Joel Sullivan on the American Red Cross in Tennessee
Joel Sullivan serves as Regional Executive for the American Red Cross-Tennessee Region, overseeing operations, volunteer efforts, and disaster relief across 98 counties and eight local chapters.
About Joel Sullivan
Joel Sullivan is the Regional Executive of the American Red Cross-Tennessee Region and Executive Director of the Nashville Area Chapter. Since 2010, he’s overseen a team that spans eight chapters, 98 counties, and a volunteer base of more than 3,000 Tennesseans.
Joel’s Red Cross story started long before his title. As a volunteer and board member, he saw firsthand the power of community and the impact of being there when people need it most.
Under Joel’s guidance, the Tennessee Region not only responds to local disasters but also deploys volunteers across the nation—from hurricanes in the Southeast to wildfires out West. His teams lead initiatives like Sound the Alarm, which installs free smoke alarms in underserved communities, and offer trauma-informed mental health and spiritual care during times of crisis.
Beyond disaster response, Joel champions preparedness through training programs like Be Red Cross Ready, equipping families with the tools they need before emergencies strike.
Did you know? The Tennessee Region of the Red Cross serves not just all 95 counties in Tennessee—but also parts of Arkansas, Mississippi, and the military families of Fort Campbell.
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Spencer: Joel Sullivan with the American Red Cross. You are the regional executive for the Tennessee region. You and I are friends. We've done a lot of life together. Welcome to Signature Required.
Joel: Thank you. Thank you for having us today or for having me today.
Spencer: We are [00:01:00] excited about exploring the Red Cross with you because this is something that's meant a lot to me personally throughout my life.
Spencer: I've been able to serve on the American Red Cross Board for this part of the country. You, uh, have, uh, had a career. In the Red Cross world and I had no clue that the Red Cross is so much more than blood. Right. Which thank goodness. 'cause it's so ironic with me serving on the board, I'm not a huge fan of needles.
Spencer: but I was very relieved that the Red Cross missionally, clearly blood is part of it, but it's so much more to.
Joel: Absolutely. Let's get the scary stuff right out of the gate. Yeah. And take care of the scary part of our mission. Yeah. Uh, which is our, our blood, blood side of the business. And I too was scared for a long time. I was like, I, I just can't sit there and stick a needle in my arm. Mm-hmm. And then one day at my physical, I was giving blood.
Joel: You know, they take your blood to see how your blood's doing. And I thought. Is this the same thing they do when you give [00:02:00] blood at the blood center? And they said, yeah, basically the same thing. You just have to sit there five minutes longer. And so I thought, why am I not saving lives? If that's it, yeah.
Joel: Mm-hmm. You know, it's less than a little pinch. I could be saving lives. And so I went and was very nervous the first time, but they. Set me down and I knew my juice and cookies were coming and it, it was, that's the
Carli: carrot at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joel: It was a non-event. I'm like, I could have been saving lives for so many years before now.
Spencer: Yeah. Well, I have had the chance to get to know you pretty well, but we have a little tradition that we like to do on the podcast that we started off. Just to kind of break the ice a little bit, we're gonna ask you just a couple random questions about you, so that way. Everybody else can get to know some really important facts about you.
Spencer: Are you ready? They're gonna be really hard. Yeah. Okay. They're gonna be really hard. Okay. Question number one.
Spencer:. Carli and I are foodies and we have been able to evaluate someone's character based upon their food choice alone, and it really comes down to this one question. Okay, so [00:03:00] this is a really important question. As an American, we actually disagree on this opinion as an American.
Spencer: Does ketchup belong on a hot dog? Yes or no? I won't accept any other answer. Yes. Oh man. See, you made. Made Carli happy with that Victory.
Carli: Victory. Yeah, you're right.
Joel: Do I get to give any explanation? Yes, you can now. No, you
Carli: can. Yes.
