8 May 2020
Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust is delighted to announce its new Chairman to lead the Board of Trustees. Mark Carne joined the Board of Trustees earlier in 2020 and has now been elected by his fellow Trustees to become Chairman.
Mark brings a wealth of experience and expertise with him, having been the chief executive of Network Rail from 2014 to 2018. During his tenure as chief executive, Network Rail carried out the biggest programme of capital upgrades to the country's railway in a hundred years. Over £15 billion was invested in huge projects such as the rebuilding of London Bridge and Birmingham New Street stations, electrification of hundreds of miles of track. Before his rail career, Mark had worked in the international oil and gas industry, mostly for Royal Dutch Shell in a number of countries around the world.
Paula Martin, Chief Executive of Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust said “Every charity chief executive needs the support & wise counsel of their Chairman. I am delighted to be working with Mark and am confident this charity and our strategies will benefit immensely from Mark's leadership.”
Mark was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2018 and was appointed CBE in the Queen's Birthday honours list in June 2018 for services to the rail industry. He is married with three grown up children, all themselves married.
Fellow Trustee, Chris Pomfret, said “Mark has enormous business experience and love of Cornwall. He takes over at an interesting moment in time with the immense positive of our new Helicopter. Cornwall Air Ambulance can provide a much-enhanced service to the people of Cornwall, at a moment when the whole world is challenged by Covid19. Mark's wide and varied experience will be very important in helping us steer our way through this and see the service continue to develop.”
Mark continues the excellent work of previous Chair, Sarah Pryce and said ““The Cornwall Air Ambulance provides a hugely valuable service to our community, especially at such a challenging time. I look forward to helping the team build on their considerable successes as we address these challenges.”
About the Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust
Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust is the charity that fundraises to operate the helicopter emergency medical service for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Every year we respond to over 1000 emergency calls for help and the helicopter is on-scene at an incident in an average of just 12 minutes. The helicopter can reach patients in any part of Cornwall, significantly reducing the time taken to get seriously ill patients the treatment they need – in hospital or on-scene. It costs nearly £5m per year to operate this service, and with no National Lottery or direct government funding towards running costs, the charity relies on the generosity of the people and businesses of Cornwall.
Morrish Homes have been proud sponsors of the Cornwall Air Ambulance for 4 years and have helped contribute towards their brand new £7.5 million helicopter. Morrish Homes also continue to make a donation from every house sale completed at Nansledan, Newquay towards the New Helicopter Appeal.
