Dr. Richard Neel will be a guest speaker during the 2024 Gala.
Dr. Richard L. Neel, MD, MPH is from Lake Jackson, Texas, and is a fifth-generation Texan. He currently lives in Bulverde, Texas with his wife, Marisa.
Dr. Neel received his Medical Degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He has a Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH) from Harvard University and took courses in occupational and environmental law at MIT. He completed his residency in Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base and a fellowship in Occupational Medicine at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio. Dr. Neel is Board Certified in Aerospace Medicine and served over twenty years as a Chief Flight Surgeon in the US Air Force before retiring at the rank of Colonel.
During his Air Force career, he was stationed in Europe for over eight years. In addition to his flight surgeon duties, he served as the Chief of Executive Medicine for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the former Eastern Bloc countries. In this capacity, he served as the personal physician for many US Ambassadors, Flag Officers and Senior State Department personnel.
He led emergency medical response teams for the NASA space shuttle emergency landing sites in Spain, Morocco and The Gambia. Dr Neel deployed numerous times in his career for combat operations throughout the Middle East and in Bosnia.
His service included time as a squadron commander, expeditionary clinic commander and air transportable hospital commander. He completed flight training at Randolph Air Force Base and has over a thousand hours of flight time in fighters, tankers, transports and helicopters including more than 25 combat missions.
He completed the long course in aircraft mishap investigations at USC and served as the medical board member for six full Air Force aircraft mishap investigation boards, as well as numerous interim boards. He discovered two separate design flaws in the F-16 and one in the F-4 that resulted in engineering redesigns of the jets and exonerated at least nine pilots whose mishaps had been blamed on pilot error by previous boards.
He also discovered human factor issues that led to a change in air operations for Desert Storm and to write ups in several safety magazines. While stationed in England, he flew in the helicopter rescue of 32 people who were stranded on a sinking tanker 300 miles off the northern coast of Ireland. The 12 hour mission was the longest recorded air-sea rescue in history at that time and included air refueling five times in a North Atlantic hurricane. His final assignment in the Air Force was as Chief of Medical Force Protection for Headquarters Air Force Security Forces.
Part of this job entailed researching countermeasures for chemical, biological and radiological weapons while serving on a global anti-terrorism team. On September 11, 2001, he led an Air Force emergency medical response team at the Pentagon.
In his post-Air Force career, Dr. Neel has worked in San Antonio and the surrounding areas as a specialist in hyperbaric medicine and wound care, and as Area Medical Director for a national company of occupational and urgent care clinics.
He is currently co-owner and CEO of Alsatian Care Enterprises where he continues his practice of emergency, urgent care and family medicine.
1 Trackback / Pingback
Comments are closed.