The daughter of ORNGE ’s chairman and the girlfriend of founder Chris Mazza did the small amount of research that brought the air ambulance’s for-profit arm a $6.7-million payment from an Italian helicopter firm.

Two small binders of market research, including press clippings, were assembled by Kelly Long (Mazza’s girlfriend, who rose to be associate vice-president of ORNGE) and Carrie Anne Brunet (a junior ORNGE executive who is the daughter of now former ORNGE chairman Rainer Beltzner).

Beltzner is to testify Wednesday at Queen’s Park hearings into the ORNGE affair and is expected to be asked about the controversial payment.

Neither Long nor Brunet could be reached for comment. Both lost their jobs at ORNGE after the Star exposed financial and patient care problems at the provincially funded service.

Ontario Provincial Police are investigating various allegations surrounding ORNGE, including one involving AgustaWestland’s payment of $6.7 million to Mazza’s for-profit company shortly after ORNGE purchased 12 helicopters at a cost of $144 million, a deal financed with taxpayers’ money.

An opposition critic suggested this payment was a “kickback” during recent legislative committee meetings at Queen’s Park. An AgustaWestland executive testified that he found the “insinuation and allegation insulting to me professionally and to my company.” The executive, Louis Bartolotta, said he would comment no further on that matter.

An ongoing Star investigation has looked into the marketing services report and found very little work was done to justify the whopping payment. Interim ORNGE boss Ron McKerlie has viewed the two small binders produced by ORNGE for AgustaWestland and said they do not justify the large payment. The OPP now has copies of the binders that were in ORNGE’s offices.

ORNGE purchased 12 helicopters in 2008 from AgustaWestland. Shortly after that, ORNGE Peel (a Mazza-controlled company) struck a “marketing services agreement” with the helicopter giant. ORNGE Peel later changed its name to ORNGE Global.

The plan was for ORNGE Peel to scout opportunities for AgustaWestland, countries where the helicopter firm could sell choppers retrofitted as air ambulances. The contract had three phases, with total payment to ORNGE Peel of $6.7 million. The Star has not yet obtained records explaining how this money was spent.

Mazza put two people in charge of the marketing services. Carrie Anne Brunet was a junior ORNGE official who had formerly worked for an umbrella organization representing credit unions. She joined ORNGE in 2008.

Brunet was to report to Long, a one-time water-ski instructor and waitress who was the girlfriend of Mazza (they are now living together). Long was an instructor at a Newmarket-area water-ski clinic where Mazza often took lessons behind a ski boat.

Mazza brought Long to ORNGE in 2006. She rose rapidly through the ranks, all the way to associate vice-president before she and Mazza lost their jobs (with no severance) in the wake of the first ORNGE stories late last year.

Using Google and other research tools, Long and Brunet investigated possibilities for AgustaWestland, a giant international helicopter company that has revenues of about $2 billion and more than 10,000 employees. Brazil and Saudi Arabia, they determined, were two places that needed air ambulance services.

As part of their research, Long and Brunet included newspaper clippings and television reports about the new, brightly painted ORNGE air ambulances that AgustaWestland had produced. That information was placed in one of two binders.

During this time, both Long and Brunet were attending — at ORNGE’s expense — the executive MBA program at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont., at a cost of more than $90,000 each. Long recently graduated. Brunet is set to graduate this June.

When asked at the Queen’s Park committee about the marketing services agreement, Bartolotta, the AgustaWestland executive, said ORNGE was “responsible for providing to us a series of reports, which they’ve done to a degree, before all of this unfortunately blew up.”

He said AgustaWestland needed help to “understand where in the world there would be similar models that might be helpful for us to pursue — I’m speaking more generally, but where countries might have a requirement for air medical transportation, where the ORNGE model might fit.”

Kevin Donovan can be reached at 416-312-3503 or kdonovan@thestar.ca .

Related:

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: