September 20, 2005 Laurel, Maryland

As Hurricane Katrina swept down on the Gulf region and New Orleans disappeared beneath thick, dark flood waters, the power and communication systems went down. The only working radio network belonged to a Capitol College alumnus and his ambulance company.

Richard Zuschlag, Class of 1970, prepared his Lafayette, Louisiana-based, ambulance vehicles and medical helicopters days before the disaster struck. His staff anticipated playing their traditional role as emergency responders, providing medical support and transporting patients. But as the early response didn't match the needs of  the disaster, Zuschlag and Acadian Ambulance Service played a much larger, more critical role.

His crews airlifted critical patients from hospitals and airdropped supplies to the rooftops. His medics often couldn't land or make their destination because of gunfire and other violence. They bent the rules just to get the job done – babies placed in cardboard boxes because boxes fit in small helicopter spaces better than bassinets; tractor trailers commandeered to transport hospital patients.

 "The top dogs [at FEMA] say go ahead, but lower down, people in the field want paperwork,” Zuschlag said in an interview with Time magazine, one of the dozens of media outlets in which he's quoted. "I am gambling a bit, but I am saving lives. If I get sued, fine."

Zuschlag received a bachelor of science in engineering technology from Capitol. After graduating in 1970, he began working for Westinghouse in the Space and Defense Center of Technical Training Operations in Baltimore.

A year later, the company transferred him to Lafayette where he was involved in medical training at Lafayette General Hospital. Realizing the need for a regional ambulance provider, Zuschlag and two partners incorporated Acadian Ambulance Service and began a membership drive. It is now the largest private ambulance service in the United States.

The New York Times commended Acadian, describing Zuschlag, its president and chief executive officer, as a fanatic for state-of-the-art gear and backup systems.

'No government planners expected the only working radio network in New Orleans to be run by a private company, but Acadian had the flexibility to take on the job. It also had better equipment than city agencies," wrote New York Times columnist John Tierney. 

 "Thanks to their network, Acadian's dispatchers quickly learned before anyone else how bad the flooding was throughout New Orleans. Mr. Zuschlag tried alerting city and state officials. But the city and state communications systems were so bad that nothing got done."