Indiana Red Cross gets new downtown office, leader

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A giant cardboard cutout of Clara Barton looks down on Meridian Street from a window of the new Red Cross building just south of 16th Street.

Barton, a Civil War nurse and longtime educator, founded the American Red Cross in 1881.

Chad Priest, a former nurse and educator himself, is the new chief executive officer of the Indiana Region of the American Red Cross. The 39-year-old Indianapolis native, who also has a law degree, uses terms like "epic" and "the bee's knees" to describe the $10 million headquarters, the latest addition to Indianapolis' nonprofit corridor along Meridian Street.

He points to Barton's cardboard likeness and marvels about the humanitarian agency she created, which responds to tens of thousands of disasters annually through its network of 650 chapters and 500,000 volunteers across the country.

Priest is leading a tour of the modern, open-concept building on the site of the former Payton Wells Chevrolet dealership, tucked between the Catholic Center to the south and a Walgreen's to the north. A garden will take shape on one side, while a vacant lot next door could be the future home of another nonprofit partner.

The Red Cross, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in Indiana this year, moved from its sprawling headquarters last month. In a three-way swap of sorts, the city bought the old Red Cross building to relocate Fire Station 7 and city fire headquarters from their location in the 500 block of Massachusetts Avenue, clearing the way for future development on Mass Ave.

"The timing is epic for us," Priest said. "We're going from 64,000 square feet to about 24,000 square feet, and that downsizing has translated into a lot more room for us."

Yes, you heard him right. Less space, more room. Individual offices were the norm in the old building. And there was a full-size commercial kitchen, emergency shelter, storage space and bulky equipment taking up costly real estate.

It used to be that the Red Cross building itself was a big shelter, Priest said. "But the truth is the Red Cross operates shelters all over the community. We don't want to bring people to 15th and Meridian. That's a lot of how we trimmed the space down. We welcome clients all day, but for an emergency shelter, those should be in churches and schools."

The offices also are gone in the new building. So are permanent desks for employees. Now, the agency's nearly 30 paid staffers in Indy (52 statewide) sit anywhere they like, bringing their laptops and rolling filing cabinets (which can double as seats) with them. Lockers also are provided to hold personal items.

Office phones can be programmed to ring wherever they are. Small conference rooms are available for huddling; community spaces can be reserved by local groups; TVs are tuned to weather and news stations, so the staff can stay on top of developing emergencies. Visiting staffers and volunteers have plenty of room to work as well.

"Everything is wired, all designed for collaboration," Priest said. "It was time for us to build a building that would allow us to reach Hoosiers in the most effective and efficient way.

"Every day, we can switch to a new desk," he said of the egalitarian workspace. "Last week, I sat next to an intern and learned more in those five hours than I ever would have sitting in an office."

But he's most excited about the rooftop deck, calling it the "bee's knees." Once finished, it will be another workspace, complete with Wi-Fi, comfortable seating, lighting and ambient heating when temperatures dip. "I will work here all summer," Priest said.

The young executive is new to the job - he came on as CEO three months ago from the Indiana University School of Medicine - but he's not new to the Red Cross.

"I started volunteering for the Red Cross as a kid, worked on a disaster team when I was in high school (Broad Ripple)," he said. "I remember responding to tornadoes over by Arlington High School as a teen."

That early training made an impression. "Nobody does what we do. We touch so many lives every day," Priest said.

Many of those lives are upended by fires in Central Indiana. After the firefighters do their job, the Red Cross steps in to provide food, shelter and clothing.

"We respond to three home fires a day on average" in the region's 87 counties, said Ann Gregson, communications lead for the Red Cross. "Last year, we helped 1,300 families."

Volunteers are the lifeblood of the American Red Cross - 500,000 across the country, at last count. In the Indiana region, more than 3,500 volunteers do most of the agency's work.

Not long after joining the Red Cross last fall, Priest was working the day after Thanksgiving when most everyone else was off. He was called out to the scene of a deadly fire at a senior citizens apartment complex in Plainfield.

"I walked in after the hoses had been reeled in and the fire was out. There, in a community room, were 11 volunteers doing what I can only describe as God's work," he said. "It wasn't sophisticated stuff. It was a cup of coffee, a hug, a meal. I can't tell you how moved I was."

Priest said he left that day, thinking, "My goodness, this is a treasure."

Susan Roberts, 71, began volunteering for the Red Cross in 2012. The retired office manager/bookkeeper is a member of the local disaster action team and is trained in first aid. She hasn't been deployed to disaster scenes out of state but has seen her share of people in shock after devastating fires, floods and at least one tornado.

"It can be very emotional when you walk in and see there's nothing left (after a disaster). But knowing we can help people and get them back on their feet is really gratifying," Roberts said.

The American Red Cross has been in the news frequently in the past several years, sometimes for the wrong reasons. There were criticisms after 9/11 about some of the $1.1 billion in donations collected being diverted to fund future relief efforts. Other complaints emerged after Hurricane Katrina and a devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Priest takes the criticism to heart.

"We have made mistakes in the past, and we'll make mistakes in the future, but I would put the work we do up against any organization in the world," he said.

"This is the world's most renowned disaster organization, and we have been through really challenging times. Financially, this was an operation that was not sustainable nationwide. We were hemorrhaging funds," he said, largely due to costly upkeep on too many buildings.

Many chapter offices have closed, but the agency's services continue, he said. And Indiana is the model going forward nationally.

"We are the first building in the Red Cross to have this look, and it's the national blueprint," Priest said. "Every new construction project in the American Red Cross will look just like this."

The result will be significant operational cost savings, he said.

"We have to be good stewards of our donors' dollars. We've had to make some tough real-estate choices, but we're coming out of it a leaner, more efficient humanitarian organization."

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Source: The Indianapolis Star, http://bit.ly/1OCPuaM

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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com