Over the years, Dr. Guy Banta, Ph.D, MPH, has held many notable titles, such as NASA contractor and biomedical manager, 28–year veteran in the U.S. Navy, black belt martial artist, successful entrepreneur and CEO, and educator. All are bound together by his uncanny passion and respect for science and medicine. His strong interest in biomedical research and his technical mastery have mostly focused on the effects of environmental extremes on human cognitive/physiological response in relationship to human performance.
Dr. Banta is a specialist in Aerospace Medicine and human performance; he was the Biomedical Manager for one of the first NASA space station designs. There he was in charge of collaborating with universities to design research that could be performed on the Space Station and on Shuttle. He worked closely with engineers and medical professionals to determine what would and would not work in zero gravity. He researched everything from telemedicine, to how to exercise and maintain top human performance in space.
So just how did Dr. Guy Banta get where he is today, at the head of Eagle Applied Sciences, L.L.C., a top government contractor providing high–end applied sciences and medical support to all federal agencies?
Dr. Banta started his career as a combat Navy Corpsman with Marine and Navy teams, serving in Vietnam. After being wounded, Banta says, “I got tired of getting shot at, so I decided to go to college.” In college he discovered his interest in medicine and science. After receiving his B.A., Dr. Banta fell in love with flying and was invited to join the Navy’s aviation medical program. After flight school he was assigned as a medical safety officer for a Navy flight squadron. From there he went on to receive his Masters and Doctorate in Medical Physiology and Human Performance, and continued his specialized training in Public Health and Aerospace Medicine. In the Navy he had the opportunity to also work with the Air Force and he became quite familiar with the San Antonio bases. Retiring after 28 years in the Navy, he went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the city he calls home. After finishing his work on Space Station Freedom he was invited by a former astronaut friend to join him at a company that provided nationwide medical research support to the government. Here Banta became very familiar with managing government contracts, leading to successful proposals for the Air Force and Army here in San Antonio. “It wasn’t a different environment for me. There were a lot of the same players,” says Banta.
Dr. Banta worked hard in the Navy to earn such positions as department head and eventually Commanding Officer and now as a civilian, president of his company, Eagle Applied Sciences. Eagle’s parent company, Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) in Alaska, is a billion dollar company with expertise in such fields as Engineering, Business Development, Health Services, Financials, Telecommunications, Environmental and Construction. Its large company infrastructure provides Eagle with the resources to take on any size contract while maintaining the highest quality standards for its customers. “Eagle represents the Life Sciences work that we do for the federal agencies, including NASA. Our company started as three employees but has grown to over 140 in 27 states and five countries.” Banta’s leadership and familiarity with the government have made Eagle a top government contractor, earning Eagle outstanding ratings on its contracts. One such contract is the U.S. Army Warrior in Transition Support program, to which Banta, a wounded warrior himself, is particularly dedicated. The contract provides all wounded warriors with proper one–on–one support when they return home. The Family Advocacy Support contract helps the warriors and their families through the process that they endure as they return home, from medical treatment to social services. “We want to make sure that every single wounded warrior is taken care of, as far as advocacy and the clinical side. And we have the good fortune to be able to provide that here. We also support Lackland and Brooks as well as all Air Force Medical Treatment Facilities in the Pacific Rim: Guam, Japan, Okinawa and Hawaii,” says Banta. Eagle also has an Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine contract and continues to provide support to NASA. Currently, they are assisting in the design, testing, and evaluation of in–space exercise equipment such as the treadmill for NASA.
With all the administrative work Banta does for Eagle, he no longer has time for the “fun stuff” as he calls it: bench research of which he has over 80 publications. “But that is the nature of all businesses: you grow up to be the boss and you can’t have fun anymore,” Banta jokes. But perhaps he has now found a balance in the two; Banta has embarked on another business venture, undoubtedly geared towards public health. The Integrative Wellness Center is a community facility that he and a couple friends formed about three years ago to promote wellness and educate the community of San Antonio. Integrative Wellness consults patients on nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, cardiovascular health and weight control to name a few. The staff additionally provide patients with acupuncture, Chi Gong/Thai Chi and kick boxing at the Center’s Martial Arts school, and even observation and maintenance of blood pressure and diabetes. “We advise the clients, then set a plan with the help of their primary care physician to help get them on the right path to wellness,” Banta says. A black belt himself, Banta even teaches martial arts classes. “We take an academic holistic approach to reduce stress, control weight and provide nutritional and cardiovascular education. Unfortunately, San Antonio is one of the fattest cities in the country and we would like to help turn that around.”
Integrative Wellness encourages physicians to refer their patients to the Center so they can assist and report back to the physician from an out–of–clinic perspective. “Our goal is to educate the community from both a western as well as eastern medical perspective. For example, acupuncture is an excellent Chinese treatment for certain health conditions that has been around for thousands of years. Western science has analyzed it and shows that it works logically and physiologically,” he says. “Same goes for Chi Gong and Thai Chi in promoting stress reduction. Integrative Wellness is a wellness outlet for the community.”
It comes as no surprise that Dr. Banta’s wife, Linda, is a physician, and his two daughters are also both in the medical field. While his family makes their home the Clearlake area in Houston, Banta spends a majority of his time in San Antonio. “I have been doing something in the sciences since I was a very young kid in the Navy/Marine Corp. My personal diversification has hit on pretty much everything I have done. Throughout my career I have been intimately involved in exercise and wellness and that has always carried through,” says Dr. Banta. Dr. Banta has led his life serving the public, from the Navy to NASA to new ventures; he keeps his focus on the health of his fellow man.
