Towson Firm On Call During Global Unrest

When the Arab Spring began, many American companies didn't use their own resources to get their workers out. Instead, they called a nondescript Towson office.

FrontierMEDEX, until July known as Medex Global Services, evacuated 600 people from Egypt during the uprising that began in January. Meanwhile, they monitored security situations and handled calls from the region and around the world.

Headquartered in a Towson office park, FrontierMEDEX also has large offices in Houston and now, Mitcheldean, England, as result of MEDEX's March merger with Exploration Logistics Group.

On any given day, the company covers 20 million people, including employees of local firms like T. Rowe Price and McCormick and Co. and study abroad students from ,  and the University of Maryland.

During a media tour of the American headquarters last month, global CEO Tim Mitchell talked about the merged company and its diverse business, which caters to clientele like Fortune 500 companies and individual travelers.

The firm has a very diverse international flavor. Mitchell, for example, splits his time between England and Towson and speaks with a distinctly Canadian accent.

"We have world-class businesses and we're very excited to wrap them together," Mitchell said. "We may be covering somebody's grandmother in Florida, but we also had to pull 600 people out of Cairo during the revolution."

The company combines logistics, intelligence and medical services. Its purpose is to help international firms stay informed about situations that could impact them abroad, keep their employees safe and healthy and, as a last resort, get them out. 

"Preparation is the key to everything," Mitchell said as he discussed the company's network of 40,000 medical professionals worldwide.

Much of FrontierMEDEX's operations are run from a deceptively calm control center in its Towson office. Some employees' nameplates also list the languages they speak—30 languages are represented in their offices.

Several television screens overlook the collection of cubicles. One plays CNN. Another shows an interactive map of ongoing cases and service providers around the world. Several others display a ticker of ongoing reports the company is receiving about its clients.

But when something big happens, such as the earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, the Towson and Houston offices get to work.

"When that call comes in, we go immediately to see if we've got people there," said Mike Roban, the company's vice president of sales, marketing and client relations.

The Houston office evaluates each situation and arranges aircraft if necessary. In the case of the 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti, the company arranged two of the first three planes carrying aid workers and media to Port au Prince.

The company has also handled ransom negotiations in 15 cases involving Somali pirates since 2008.

An average day, civil unrest notwithstanding, may involve 250 to 400 cases worldwide. They could involve an oil worker with an infection or a hiker with a broken leg that requires evacuation. Only 10 percent of their cases rise to what the company calls "Level 4," requiring urgent assistance.

What sort of help is required in each case depends on where someone is and what their condition is. After a large earthquake hit Japan in March, for example, no evacuations were required, because Japan offers easy access to quality medical care. In the middle of Africa, however, such care can be hard to come by.

But primarily, Mitchell said, it ought not to come to that. For example, if an oil worker finds out they have an illness before they leave, they can get treatment beforehand, thereby perhaps avoiding a costly evacuation if they fall ill once they get there.

"If you can improve the health and well-being of your people in the field, you shouldn't need to evacuate," he said.

But Roban said the company provides evacuations at cost when needed.

For Mitchell, FrontierMEDEX represents a unique opportunity to help businesses save time, money and most importantly, lives.

"Companies know this is something they have to deal with. It will happen, no matter what," he said. "It is a business that allows us to feel really good about what we do."