Maine Voices Live Waterville features conversations between Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal writers and notable Mainers. Audience members can experience a memorable night with a Q&A at the end.

Bill Cyr, Chief Operating Officer of LifeFlight of Maine and Kate O’Halloran, Executive Director of the LifeFlight Foundation will sit down with reporter Jessica Lowell on Wednesday, September 14 at 7:00 p.m. on Zoom.

Bill Cyr, Chief Operating Officer, LifeFlight of Maine

Bill Cyr was appointed as chief operating officer for LifeFlight of Maine in May 2021. Cyr became involved in EMS in high school and received his EMT certification at age 16. He knew he wanted to remain in transport medicine and nursing school was the path to that goal. Cyr’s first opportunity to join the flight nursing ranks came when he was hired by UMass LifeFlight in Worcester, Massachusetts. He moved to Boston Medflight 10 years later, where he worked his way up the ranks, eventually becoming the Chief Operations Manager. In 2018 he had the opportunity to move to Denver, Colorado, to help reorganize and expand the Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Neo/Peds transport program as the chief flight nurse/program director. Cyr also sits on the board of directors for the Air and Surface Transport Nurses Association and has a master’s degree in healthcare management and informatics from the University of Massachusetts.

Kate O’Halloran, Executive Director, LifeFlight Foundation

Kate O’Halloran was appointed the executive director of the LifeFlight Foundation in September 2020. O’Halloran grew up in Waterville, Maine, and attended Brown University, where she earned a dual degree in economics and organizational behavior and management and played varsity ice hockey. After Brown, Kate worked in Boston for 15 years, including earning her MBA from Babson, where she went on to become the associate director of The Blank Center for Entrepreneurship and enrolled in a Ph.D program for educational leadership at Boston College. O’Halloran returned to Maine in 2003 to be closer to family and to enjoy the state’s natural resources. While in Maine, O’Halloran has also served as the associate director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and the Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights at Colby College, the director of major and planned gifts for MaineGeneral Health, and the director of Development and Alumni Connections at Carrabassett Valley Academy.  She also spent three years as the vice president of the Rolfson Group, where she worked with clients across the nonprofit sector, and she serves as a corporator for Kennebec Savings Bank and is currently on the board of Maine Audubon.

The newest helicopter in the Lifeflight of Maine fleet sits on the landing pad at CMMC. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal