When you think about what a Green Beret does in his free time, you likely don’t envision him sewing in his garage. But that’s exactly where you’d find Ross Johnson in the evenings when he was on active duty as a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
While serving three tours in Afghanistan, Johnson found that many of the Army issued medical devices used most often in the field hadn’t been updated in decades. He was determined to improve these tools, making fellow soldiers’ jobs safer and easier while improving their chances of saving lives.
The tourniquet he designed – and made by hand in his garage after teaching himself to sew – became so popular that the Army let him end his service early after 12 years of active duty so he could keep up with demand and apply his expertise and innovation to other medical devices.
He formed Tactical Medical Solutions in 2003 and left the military in 2006. The business has grown from a one-man operation with orders fulfilled through all-night sewing sessions to an international business with more than 100 employees, sites in four states and distribution in 70 countries of a line of products used at the point of injury.
Johnson turned to business aviation in 2008 to shorten the drive to a hard-to-reach first factory and in 2018 took delivery of his dream airplane – a 2006 Beechcraft King Air C90GT that he uses to continue growing his businesses and investments, for recreational trips and for philanthropic missions.
“The King Air isn’t the fastest, it doesn’t fly the highest but it’s a workhorse and being able to get in and out of pretty much anywhere, I think it gives you more choices than just about anything else out there,” Johnson said.
Green Beret by day, seamster by night
Johnson said he was always interested in aviation though he had no pilot influences growing up. He considered becoming an Army aviator when he enlisted at age 17, but instead went the special forces route.
He advanced from airborne infantryman to a scout platoon and then sniper school. His “job interview” to join the U.S. Army Special Forces involved three weeks of 24-hour-a-day training. He was selected to be a medical specialist and received two years of training to administer emergency medical care in combat and humanitarian situations. He completed three tours in Afghanistan as a Green Beret and then volunteered for 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, otherwise known as the secretive, elite Delta Force.
It was during his first tour where he saw the need for innovation in the field.
“We had a pretty decent amount of casualties, not a lot of U.S. but mostly civilians or Afghan, and I realized pretty quickly that the items we were issued hadn’t been improved since Vietnam,” Johnson said. “The tourniquet was the same type they issued on D-Day. Bleeding to death was the No. 1 cause of death on the battlefield and we were wasting a lot of time improvising to save a life. I knew there had to be a better way.
“I was in a fire base on the Pakistani border and one night I was up late on radio watch. I drew up the design for a tourniquet, and when I came home, I started making it in my garage, figuring out how to get it to actually function correctly.”
The standard issue tourniquet, he said, was basically a belt. Most Army medics weren’t using it because it took too much improvising to get it to work. He created a durable, reliable and easy-to-use tourniquet that is
effective at controlling severe bleeding. It allows you to put it on yourself with one hand, if necessary, and is easier for first responders to tighten, increase pressure and use on different sized limbs. He first gave them to buddies who were deploying, then started getting requests from many others via word-of-mouth. Developing a working tourniquet was a passion project so Johnson’s goal wasn’t to make money. But as the requests grew, he needed to cover his costs and soon he was able to supplement his income and help provide for his family that included two children by then.
While orders for his tourniquet had steadily increased, he was still making them by hand at home, often sewing all night after a full day at work. While living in a tent in the desert of the Helmand Province during his second Afghanistan tour, he received an order from the Army for 56,000 tourniquets.
“That was a huge order and it wasn’t going to happen with me making each one of them,” he said. “But I had started the process of setting up a partnership with a manufacturer and was able to put things in motion with just a couple of phone calls to the home office.”
The $1.2 million order came in 2004 and was a turning point for Johnson. He estimates that he personally made the first several thousand of what is now marketed as the SOF Tourniquet (SOF stands for Special Operations Forces). He went from a staff sergeant whose pay qualified him for government assistance to a business owner, setting up Tactical Medical Solutions and working with a manufacturing facility in far western North Carolina.
For three years he tried to do both but by 2006 he realized he needed to focus on the business, so he became a full-time entrepreneur with the Army’s blessing. He moved his young family from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Anderson, South Carolina, a small town about halfway between Atlanta, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Because the factory he worked with was in the mountains, it would take him about three hours to drive there to work on new product design, which he did about once a week.
“I’d always wanted to learn how to fly and it made sense to do it then,” Johnson said. “So I went and bought a plane because I figured that would force me to finish the process. I bought a Piper Archer, which took that three-hour drive down to a 30-minute flight. I could be at the factory to work in the morning and then be home at lunchtime.”
The business continued to grow in several ways: Johnson and his team that includes fellow former Green Beret, business partner and best friend Alan Hester developed additional products for point of injury uses based on their experiences in the field (a trauma bandage and a surgical airway kit, for example). The small group of investors that owns what is now called TacMed Solutions also bought other businesses in the medical survivability industry, including a company that makes body armor and another that builds high-fidelity manikins that simulate human bodies during trauma situations.
“Everything we do is in the area of equipping, training or protecting,” Johnson said. “Our goal is to improve survivability and minimize preventable death.”
Another way TacMed has grown is through more widespread use.