Joel: So I believe ketchup belongs on a, a hot dog for two reasons actually. One, it brings out the flavor
in the dog. Yes,
Joel: but number two, it's also one of the major food groups. It's a fruit. I love that. And so I can kill two
birds of one still there round.
Yeah, I love that.
Spencer: Well, as somebody that's probably done a whole lot of cookouts, grill outs and all manner of different things, I figured you'd be an expert on this. So see, he
Carli: wins. Yeah,
Spencer: Alright. Well now that we've established the important things, uh, in our discussion today, uh, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do for the Red Cross?
Spencer: 'cause you have a big job, you manage a lot of people and. The Red Cross. I know personally, but I think people are gonna enjoy [00:04:00] hearing about it. It's a huge machine. Mm-hmm. That it takes a lot in order to be responsive to the things it's responsive to. So what does a regional director for the American Red Cross and the Tennessee region do?
Joel: So my role basically as a regional executive is to provide resources and remove obstacles from our eight chapters. Uh, I manage a total of 62 people in our region, which is 98 counties. 95 of those are in Tennessee, two in Mississippi, and one in Arkansas. So basically the Memphis area and our eight chapters do all five lines of our service.
Joel: And so we talked about blood as being one of our services. Disasters, what most other people know us for our service to the armed forces is where we were born. We were born on the battlefield back in 1881. Mm. With Claire Barton. Uh, our international services where we help reconnect families that are torn apart by war or famine or whatever reasons that are out there and reconnect families.
Joel: And then we, I also make sure that our training services are provided. Most [00:05:00] everyone's had lifeguarding, babysitter training, uh. First aid, C-P-R-A-E-D and and my favorite is Pet first Aid in that program of a suite of products. And if you've never given mouth to snout, you haven't lived,
Joel: how long have
Spencer: you been waiting to say that you've been building out this whole time you've used that a time or two? I'm, how can I work this in today? Yeah.
Carli: Wow.
Joel: But the key is, you notice I said there was 60 plus people who were working in, in as staff people.
Joel: 90% of what we do is done by volunteers. So it's very important that we continue to recruit, train, engage, and reward our volunteers for the great work that they do. Because we've got five shelters open here as our, as we enter the spring storms. We've got five shelters open today, and those shelters are run by volunteers.
Joel: Mm-hmm. From their communities.
Carli: What does it take to be a Red Cross volunteer? Because I, when I think about the Red Cross, it has such an elite reputation. I would be a little bit [00:06:00] intimidated. I'm not a nurse, I don't have a nursing background. Like who are you looking for? Who can help you?
Joel: Uh, we look for folks who wanna make a difference, and it can be anything.
Joel: We have various, if, if you're interested in the Red Cross, there's a job for you. Uh, many of our volunteers say they want to help others. They just have a passion for helping others when they, when they're. Others are down. Uh, so it could be working in a shelter, it could be working logistics. It could be working in their feeding services, uh, our government operations where we're sitting in these emergency operation centers, being the liaisons, there's so many different roles and it's not hard.
Joel: You go to Red cross.org, sign up to be a volunteer. We run a background check and start your training. And the training's not that much.
Carli: I imagine. I've done a couple of volunteer roles and. I love doing it, but sometimes it feels like herding cats, right? Trying to get everyone educated to know what they're doing and where they need to be and, and you're doing this with [00:07:00] disaster relief in the middle of the night, 3:00 AM How are you managing this mass group of volunteers with such excellence at odd hours and all of these different roles?
Carli: How do you. Get everyone going where they need to go.
Joel: So when we have blue skies, we work in either blue sky or gray sky. Blue sky is where we're preparing for. And gray sky is where we're responding to. So you prepare for, respond to and recover from. So in the prepare for phase, when it's blue sky, there's not much going on.
Joel: We run exercises and tabletop exercises. If this happened, what would you do if this happened? Who are your partners that are going to show up? Uh, this happens most often, every night or end day with home fires. We have disaster action teams. Our volunteers who know each other, they work with each other. And when the bell goes off, they go out at, say, two in the morning, and they're a team.
