Erickson Air-Crane to acquire Evergreen Helicopters in $250M deal

[bananas]

"The company has done some work for the Central Intelligence Agency as well, including transporting the Shah of Iran from Panama to the United States in 1980."

"The Evergreen fleet provides passenger transport and airlift services for a wide range of customers, including the U.S. military. Its operations are global, including in North America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_International_Aviation

Evergreen International Aviation, Inc. is a global aviation services company based in McMinnville, Oregon, United States.

Founded in 1960, Evergreen is primarily known for commercial helicopter operations in agricultural and forestry applications.
...
Evergreen International Airlines was officially formed and incorporated on 16 April 1975 as a subsidiary of Evergreen Helicopters, Inc.[2]
...
The company has done some work for the Central Intelligence Agency as well, including transporting the Shah of Iran from Panama to the United States in 1980.[3]

Evergreen Helicopters was sold to Erickson Air-Crane in March 2013 in a $250 million deal.[5]
...

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2013/03/19/erickson-air-crane-to-acquire.html?page=all

Mar 19, 2013, 1:59pm PDT UPDATED: Mar 20, 2013, 9:14am PDT

Erickson Air-Crane to acquire Evergreen Helicopters in $250M deal

Erik Siemers
Business Journal staff writer-
Portland Business Journal

Erickson Air-Crane Inc. on Tuesday said it is acquiring Evergreen Helicopters Inc. in a $250 million deal that will radically transform Oregon's newest public company.

Portland-based Erickson (NASDAQ: EAC) went public nearly one year ago, ending Oregon's eight-year IPO drought. The company operates a fleet of 18 heavy-lift helicopters it uses for services such as logging and aerial firefighting.

In acquiring Evergreen — a subsidiary of McMinnville-based Evergreen International Aviation Inc., a privately held company led by Delford Smith — it adds 64 aircraft to its fleet, including both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, and a company that last year produced $196 million in sales and earnings before interest and taxes of $56.2 million.

The Evergreen fleet provides passenger transport and airlift services for a wide range of customers, including the U.S. military. Its operations are global, including in North America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

<snip>

[bananas]

1. Sourcewatch on Evergreen

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Evergreen_International_Aviation%2C_Inc

Evergreen International Aviation, Inc. is an Oregon-based aviation company with longstanding ties to the CIA. Its huge Evergreen Maintenance Center in Arizona was bought from the Agency, which offered the property to no-one else.[1] In 1980 an Evergreen plane flew the recently deposed Shah of Iran from Panama to Egypt, hours before the Panamanian government was due to receive an extradition request from the new government in Tehran.[1] Giving rides to dictators is something of a specialty for the company - it also allowed El Salvador's President Duarte to use its helicopter, which was officially in the country to help repair power lines.[1]

And according to a series of articles in The Oregonian in 1988, Evergreen's owner and founder Delford M. Smith "...acknowledged one agreement under which his companies provide occasional jobs and cover to foreign nationals the CIA wants taken out of other countries or brought into the United States. However, neither Smith nor CIA officials would say whether any broader agreement existed."[1]

Evergreen is a member of the International Peace Operations Association. Press releases from the company list as a press contact Nathan Drevna from the major PR firm Hill & Knowlton. [1]

Contents [hide]
1 Offering help to Oregon county clerks on Election Day 2008
2 2000 onwards
2.1 1988: We don't know when the CIA uses us. 2006: We know our planes aren't used for extraordinary rendition
2.2 Service with a scowl at the Evergreen Maintenance Center
2.3 Allegations of impropriety over Evergreen's non-profit museum
2.4 Business is booming, thanks to the Iraq war
2.5 A big spender on lobbying
2.6 Flying Bill O'Reilly and Fox News into Iraq
2.7 Alleged terrorist worked for Evergreen - but when?
3 1990s
3.1 The junk bonds bailout
3.2 Evergreen exec: "No easy answer" to The Oregonian's investigation
3.3 Freighting missiles to Israel
4 1980s
4.1 Repairing power lines in El Salvador, and chauffering President Duarte
4.2 Evergreen denies CBS report about gun running to Central America
4.3 Picking up Nicaraguan 'missionaries' - "the area will be secure"
4.4 A mysterious in-flight death
5 Contact details
6 Articles and resources
6.1 Related SourceWatch articles
6.2 References
6.3 External resources
6.4 External articles

