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Company
Banyan Air Service leadership team (left to right): Lynn Juengel, VP MRO services; Michael O’Keeffe SVP; Don Campion, President; James Barcel, CFO.
“People are more important than profits.”
Banyan Air Service
by Lance Phillips
Chronicles
The above is just one of the phrases deemed im- portant by the founder of Banyan Air Service, Don Campion. However, rather than just a nice sounding saying to go in the values section of his company’s website, that phrase has been something instilled in Don Campion his whole life by none other than his parents, George and Esther.
The senior Campions met as teenagers and both attend- ed college in Toronto, Canada. George became a medical doctor and interned at St. Michael’s Hospital while Esther earned a degree in nursing from the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing. They married in 1949 and
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joined the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) group of medical missionaries traveling by ship to Nigeria after months of specialized training. Most of the remainder of their lives would be spent serving the people of Egbe, Nigeria, a small town inland from Lagos to the northeast, across the Niger River. Their faith, drive to help people, and desire to work in a team environment would inform their son, Don, one of four kids, on how to live his life and pursue success.
Don got his first taste of private aviation while attending a boarding school in Nigeria as his parents toiled in their small medical village, building from scratch the