Joel: They know who's gonna do what, how they're gonna do it to take care of that family. In that moment, why don't you tell a
Spencer: story maybe related to that? I mean, I just imagine [00:08:00] every. Situation where you've got a house fire, that's just everyone's worst imaginable situation. Right? I mean, it's just everything that, you know, burning down in front of you, helpless, all sorts of tragedy and the Red Cross shows up.
Spencer: Yeah, and that probably surprises a lot of people. Like I called 9 1 1, I expected the fire department or the police may be a chaplain, but the Red Cross shows up. So maybe just tell a story, something that, that you've experienced from. That moment
Joel: I can, I can remember my first call as a volunteer because I actually started as a volunteer and we got a call out in rural Tennessee, east of Nashville.
Joel: And when we arrived on scene, there were literally out in the country, two brick chimneys standing, and the only thing around it was the rubble of a completely burned home. And there was a gentleman and his son standing there and they said, he, I said, did you live here? And they said, yes, we do. And I said, well, we're with the Red Cross and [00:09:00] we're here to help.
Joel: And so they didn't know what they were gonna do, didn't know where they were gonna go, but they also knew that they had to move forward. And so we asked them, we'd, do a little interview with them What do you need? What, what, what are your, what's your situation? And we get them started on that path to recovery.
Joel: So they, they've hit the bottom of their time. Now we're gonna walk with them until they're fully recovered. Mm. And that could be financial assistance. We're gonna make sure they have a place to stay. They've got clothes, they've got food, medications. Uh, if you look at a house that's completely burned, you literally have nothing but what you're wearing.
Joel: Yeah.
Spencer: That was something that I really came to appreciate having sat on the board. It's like. Some of the basic stuff that you just forget about, like you don't have your toiletries, you don't have clothes, like what you said, you have what you're wearing. And a lot of families in that situation, there's no answer.
Spencer: There was no financial planning or budgeting for this. And [00:10:00] you know, insurance, who knows how long that's gonna take. And so it's amazing that it impacted the family who lost their house for sure. Undoubtedly, but the impact upon the volunteers, right? I mean, you, on your first call had that experience and that's propelled you sitting here today.
Spencer: Maybe talk about too, on the other end of the spectrum for the Red Cross disaster, we've had huge floods in Tennessee and the Red Cross could be commended to say. We do a great job of responding to big situations, but small things aren't our thing, or the opposite, you could say the Red Cross does really well on the small stuff, but we leave the big stuff to, you know, FEMA or something like that.
Spencer: But you all really span the whole gamut. So walk us through some of the situations with the floods in Tennessee and how the Red Cross operated on [00:11:00] the
Joel: big scale. So I can use the 2010 flood as an example here in Nashville where it started out raining. No one thought anything about it. And then it's kept raining.
Joel: And it kept raining until the streets were flooding. Os were flooding, cars were flooding, and the Red Cross at that time is in emergency mode. And we know we've gotta do one thing really well is get people out of the weather. Get them to safety. So in those preparation times, we, we go ahead and work with churches and auditoriums and gymnasiums and schools, will they be our partner?
Joel: Because we can't do what we do without partners and make sure that wherever those shelters are gonna be mm-hmm. That we, they're not in a flood zone. And so we're not taking people from harm's way and putting 'em in harm's way, and volunteers do all that. They do the shelter survey. What is it? Where is it?
Joel: How many people will it hold? And once we get those, that data, we know where we're gonna go. Then we make sure to get the shelter teams in, get it open, get [00:12:00] the cots set up, get the feeding done, make sure there's food when they get. There. And as we move forward through the ordeal to make sure they've got food, shelter, medical care, we have volunteer nurses, volunteer mental health folks that come in, um, to work with people because it is traumatizing to go through those situations and everybody handles it differently.
Joel: Some people act like nothing happened, and some people are very emotional about it. So we wanna work with where that person is at that moment in their life.
