Leadership and Board of Strategic Service
The ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE Board exercises direct leadership over mission operations. The Board provides strategic and operational guidance to the organization.
Thad A. Hunkins, Colonel, USAF (Ret.)
President
assumed President duties of Archangel Airborne on September 6th, 2024. He had a 30-year USAF career and was CEO/Owner of NCC Systems Inc. in NY from 2018 through 2021 and is Founder & CEO of TC Loox Consultants, LLC. Thad became a 2nd Lieutenant in 1989 through Officer Training School in San Antonio, Texas. After graduating from Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, he remained there as an instructor pilot in the T-38 Talon, teaching future Fighter, Attack, and Reconnaissance pilots how to fly the supersonic T-38 aircraft. He cross-trained into rotary wing aircraft and served at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, flying the UH-1N “Huey” for missile field support and Search and Rescue in the Belt and Rocky Mountains. Thad also completed an assignment as the United States Exchange Officer to the German Luftwaffe, flying the UH-1D aircraft for civil medevac & search and rescue missions in the Bavarian Alps.
A graduate with Masters’ Degrees from the Air Command and Staff college and Air War college at Air University in Alabama, Colonel Hunkins served as the Executive Officer to the Director of the Operations Division for NATO’s northern air component at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany. He later held a variety of assignments at Yokota Air Base, Japan, including Director of Operations, Chief of 374th Wing Safety, and Commander of the 459th Airlift Squadron. His final two assignments were diplomatic with the Defense Intelligence Agency as Air Attaché to Cairo, Egypt and Defense Attaché/Canadian Senior Defense Official to Ottawa, Canada. Thad earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Mathematics from Binghamton State University and a Master’s Degree of Administration/Management Information Systems (MIS) from the University of Montana.
Thad now helps businesses craft a customized admixture of technical & leadership skills to achieve valuable organizational efficiencies and management strategies through TC Loox Consultants, LLC. He speaks passing German and is currently President of the Board at NCC Systems Inc. and Chairman of the Executive Committee & Secretary of the Parish Council at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill. Thad enjoys family time with wife Chris & kids Mark (wife Christina)—Greg—Sarah, golfing, reading, game playing, avoiding social media, aspiring to grandparenthood, and piloting Archangel II, "Shelby", an '84 Aerostar 700P.
Peter Sloan
Chairman of the Board
Peter Sloan learned to fly on his father's lap in a Cherokee 140. By age 17 he obtained his pilot's license and a Wright Brothers scholarship to the Millard School in Oregon. He entered the class of 1985 at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado. Following graduation, he earned his wings at Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB. Fighter, Attack, Reconnaissance qualified, Peter was honored to become a FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot). After completing instructor training at Randolph AFB in San Antonio he returned to Oklahoma as an IP (Instructor Pilot).
Returning to civilian life in the mid-1990's, Peter became Chief Pilot of a successful Part 135 Executive Charter Operation and Vice President of its aircraft sales division. He holds Airline Transport Pilot and Certificated Flight Instructor/Instrument Flight Instructor ratings.
Pete desired to apply his military tradition and training to a vocation of service and studies, so he worked at the Salvation Army while matriculating in graduate school, studying theology at the Weston Jesuit and Harvard Divinity Schools. He also received expert instruction in nonprofit organizations and governance at the Kennedy School. He earned his Master's degree and was graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2005. Pete then entered religious life with the Capuchin Franciscan order and served with the Friars for 3 years before leaving the order to co-found a 501(c)3 in Washington, D.C. called The Franciscan Action Network. He also acquired a graduate degree in Franciscan Spirituality from Washington Theological Union in 2008.
Since 2007, Peter has worked in Haiti in support of the Catholic Church's parish twinning program with Notre Dame D'Altagrace in the Fort Saint Michel region of Cap Haitien. His insightful Op Eds and articles have appeared in Time Magazine, New Yorker, Washington Post, Boston Globe and the Catholic Standard. He owns and operates a Piper Cheyenne 2 that he flies for family travel as well as mission deployments.
Peter is honored to serve on the Board of Strategic Service for ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE. He finds great inspiration in the opportunity for infusing the best practices of military excellence and precision with the mission of a dedicated humanitarian special operation designed to provide lifesaving and transformative service in places of extreme need, disaster and instability.
Thomas Michael Lovelace, AP, IA
Vice President/Treasurer, Board of Strategic ServiceThomas "Mike" Lovelace began his aviation career with the United States Air Force and trained in the maintenance of century-series jet fighters. Mike served proudly as Crew Chief with an F-100 Supersonic fighter squadron in Germany during the Vietnam era. Mike transitioned to work with Pan Am airlines and was based at JFK airport. He supervised the maintenance of the Pan Am fleet, including the massive Boeing 747. After twenty years of service with Pan Am, Mike created his own full service Fixed Base Operator Flight School and Maintenance Base: TML Aircraft (www.tml-aircraft.com). His goal was to provide a superlative experience for all people who wished to experience the dream of flight - whether they be new pilots or seasoned aircraft owners. An accomplished aviator himself, he knew well that the key to success in aviation was unswerving dedication to safe, best practice. Moving to N30 Cherry Ridge Airport in Honesdale, PA in 2003, Mike constructed a facility that encompassed his vision of a 'total' flight center. From this base, he skillfully oversees Part 135 operations as Director of Maintenance and provides expert care and inspections for all types of aircraft; from the venerable Piper Cub to Piper Comanches, Navajo Chieftains, turbine Piper Cheyennes and King Airs. As the Vice President Chief Maintenance Officer and CFO for ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE, Mike infuses his dedication to quality, safety and stewardship to ensure that each mission is completed successfully.
Sister Deirdre Byrne, MD
Medical Officer, Board of Strategic Service
Sister Deirdre Byrne is an active missionary sister and superior and a board-certified family practitioner and general surgeon. She retired with the rank of Colonel from the United States Army in 2009 after 29 years of service in the military She was extremely grateful for the opportunity to have served the "brave soldiers" while deployed to Afghanistan. "The military put me through med school. I felt really good about being able to finally give something back, especially when I went to Afghanistan," she says.
A native of the Washington, D.C., area, Sister Deirdre (known to many as Sister DeDe) followed in her thoracic surgeon father's footsteps and entered medical school at Georgetown University, where she eventually completed a surgical residency. During that time she also joined the Army. After a life of medical and military service in far ranging areas, she eventually was led to the Little Workers of the Sacred Heart community whose charism involved performing overseas medical missionary work and providing free medical care for the poor and uninsured. The over 100-year-old community includes 400-500 members. By 2000, the board-certified Dr. Deirdre Byrne made her commitment to the Little Workers and began her novitiate training in earnest.
Over the years, Sister Deirdre has found it easy to integrate her medical and military service into her religious vocation. Though comfortable in scrubs, she wears a full black or a white working habit when she can, and is grateful for the impact it has on those to whom she ministers.
Sister Deirdre's other charitable medical/surgical service includes hands-on ministry in the rubble of the twin towers following the terrorist attack on 9-11, and annual medical missions in Kenya, Haiti and Sudan. She currently acts as the clinic director of the Spanish Catholic Center, serving the uninsured in the Washington Diocese. She is also a general surgeon who works through the clinic to serve those in need and is the superior of the D.C. Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts house, where the sisters run a pro-bono physical therapy clinic and diabetic eye clinic, as well as a pre-school for underserved children.
Sister Deirdre Byrne looks forward to serving with ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE to support medical and surgical best practices as well as inspiring team members to a higher ordered life of intense engagement with the needs of humanity globally.
Joseph 'Mike' Clark, BS, MS, ATP
Lieutenant Colonel U.S.A.F. retiredBoard of Strategic Service
Mike graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science in Basic Science. He graduated with honors from Embry-Riddle University in 1991 with a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Science. The son of generations of first responders, as an Air Force Lt Colonel and Command Pilot, he served in combat and humanitarian support roles through numerous areas of operation around the globe over his 24-year career. He has commanded humanitarian missions throughout Africa, the Middle East, Central America and the Pacific. His accolades are many, having earned 4 Meritorious Service Medals and 8 Aerial Achievement Medals. He was handpicked to command missions to McMurdo Station, Antarctica for the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Program. He has flown in direct support of the White House Military Office, to include Air Force Two lead pilot as well as an Air Force One Advance Agent.
He is an International Gulfstream Captain with nearly 12,000 hours in numerous aircraft including the T-37, T-38, C-141B, C-17, GIII, GV, G450, G550 and G-650. He is the President of an aviation company, managing a multi-million dollar worldwide airlift operation that spans every continent. He is married with two children and lives in the DC area. Mike's expansive aviation and worldwide experience, energy, vision and desire to help others will serve Archangel Airborne and those in need.
Ezra Jerome, MPH
Secretary, Board of Strategic Service
Ezra Jerome has volunteered with ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE since 2013, first in a clinical capacity as an EMT and later, lending his global health and international development expertise as a Director of Public Health. He is a firm believer in the bottom-up, human rights-based approach to program development taken by ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE and the local community-based partnerships which fuel operations and ensure they are both sustainable and fit-for-purpose.
Ezra founded Protea Consulting in 2021 which offers strategic consulting services rooted in best practices to bring high-quality, low-cost public health solutions to communities. He sees program design and implementation and resource mobilization as two sides to the same coin that can mutually reinforce one another. He readily adopts this lens on the Foundation Partnerships team at UNICEF USA where he stewards relationships and facilitates co-creation of programs with leading institutional funding partners including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. He manages and supports a complex, international grant portfolio of over $300M with a focus on communicable diseases; water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH); community health; and digital health.
While earning his Master's in Public Health at New York University and working at the patients’ needs-driven nonprofit Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), Ezra first learned of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and how these ancient ailments create lifelong, community-wide debilitation and contribute to cyclic, intergenerational poverty in families. His commitment to marginalized communities was reinforced after traveling to Sudan and collaborating with the Mycetoma Research Centre on implementing a digital health-based surveillance and case management platform to help map mycetoma patients and connect them to care. As a former member and ongoing collaborator with NYU’s Applied Global Public Health Initiative, he continues to drive forward NTD control and elimination projects in Sudan and Ethiopia. Relatedly, he is a firm advocate of the access to medicines movement, having co-founded the NYU chapter of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) and worked with Médecins Sans Frontières’ Access Campaign.
Father Gary Studniewski
Chaplain, Board of Strategic Service
ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE’s second chaplain, Gary R. Studniewski, was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1957, and received an ROTC commission in the U.S. Army at the University of Toledo in
1979. As a Lieutenant he served in the 82d Airborne Division Artillery. Next assigned to United States Army Europe, 1983-1986, he served as battalion adjutant and firing battery commander, among other assignments.
In 1989 the young Capt. Studniewski left active duty to study for the Catholic Priesthood. Co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington and the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, his formation took place at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, 1990 – 1995. Ordained to the priesthood in 1995, Fr. Studniewski served as Parochial Vicar at St. John’s Church in Hollywood, Maryland. He received the Monsignor William Awalt Award for Youth Ministry in the Archdiocese of Washington in 1997.
In 1998 Father Studniewski re-entered active Army service as a chaplain. He served as the 82nd Airborne Division Support Command Chaplain from 1998 – 2000, the Task Force Chaplain for the Multinational Force and Observers, Sinai, Egypt in 2001, and the Deputy Installation Chaplain at Fort Belvoir, VA, 2002 – 2005. In May, 2005 he was reassigned to the Office of the Chief of Chaplains, Personnel Directorate, at the Pentagon, before being deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008.
Brigade and Garrison chaplaincies followed and then In July, 2012, came an assignment as Command Chaplain for U.S. Army North (5th Army) at Fort Sam Houston, TX. His last Army assignment was as Command Chaplain, Joint Forces Headquarters-National Capitol Region/Military District of Washington, 2014 – 2016.
Father Gary retired from the Army as a Colonel in July 2016. Father Studniewski holds a Masters in Strategic Studies at the U.S. Army War College, 2014, as well as a Bachelor of Sacred Theology and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. Father is a member of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre and the Knights of Columbus, 4th
Degree.
Father Gary returned to the Archdiocese of Washington in November, 2016, where he serves as pastor of St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill.
Father Wesler Hilaire
Associate Chaplain, Board of Strategic ServiceFr. Wesler Hilaire of the diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, brings his Haitian roots and tongue to the Board of Strategic Service. Fr. Wesler was born in Haiti and studied with the Capuchin Franciscans alongside Peter Sloan. Now a Parochial Vicar for the parish of St. Joseph's in Stuart, Florida, Fr. Wesler is advantageously situated both geographically and ministerially to aid the ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE mission.
Anna Quast, NP
Clinician, Board of Strategic ServiceRecently back from London where she earned her Masters in Public Health, Annie has been seeing patients at our Cap Haitien clinic for over ten years. Her clinical experiences in Africa and globally have helped shape ARCHANGEL policy in Haiti. She models clinical standards for our Haitian clinical partners and she helped create a women's empowerment training at the grass roots level in the Central Plateau region of Haiti.
Stephan C. Sloan
Technology, Board of Strategic ServiceSince graduating Cum Laude from Salve Regina College in Newport, RI, Stephan has achieved diverse successes in the private sector, principally in brokerage, financial consulting, and investment banking fields. An instrument rated, multi-engine pilot and veteran of domestic and international ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE missions, Stephan's technology contributions shape policy and capacity in dramatic ways. A husband and father of three, Stephan is treasurer for a nonprofit that affords creative opportunities to urban middle and high-school age students. He also serves as Trustee in the Episcopal Church, Rhode Island diocese.
Karen Clay
Education, Board of Strategic ServiceKaren has accumulated numerous academic, leadership, spiritual and administration credentials during a 13 year span in the Archdiocese of Washington. A gifted catechist, Karen earned a Master's degree in Education, Summa Cum Laude, from Marymount and a Bachelor's in communication from University of Michigan. Principal of St. Peter's School on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, for the last three years, Karen tends to the relationship between her school and its Haitian twin school, Notre Dame D'Altagrace, in Cap Haitien.