When Roberta Squire started her Master of Business Administration studies at UNBC two years ago she brought two notebooks to each class.

One was for her coursework, the other was for her budding interest in the Northern BC Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operations Society (HEROS). HEROS is seeking to bring doctor-led emergency air ambulance service to the region and Squire quickly realized she could apply her MBA studies directly to her work with the charitable group.

UNBC MBA graduate Roberta Squire. Download High-Resolution Image.

“As I went through the courses – the economics, the strategy, the corporate finance – I kept relating it to HEROS,” she said. “It was a natural flow. It was using the talents and skills that the university was transferring to me and it was going to benefit the north.”

Within weeks of beginning the program, Squire decided to devote her thesis to the helicopter air ambulance topic. Her research produced a document that not only met the requirements of the MBA program; it is also something she will use to promote the proposed air ambulance service in her new job as executive director of HEROS. Her thesis Need for Helicopter Emergency Medical Service in Rural British Columbia will double as a detailed marketing publication from the non-profit group.

“This is the first time that this congruent and this complete a version of northern statistics has been put together in one place in a long time,” she said. “That’s all thanks to the MBA program here.”

Squire studied the existing predominately land-based system for responding to people injured in the north. She found that an air ambulance system could provide additional care and save the lives of trauma victims by filling in the gaps of the current model.

As Squire goes to work advocating for the idea of bringing a comprehensive new helicopter air ambulance model from the drawing board to reality, she’ll be relying not only on her MBA research but also the connections she made while studying at UNBC.

“It’s going to be built by the people of the North for the people of the North,” she said. “So we want the people of the North involved.”

“As part of her MBA thesis at UNBC, Roberta’s extensive research on the province’s current emergency medical response system has proven invaluable to us on the HEROS board,” Northern BC HEROS president and chairman Brent Marshall said. “It was another incredible indicator and basis for the immediate need of this service in Northern B.C.”

Squire was raised in Prince George, but had moved away from the community for a number of years as she built a career around entrepreneurship and owning her own businesses. When she returned to the North, she began exploring ways to pursue post-secondary education. Although she did not have an undergraduate degree, her work experience qualified her for the MBA program at UNBC.

She said the MBA program was designed to fit with her busy life as a professional.

“Balancing work, home life, and education can seem daunting and I was at a point in my career where I knew I wanted more - I knew I needed to stay competitive in today’s market,” Squire said. “There is a large demographic of women and men in their 30s to 50s, who want to advance their careers or change their career path. UNBC is empowering us to do just that.”