Carli: Is there anything different between something like the massive 2010 flood? Versus when you've got these tornadoes, you know, sitting here as we're recording, it's peak tornado season, but it seems like there's always some type of event happening.
Carli: Is your response different for those individual strikes of smaller zones that are just decimated by a weather event versus a giant flood that takes over a whole city?
Joel: Well, the beauty of the Red Cross' process is it's scalable. So we're going to start with a disaster action team. [00:13:00] Every disaster starts with a disaster action team, and that's two or three or four people that are working together.
Joel: When they hear the call, they go see what do we have? And if it's too big for that team to handle, then we call the chapter volunteers and say, Hey, we've got something a little bigger. We need to more volunteers to come in and help out. And then as the event unfolds. For instance, in spring storms we often get these floods and tornadoes.
Joel: So it becomes much larger. We call our regional volunteers in from other chapters that are trained to do this, and then it scales on out to our division and then the whole nation.
Hmm.
Joel: So depending on what, what. Scale. The disaster is we're gonna scale up to that, and our goal is to scale down as fast as possible, because that means people are back to their normal.
Joel: I don't know what your normal is, but after we talk with you, we're gonna find that out and we're gonna help everybody get back to their normal.
Carli: Hmm hmm. After your volunteers see some stuff and they are seeing some stuff every day, how do you take care of [00:14:00] their mental health? I can't. I can't imagine what they have experienced alongside some of these victims of horrible weather events and tragedies in their life.
Joel: We have staff services just like a company mm-hmm. That are volunteers. So our volunteers. Are told ahead of time, here's what we're doing, here's how we're gonna do it. There may be changes. So be fluid and dynamic and be flexible. Sure. And you may see things that that get you emotionally, or you may see things that are hard to see and we wanna know about that when you get back.
Joel: And tell us so we can talk through it and, and go through the emotions with you. And we have volunteer nurses and volunteer mental health folks that actually do that with us. I can remember my first response to a tornado was, uh, back in 2007 and they said, you're going out into it. You're taking water and snacks and finding out kind of doing damage assessment.
Joel: Where is it? What happened? And, and then they said, you may see some things you [00:15:00] don't wanna see. Um, there may be deceased animals along the roadway or what have you. So just be prepared and when you get back, we'll talk about it. And so we always generally do a debrief after a call or after an event or during an event if it's long term.
Joel: How you feeling? What's going on? Don't hesitate to come talk to us. That's what we're here for. And our, our volunteer mental health volunteers, they go around and just kinda look around and see what's going on because it's not just staff, it's not just volunteers. It's also the people that are staying in our shelters, of
Carli: course.
Carli: Mm-hmm.
Spencer: We talked some about. The service to the armed forces. 'cause you mentioned at the top that that's what you were born out of. Right? And so I think if people had to name things that the Red Cross does, that might be one of the five that people would forget. Right. And so talk about the specifics of what that is and just how that's evolved over time.
Spencer: 'cause it's, it's pretty special. I know a little [00:16:00] more about it, but I want to hear it from you. So
Joel: service to the armed forces is basically to take care of our service members, all lines of service, their families in, in, in today's time. It's so interesting to see military parents deploy. Military members join, they build families, then they're deployed and they have children, and then they come home and they end their military career and retire.
Joel: And then they go into the services after the military that helps take care of them. Uh, what's unique about the Red Cross is we follow the service members from the time they sign up until they die. We're there to help them along that way. So what does it mean early on? A service member goes to the military entrance processing station maps, and they fill out a card and they say, here's my name and information and parents and all that, so that if something happens, we can get in touch with them.
Joel: And we're still the fastest way to get a service member home when something happens, like a birth or a death of a, a loved one. And then while [00:17:00] they're deployed, we, we do resilience training. We go through with the family and say, mommy and daddy, mommy or daddy are about to deploy. Here's what they're gonna go through while they're gone.
