Two LifeFlight Clinicians Step into Leadership
This story appeared in the July 2025 issue of “Dispatches.“
LifeFlight recently promoted two of its veteran flight nurses to serve as Clinical Base Managers. Patrick Perrault, who has been with LifeFlight since 2013, now leads the clinical team at LifeFlight’s Lewiston base. Brandon Mayo, who joined LifeFlight in 2020, now leads the clinical team at LifeFlight’s Sanford base. Over the years, these two clinicians have cared for hundreds of LifeFlight patients, and have been through extensive training, which is one of the prerequisites of becoming a LifeFlight clinician.
Brandon is originally from Worcester, Massachusetts. He graduated with a nursing degree from the University of New England in 2015. After working briefly for DHART, LifeFlight’s peer air ambulance service based in New Hampshire, Brandon moved back to Maine to join the LifeFlight team in 2020.
“My biggest goal as a clinical base manager is to support the crew, support the team, and give them the tools they need to succeed,” said Brandon. LifeFlight is set up to make sure every crew, on every shift, has the resources and support they need to provide the best possible care for patients. The entire company, including managers, remains focused on this mission.
Patrick, who grew up in Norridgewock, Maine attended St. Joseph’s College in Standish. After graduating, he worked at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Waterville in the ICU, and then in MaineHealth Maine Medical Center’s cardiac ICU. He joined LifeFlight in 2013.
Patrick said he always wanted to be in management but was waiting for the timing to be right. When the base manager position became available this year, he said his colleagues at LifeFlight encouraged him to apply. “Over the 12 and a half years of being here, I’ve trained a lot of people, so I’ve got a good relationship with a lot of clinicians here. I think it was a natural transition into this role,” said Patrick.
Like all LifeFlight clinicians, Brandon and Patrick have received comprehensive clinical training while at LifeFlight. When they were first hired, they completed hundreds of hours of intensive, full-time orientation on a wide variety of medical and aviation disciplines. The training included LifeFlight’s Critical Care Academy, where the clinicians gained more experience with certain highly technical skills, such as intubation and airway management. All clinicians, including Patrick and Brandon, continue to develop these skills every day on the job and take part in new trainings as they arise.
They will both continue to work some clinical shifts in addition to their new responsibilities as base managers. Patrick said already having a grasp on the day-to-day roles of clinicians helped to make the transition to a leadership role easier.
“The training we have is intense when we first get hired as a clinician,” said Brandon. “What I think the orientation does is set us up not only for success as a clinician at LifeFlight, but also for success in all aspects of our lives. It really teaches problem solving,” explained Brandon, who added that he now applies some of the leadership and critical thinking skills he learned in his initial training as a LifeFlight orientee to his work as a manager.
In their new roles, Patrick and Brandon are continuing their clinical training while also developing their leadership skills. Patrick is enrolled in the Association of Air Medical Service’s (AAMS) Medical Transport Leadership Institute, a two-year program based out of West Virginia. The program is geared toward developing leaders in critical care transport. Brandon will start the course next year. The two base managers are also enrolled in local leadership courses at Southern Maine Community College.
“We know we have the support of senior leadership and they are helping us grow into this new role. Neither of us have much formal prior management experience,” said Brandon.
Joe Kellner, CEO of LifeFlight, knows the importance of a highly skilled team. “I’m excited for Patrick and Brandon to step into these news roles,” Joe said. “They are excellent clinicians and have a lot to offer our team and our patients. For years, they have led by example informally. Now they have the opportunity to help recruit, train, and lead their clinical colleagues at LifeFlight.”
“We need our crews happy and healthy so we can help people,” said Brandon. “We need to take care of our own, so we can take care of others is kind of my philosophy, and I think LifeFlight has done a lot of that. We’re focusing on mental health. We’re focusing on equal pay for nurses and paramedics doing the same job,” he added.
Patrick and Brandon both say they are excited for this new role within the organization. They are grateful for the opportunity to lead, humbled by the trust placed in them by their colleagues and senior leaders, and eager to make a difference. Their success represents the success of LifeFlight’s investment in training and leadership development, and they are exactly the kind of people that the EMS system in Maine needs.