<snip>

[Permanut]

2. Evergreen owns the spruce goose..

has it in a museum in McMinnville Oregon - along with a bunch of other historical aircraft. They tried unsuccessfully to get one of the shuttles.

[bananas]

3. 2006: O'Reilly denies allegations of White House/FOX symbiosis in one segment, thanks CIA-linked...

http://www.newshounds.us/2006/12/20/oreilly_denies_allegations_of_white_housefox_symbiosis_in_one_segment_thanks_cialinked_private_airline_for_lift_to_iraq_in_another.php

News Hounds
We watch FOX so you don't have to.

O'Reilly denies allegations of White House/FOX symbiosis in one segment, thanks CIA-linked private airline for lift to Iraq in another

Reported by Chrish - December 20, 2006 -

Last night 12/18/06 on the Factor host Bill O'Reilly did a segment attacking retired newsman Dan Rather for comments about the White House and FOX News having a "different" relationship than other news networks. O'Reilly said he is rapidly losing respect for Rather and complained that Rather is "too busy" to come on the Factor but managed to fit in an interview on CNN, where he reiterated his opinion that the two are operating in synch. O'Reilly was adamant that there is no such relationship, yet earlier in his Talking Points Memo he had thanked Evergreen International Aviation for the fine service on O'Reilly's trip to Iraq last week.

What a plug! Must be crony-owned, I figured. A trip to their website is less than fruitful - they are privately held and names of principals or a board were not easily found.

A visit to SourceWatch.org was much more revealing. According to them,

<snip>

A much longer article at FromtheWilderness.com laid out the history of the airline and its involvement with covert and illegal activities, beginning with

"In 1976 Senator Frank Church submitted CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston to intense grilling over the Agency's questionable and illegal operation of proprietary air transport services. At that time, Houston admitted that the CIA had routinely used the United States Postal Service and the U.S. Forrest Service as covers for covert activities. Houston admitted that The Forest Service had been infiltrated by CIA and that CIA shared an address with the Forrest Service's Air Research and Development unit on Kent Street in Alexandria, VA.

Houston also admitted that the primary company, responsible for all of CIA covert air operations, was a holding company named Pacific Corp. There is an Oregon based corporation known as Pacificorp which has a multitude of sub entities with varying versions of the name including Pacific Power & Light, Pacificorp and Pacific Harbor Capital. In 1993 a Seattle paper ran a story connecting Pacificorp to CIA's Pacific Corp. Under oath, before the Senate in 1976, Houston admitted that Pacific Corp, owned and controlled such CIA notables as Air America, Southern Air Transport and Intermountain Air. In 1976 the CIA was ordered to sell Air America and divest itself of all its holdings.

Since 1973 the CIA had been anticipating this and had moved quickly to give all of its clandestinely owned aircraft to its alleged proprietary, Evergreen International based out of Marana Air Park near Tucson Arizona and McMinville Oregon, near Portland. Coincidentally, Medford Oregon is the home base of aircraft broker Roy Reagan. Reagan was convicted in 1997, along with another man on criminal charges stemming from a scheme to fraudulently take $80 million worth of airplanes from the U.S. government and place them in private hands. Reagan was also the broker for Evergreen according to a lawsuit filed by former CIA pilot Gary Eitel."

Read much more...

So to sum up, O'Reilly denies allegations of close relations between FOX News and the White House (which is laughable and refutable just by looking at who gets all the "exclusives" with Bush and Cheney) shortly after thanking a CIA-linked crony-co for the lift to Iraq. I wonder how Al Franken got to Iraq for his fourth USO tour.