Joel: Here's what you're gonna go through while they're gone. While they're gone. We do resilience training with families and do kids events to to give them things to do. Once again, listening, is anybody having any trouble? And then when they come home, we do the resiliency training again with the members.
Joel: Here's what your family has been going through, here's what you've been going through for your family, and now it's time to readjust. How can we help with that? And then when they retire out, we're going to the VAs. The VA homes, the VA hospitals, our Tiffany Circle ladies do snack packs. They'll put together food in a, in a gallon baggie and take it to the hospital.
Joel: So when somebody's sitting there waiting on an appointment, we can just give them a bag of snacks. And we have the birthday parties in the VA homes, reconnecting family who may have been separated over the years, but it's really a, a [00:18:00] start to finish service to the Armed Forces Program. Hmm.
Spencer: I really appreciate that perspective because we've had on this podcast a lot of veterans that talk about.
Spencer: The thing that we all know is happening, which is a huge mental health crisis amongst our veterans and the homelessness, and just, it's devastating to hear and it feels helpless. And so from your perspective, obviously the Red Cross's mission is one that is in collaboration with a lot of different components that make each of those components better.
Spencer: What do you see? From a mental health standpoint, from our veterans. 'cause I mean, you, you see it all day, every day. I mean, we've got some of the most prestigious bases in the United States that are, uh, in, uh, your territory. So what, what do you see? I'd just be interested just as a human. Maybe it's as the, as as an American Red Cross Executive, but what are you seeing just as a human, you know, with our
Joel: military, they're [00:19:00] very proud.
Joel: And, and they wanna be tough and strong for themselves, for their families, but sometimes you just gotta let go. You gotta talk about how you're feeling about things. So we have, uh, in fact we're having training this week on, uh, with our service to the Armed Forces staff of how to go through those processes with our military members.
Joel: And it is. There's, there's a couple of moments in a service member's career where they come home and the family doesn't necessarily know what happened overseas, and they may not want to talk about it in that environment. We give 'em a safe environment to go to, or, and there's other organizations that partner in that, or they may not know how to reintegrate back at home.
Joel: Heck, if you're gone a year, you've missed a new iPhone release for Netflix series and you've missed a lot that you've gotta connect back with. Yeah. And the kids have grown up, so it, it's really. Giving them the opportunity, but the, the, the opportunity resides with them. Here are the resources we would love to work with.
Joel: You let us know.
Carli: Hmm. It's so [00:20:00] true. The women I've worked with in ministry, several of them are spouses of people that are of men that are being deployed, and when they come back, that reentry is when they ask for the most prayer.
Right? It
Carli: seems like they do get used to a deployment in their family, but especially as a.
Carli: As a partner, you go from running an entire household to trying to co-manage a household again. Correct. And trying to figure out how that role works is, is really challenging. So I'm grateful to know these resources exist. I'd love to know more about how you're training and helping the kids, because I would imagine the kids I've at least met, they can't really articulate.
Carli: What they're walking through, and you can speak of it at a high level, but these little ones have no idea. They just miss their mommy or they just miss their daddy. And, um, trying to figure out how to be resilient through that. It must be really challenging.
Joel: Yeah. And we have programs for kids. They do. Um, Pedro the Penguin is a program of ours where they learn how to be ready.
Joel: Hmm. For a disaster so they can help their [00:21:00] family out when that disaster strikes. Uh, they do coloring events, they do games. we also have military kids served too, which is where we recognize children for being in the military. 'cause they may not be. In the military, but they're serving Oh yeah.
Joel: Oh yeah. Just like their spouse is. And so we, we usually have a coining ceremony where we give them a coin. Uh, we usually, with one of the generals in the area, we'll participate in that to recognize them for their service.
Carli: Hmm. How special I.
Joel: Yeah.
Spencer: Joel, can you talk some about the finance side? This is always close to my heart posture Absolutely.