“We were solely a defense medical contractor for a number of years but it’s really pushed off the battlefield and into the civilian world,” he said. “Seven of the top 10 police departments in the country use our tourniquets; every police officer in the state of New York is issued our tourniquet and they probably save one person a week using our product. We are the primary tourniquet for the American Red Cross; they use our product to train bleeding control.”
Aside from TacMed Solutions, Johnson also invests in other companies and has real estate holdings. His family has expanded to three children – two college age daughters and a toddler son – with a second son due in January.
Using business aviation
While making frequent trips to the initial factory was the impetus for Johnson’s entry into business aviation, use of the company aircraft has mirrored the growth of TacMed.
The company, still headquartered in Anderson, South Carolina, now has three other primary operations facilities in Georgia, Texas and California. In addition to transporting employees between locations in the eastern half of the U.S., the company aircraft takes TacMed staff to industry events and meetings with suppliers, distributors and customers; brings critical suppliers on-site when needed; and is used when evaluating potential business acquisitions. Johnson has even been known to fly products to deploying military when shipping can’t make the deadline.
“Having the airplane was especially helpful during COVID; we were growing the business at a terrible time in terms of traveling and meeting face-to-face,” Johnson said. “But having the airplane and being able to avoid the exposure to others that comes with flying commercially was a huge help, whether it was moving employees between sites, flying in CEO candidates or meeting with critical suppliers.”
In 2021, TacMed brought on a CEO to handle day-to-day operations. Johnson’s title is founder and co-chairman of the company, and he handles most of the flying. There are several other employees who happen to be instrument-rated pilots and can help out when needed.
Johnson flies the King Air about 200 hours a year, predominantly for TacMed and his own real estate holdings. He also uses the aircraft for occasional family trips and tries to fit in charitable flights when possible.
After reading about the nonprofit Turtles Fly Too in King Air magazine last December, Johnson and one of his daughters volunteered to fly 30 Kemp’s Ridley and loggerhead sea turtles on Dec. 22. The turtles were rescued after being cold-stunned along the New England coast and needed to be delivered to two Florida rehabilitation facilities (Clearwater Marine Aquarium and SeaWorld), where they could continue to recover and eventually be released into the ocean.
Johnson removed all the seats in the C90GT to make room for the special cargo – which travel in banana boxes – and the mission required 11.5 hours of flying in one day. He’s hoping to do more turtle missions this winter, and he’s also registered to fly in the June 2022 Special Olympics Airlift (see sidebar on page 12) coordinated by Textron Aviation.
He’s having a blast flying the King Air after moving up from a series of Piper aircraft.
“I started with a 1976 Piper Archer and kept stepping up from there,” said Johnson, who has amassed 1,500 hours since getting his pilot license in 2008. “I moved up to a Piper 6X and then the Piper Seneca. I had always wanted a King Air, though, and specifically a 90 model. The performance of the plane with the GT model engines and the gross weight increase is unbelievable, especially considering I’m coming from the Seneca. I never have to worry about leaving someone behind because I need more fuel. It’s a truly functional business and recreational plane.”
Johnson said he likes the look of the 90, plus it suits the missions he regularly flies. He considered Pilatus and TBM models but the confidence that comes with the King Air’s twin engines, ability to get in and out of smaller airports and easy-to-access parts and service won out.
The 2006 King Air C90GT he purchased already had a gross weight increase. Raisbeck swept blade propellers were added before he took delivery, and he has also upgraded to Garmin G1000 avionics, which shed several hundred pounds.
He’s planning to add wing lockers in January 2022 and, to make his Clemson graduate wife happy, a new paint scheme to cover up the maroon and black that reminds her of SEC-rival University of South Carolina. He expects the C90GT to fit his needs and the company’s needs for years to come.
“When I think of common traits amongst special operations soldiers, adaptability, reliability and the ability to operate in harsh and challenging environments all come to mind,” Johnson said. “I think the King Air shares these traits. Maybe that’s why I picked it to fill our mission and be a part of the TacMed family.”
*All photos provided by TacMed Solutions unless otherwise stated.
King Air operators invited to fly in 2022 Special Olympics Airlift
Textron Aviation hopes to recruit 228 owners by Feb. 28, 2022, for the Special Olympics Airlift, which would make it one of the largest peacetime airlifts in the world. As we went to print, the company still needs about 120 aircraft to meet that goal.
Who: Owners of Beechcraft King Air, Premier and Beechjet models; Hawker aircraft; and Cessna Citation business jets
What: Donate the use of your aircraft, pilots and fuel to help transport a portion of the over 4,000 athletes and coaches invited to the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games in Orlando.
Where: From airports around the U.S., Caribbean and Puerto Rico to Orlando Executive Airport and back.
When: Arrival day for the USA Games is Saturday, June 4, 2022, and departure day to return passengers to their home bases is Sunday, June 12, 2022. Organizers prefer operators register to fly both days but will work with those who can only fly one leg.
Why: With your help, children and adults with intellectual disabilities from across the country will compete on the biggest stage and continue to develop their competitive and life skills. Travel is the largest expense for Special Olympics programs, and the Special Olympics Airlift has provided free transportation for nearly 10,000 athletes and coaches dating back to 1987.
All airlift participants will receive a Certificate of Donation to use as your charitable gift documentation when working with your tax advisor.
How: Register at txtav.com/airlift as early as possible and no later than Feb. 28.