There was a time, not so long ago, that CIA-linked contractor Evergreen International Aviation was doing quite well for itself. So well, in fact, that the company offered to deploy its workers, free of charge, as election day sentries that would “detain troublemakers” at polling places.
Today, the venerable intelligence-helpers have fallen on hard times. The other day, it had to unload its 200 million square foot maintenance facility in southern Arizona in order to help pay off its debts. The company’s credit rating has fallen to CCC, just one step below rock bottom, Evergreen hometown paper, the News Register, reports. Pro bono head-knocking is now out of the question.
It’s a big fall for Evergreen, the multi-faceted firm that’s serviced government agencies for more than a half-century. The company flew the Shah of Iran around in 1980, and ran mysterious missions to El Salvador and Nicaragua shortly thereafter. The flights to Afghanistan began just a few months after the American invasion, in February, 2002.
In 2006, Evergreen’s parent company ferried Bill O’Reilly into Kuwait, according to SourceWatch. That same year, Evergreen denied it had anything to do with the CIA’s “rendition” flights that took terror suspects to torture-friendly regimes. In 2009, the company won a $158 million contract to supply the Air Force with helicopters.
But Evergreen handled more than military or intelligence community work. Its supertankers put out fires from Israel to Mexico. Its unmanned systems division flew drone flights over disaster zones — well, until Evergreen was forced to sell it off. NASA hired it to operate its flying infrared observatory. Evergreen even started a vineyard and a hazelnut farm.
But Evergreen wasn’t a business built on biscotti. One of the cornerstones of the company, once 4,500 people strong, was a freighter contract with Boeing. When Boeing switched from Evergreen to rival Atlas Air last year, the News Register reports, “Evergreen responded by filing a suit alleging the action would cost it $175 million in profit.”
The business was already falling on tough times, with S&P downgrading Evergreen’s credit rating to a B. But after the Boeing deal, things got much, much worse. S&P dropped Evergreen to a triple-C, and said it could only claw back to a B- if the company got itself a $320 million loan and $10 million revolving line of credit. At the times, Evergreen’s chief financial officer told the News Register that “we are not concerned about the future of the company.” Perhaps things have changed, since then.
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