Spencer: Of being, uh, an entrepreneur of saying, all right, a nonprofit at the end of the day still has to make ends meet. And so, uh, if you would just talk a little bit about. The way that Red Cross stewards money, I think I'd really like to hear that. 'cause there's a lot of outstanding causes, a lot of people out there saying, Hey, give to our cause.
Spencer: Give to our [00:22:00] cause. And American Red Cross has a huge brand, like it's one of the most recognizable brands out there. But sometimes I think people. Uh, maybe feel like, okay, the Red Cross is taken care of, or they get government funding, which is not true. So why don't you just talk a little bit about the finance side of
Joel: America?
Joel: Sure. So the Red Cross is chartered by the federal government, every country that participates in the Red Cross, red Crescent Society System, international Federation of Red Crosses. Has to be chartered by their government, and there's only one in each country, but they're not funded by and explain what being chartered by the government means.
Joel: So the government says, you are chartered to provide these services for our country, for our citizens, and that that's where the support ends we're chartered, we're recognized as the Red Cross for the United States. In other words, they're telling you, you have to do this, but you're not funded by us, but we're not giving you any money.
Joel: But there's a great reason for that, and that's so that we can remain [00:23:00] independent and neutral. Okay? And so we are funded by individuals, corporations, foundations, um, and. That keeps us neutral. So the government can't say, well, you probably should take this stance or we're not gonna fund you. And so that keeps us operating efficiently because as financial times ebb and flow with the government spending and funding, we kind of go right through it.
Joel: Because we have great donors, individuals, corporations, foundations who do fund that mission. And when they fund that mission, they know that 90 cents of that dollar they're giving is going to the mission. And for most nonprofits, as long as you're 70% and up 70 cents on the dollar and up is spent on the mission, you're okay.
Joel: But we're a 90. Yeah.
Spencer: So 10 cents for administrative and all the things to be able to keep it going, but 90 cents is going to the mission. Right? As compared to like, you'd be doing well if you were at 70 American Red Cross is at 90 cents. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Can can you talk some about the, the, the [00:24:00] blood aspect too?
Spencer: 'cause I learned a lot about just how that financially works, that when someone gives blood, just walk through the process. 'cause I think that's an interesting financial component of donating blood and how. Uh, the American Red Cross is sustained by that.
Joel: Yeah. So the, the donation of blood every two seconds, somebody needs blood and we want to make sure that blood is there for them so that they survive their, Life, uh, to fund that. We do charge for blood when it goes out to the hospitals, but it's a cost recovery system so that we recover the cost. It's very expensive to have the supplies, the, the, the supplies to collect the blood, to test the blood, to store the blood, uh, to distribute the blood. So it's a very expensive process and the blood that, the dollars that we charge goes to.
Joel: Cost recovery in that system and we want to remain the lowest cost provider, um, because it's important. I mean, when somebody goes in the [00:25:00] hospital and they call for blood, that blood needs to be there regardless of what type it is. Yeah.
Hmm.
Carli: I'm curious, we've, we've talked about the Red Cross quite a bit, kind of overarching, this overarching umbrella.
Carli: I really wanna understand the nuances of Tennessee. I mean, you have a really big job. You're serving 98 different counties. There is a lot of. I mean, anybody that's studied, Tennessee knows there's a lot of geography in Tennessee for sure, for, we've got mountains, we've got flat areas, we've got rivers.
Carli: We've got all these things that you have to manage that respond differently to natural disasters and differently in different seasons. So can you talk about why Tennessee is uniquely. Awesome, but also probably uniquely challenging to service for the Red Cross.
Joel: Well, it's awesome because Tennessee's one of the most beautiful states,
truth,
Joel: and you, we've got the three grand divisions of Tennessee, the west side, the middle, and the eastern side.
Joel: But each has its unique challenges.
Joel: in Tennessee we basically focus on flood, [00:26:00] tornado, and ice storms with the earthquake. Kinda lingering in the back of our head, but nowadays in a constant state of response, regardless of what's causing it, disasters are more frequent.
