000 in funding came from PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), and additional money has been contributed from Merck and Co. pharmaceuticals and private donors including former Secretary of the Treasury James Baker and his wife, Susan. The total annual cost of the program is about $600,000, Miller said. It goes to lease the planes, purchase fuel and pay for the pilots.

In African bush country, people walk for hours upon hours to go to a town or village, often not knowing what they’ll find when they get to their destination. Health care professionals and medication are in scarce supply in many parts of the country, but Airborne Lifeline flights allow doctors to visit specific towns on the same day of the month on a regular basis. Thus, those Africans who have long treks through the bush know they’ll have a chance to get help when they arrive.

Flights go to six remote regions of the country every month, with the doctors flying in and out on the same day. “Rather than have them spend three days in a Land Rover, they can do three days of treatment,” said Miller. Eight  doctors were on a recent flight–including three from Baylor University and three from the University of Pennsylvania–that brought them to clinics in a remote desert. They see patients, bring medication and take back blood samples that can be refrigerated on the flights and then tested in fully staffed hospitals. The program has expanded beyond exclusively treating HIV/AIDS patients and now does preventative care and deals with other health issues.

(Click here to see a news feature on the Airline Lifeline flights.)

Miller chose Botswana because, he said, though it has a high HIV/AIDS rate, it has done more to address the disease than most other African countries. In addition, he said, Botswana is a multi-party democracy without corruption, something that makes it easier to get things done.

He is anxious, however, to expand the program to other countries, which had been suggested by American HIV/AIDS specialist Dr. Thomas Kenyon. “We are beginning discussions with Namibia, Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia and Ethiopia, but we can only go in bite sizes,” Miller said. “Whoever expresses the most interest first is where we’ll likely go. If Mugabe steps down in Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe has been head of that country since 1980, with disastrous results), we’d go there.

“We’d like to roll out one country next year, but I still have to run a business and take care of my horses,” he said.

For more information or to make a donation to this 501(c)3 organization, write to: Airborne Lifeline Foundation, Box 49, 1700 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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Tags: Airborne Lifeline Foundation, Bluemont International, Botswana, Cape Town, Elizabeth Thompson, George H. W. Bush, Good News Friday, Johannesburg, Johnathan Miller, liberation farm, Paulick Report, Ray Paulick, Southafrican Queen, thoroughbred retirement foundation, Zimbabawe

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