 By Kelsey Volkmann
St. Louis Business Journal Online
Friday, August 8, 2008
When disaster strikes, you want Joseph White there. He led a Red Cross service center after Hurricane Ivan battered Florida in 2004. He teamed up with local organizations in Baton Rouge, La., to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina deal with the aftermath in Baton Rouge, La., in 2005. And, during his six years running the St. Louis chapter of the Red Cross, where he leads 1,500 volunteers and nearly 90 paid staff, he's pushed the chapter to become the only one in the nation equipped to take care of 600 families without outside help.
On Friday, it was announced that White was promoted to oversee the nation's 750 operations as senior vice president for chapter operations for the American National Red Cross.
After meeting with the top 45 chapters in Portland, Ore., White spoke with The Business Journal as he waited for his plane back to St. Louis.
What is your vision for the Red Cross now that you have this new role?
It seems like we have disasters striking almost every day, like the floods in Iowa. Other chapters need to increase their disaster response capability. Our chapter can serve 600 families and that's something we can replicate. You don't see a lot of natural disasters in Phoenix but I would like to export a concept of disaster response even if they don't have natural disasters. We had 260,000 volunteers for two months when Katrina struck. They had to come from all over the United States. Our chapter response to 1,200 fires a year - that's three a day. So our St. Louis chapter has been involved in disasters that aren't on the radar screen. We are on the fault, in tornado alley and flood zones. When you get that experience, the national organization relies on you.
How do you build up your disaster response?
It doesn't take a lot of money but dedicated volunteers. We need to bring in volunteers who can drive trucks filled with supplies, people who do sheltering for the homeless. We need mental health workers because inside a major disaster people don't know where their loved ones are and if they'll get back to their homes. We need mass care and bulk distribution and case work for people who have been displaced and have substantially lost their home or goods. And they will come to us and we will support them with dollars, cold hard cash to replace blankets and food.
What was one of the lessons learned after Hurricane Katrina?
When a major disaster takes place, we need resources from the community. We have one person at our chapter working with faith-based organizations, politicians and government. When a disaster strikes, we need not only the Red Cross but all the resources within the community to respond as well. We have to build partnerships so we can ask, 'Will you open up your church or gym as a shelter?' One of the things that's made the St. Louis chapter so successful is that we've made 77 partnerships with local organizations. When we had the big power outages with major storms in July 2006, we called on partners to help us out.
Before joining the Red Cross, you were VP of investor relations at Fleishman-Hillard and president of St. Louis City Region for Boatmen’s Bank. What have you taken from the business world and applied to the Red Cross?
More and more often, not-for-profits are turning to the for-profit world for people with a sense of expertise to manage a nonprofit like a for-profit business. We have to be as efficient as we possibly can with donor money and consolidate operations and eliminate expenses. There's a lot of experience we can draw upon in the business community.
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