Carli: Okay, we're listening to this. We're joking about hot dogs, we're joking about all the things, and now all of a sudden we're talking about potential major threats that people don't think of on every day.
Carli: So to as switch some fears, what would you say are the top three things that a parent should be doing right now to prepare for any type of natural disaster, whether it be. Earthquake, flood or a tornado. What would you say? Hey, if you're listening to this, go do this. This is one thing that will set your mind at ease and help you sleep better.
Joel: I would go to the red cross.org website and there will be a process out there called Be Red Cross Ready. Hmm. And the key is to be ready to take care of yourself. And once you can take care of yourself, you can take care of your family, then you can help take care of the neighborhood and so forth, and then go volunteer with the Red Cross.
Joel: Uh, but to be [00:27:00] personally prepared, what if this happened? What if what I described as catastrophic happened? How am I gonna take care of myself and my family? How am I gonna communicate with loved ones to let 'em know, yes, I am okay, but my phones aren't, so I can't text you and say I'm safe in Tennessee. Um, what's that process gonna look like in, in, in a smaller scale?
Joel: When the tornado hit Murfreesboro, there were families that couldn't communicate back in, I think it was 98.
Mm-hmm. Um,
Joel: or somewhere along in that times they, they couldn't communicate and that made a difference to those people. Uh, because I don't know if my husband's okay, my kids are at school, we're not able to get together.
Joel: So how are you gonna communicate with each other when that happens? Um, it happened to me in a hurricane where we had no communication and I thought, uh, that's never gonna happen to me again. And that's when I went and got my ham radio license. So I at least can talk to somebody. Joel, I feel like.
Spencer: As a dad [00:28:00] that also has huge responsibilities for contingency planning to go on a vacation with you, what would your kids say you are as a vacationer?
Spencer: Because I could either come up with a story that. You are a phenomenal contingency planner and you just like have it all to the nines. You're prepared for whatever vacation throws at you. I could also hear a story where you say, I do this in every other aspect of my life, like I am going and sitting and not thinking about a thing.
Spencer: What would your kids say? I.
Joel: Uh, my kids would probably say, I am a plant. I'm a disaster junkie. I'm a planter. So I look at situations and, and in disaster management, you have what we call your after action report. It happened. We recovered, we moved on. Now let's take a breath and go back and see what happened and what could we have done better.
Joel: And you know it, for me, it boils down to can I eat? Am I gonna have shelter? Am I gonna have clothing? And so those are the things I really look at. Now you can be what they call a prepper and have a whole basement full of food [00:29:00] and, and all that other stuff. But basically where, how am I gonna meet my needs if this happens?
Joel: So you play the What if games. Everybody says, well, I can't plan an exercise that takes weeks and months. You can do an exercise right now. A tornado just blew our house away. What are we gonna do? Where are we gonna go? Guess what? The Red Cross is gonna be there and we're gonna have these nice cots that are not comfortable, but they're cots.
Joel: I've slept on them, um, but at least at Shelter and it's a place to lay my head. But if I had prepared in advance and said, okay, if my house is destroyed, I'm gonna go to Spencer and Carli's house and spend the night mm-hmm. Until we kind of get a groove on what we're gonna do. Mm-hmm. So who is that next stop for you?
Joel: Who is the place you're gonna do They already know. In advance. Hey, if my house gets blown away, I'm coming. Knockings. What? Show up? And that's, we want people to do show up.
Carli: You just show up and start pounding. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel: that's why insurance is so important. You know, when apartments burn, so many units get burned at one time. And I love the complexes that require people to [00:30:00] get insurance because that gives them the dollars to go restart in a new apartment.
Joel: Mm-hmm. Or even a home, uh, if that's the decision that person makes. The other thing I would go to would be our emergency app, the Red Cross Emergency app. And that app has all kinds of tools and tricks in it to help respond to disasters.
Joel: But the coolest part of that app for me is I can put in anybody's zip code. And when a disaster warning goes in that zip code, it, it notifies me.
Hmm. Oh, that's cool. So
Joel: if it happens at work in that zip code, I get a notification. If it happens in my home zip code, I put my family zip code who are out of state.
Joel: They're like, how do you always know when to call us when there's a tornado? My grandma has
Carli: that because she texts me immediately. Yes. Yeah.
Carli: Well, this might be a hard pivot, but you did allude to mouth to snout earlier in this conversation. And I just, I need to learn more about what these classes are and how we have two pups. So I do care about their wellbeing. I [00:31:00] need to know more about this.
Joel: Yes. Um, you know, pets, you can save their lives. We've all seen articles in the paper where the animals were inside and the house was on fire and they came out and they were non-responsive, but breathing, and the fireman takes his mask off and puts oxygen on the dog and the dog revives. So the key is.
Joel: Animals are a little different because you treat them differently. If you take a dog that is having heat exhaustion and put them in a cooler of water, that will likely kill them because their system's not designed for that shock. So you have to just wet some towels and put on them and slowly bring their temperature down Mouth to snout.
Joel: It's literally what it says. Instead of doing mouth to mouth where you tilt the head back and pinch the nose and, do rescue breathing, you do it with a dog, but instead of. Through their mouth. You close their snout and you breathe through their nose.
Wow.
Joel: Uh, and do your rescue, breathing and, and animal lives have been saved that way.
Spencer: It is amazing what the Red Cross does from a [00:32:00] CPR standpoint and just learning the basics that there have been situations where my best friend had the opportunity to save a life because he understood CPR and, and it's a moment where you don't wanna be in that situation and uncomfortable with what needs to be done.
Spencer: Yeah. Um, and just learning like the force required in CPR is way more mm-hmm. Than what you think.
Joel: Yeah. It's not just a general tap. If they say, if you don't break a rib doing it, you probably weren't pushing deep enough. Mm-hmm.
Spencer: Yeah. I mean, that's really something that you just, you're just not gonna learn unless you have somebody teaching you and then you go into it feeling prepared.
Joel: Yeah, the, there are new tools available in that there's some blended learning where you can do some of your training online and then you come in and demonstrate your skills. Uh, we no longer have the mannequins that are just kind of plastic that you push on. They, they actually, some mannequins even show blood flow and show if you're doing it enough and beep into the rhythm.
Joel: So that way you can see if you're doing it [00:33:00] right, you know, we offer, we make it even easier. It, it's a two year certification if you go through the whole process.
Joel: The, the HandsOn CPR is free and what we're doing is getting the word out. We want people to learn how to save a life. A, you gotta recognize somebody's in trouble. B, you've gotta assess the scene to figure out what's going on around me. Am I gonna be in trouble?
Joel: And then do the CPR portion of it in, in the ABC's airway, breathing, circulation. Mm-hmm. Um, and then we have little, little trucks that we'd, red Cross vans that we. Our styrofoam and we just do compressions on those to teach people. 'cause you gotta do something.
Joel: if you're trying to save somebody's life and something goes wrong, it, it's at least you were trying to save their life. Mm-hmm. And so the Good Samaritan law kicks in to protect you from trying to help them. I always tell people, do something and if nothing else, everybody else should be calling 9 1 1, not just one person, not just two.
Joel: Everybody standing there should call 9 1 1 because I have seen situations where [00:34:00] somebody says, I'll call 9 1 1 and they don't, and walk away.
Joel: So the sooner I get help, the better off everyone's gonna be, or they're gonna be doing CPR on me.
Joel: Uh, Joel.
Spencer: Unbelievable wealth of knowledge as I expected you would be. And it's just so great that the American Red Cross does so many things. Yeah, and that's really what ignited my heart for serving with the American Red Cross, was just to see all the different things, even as somebody that wasn't my biggest fan, to have my blood drawn, I'll say that, but in every other respect, I had a lot of respect and appreciation for the mission and.
Spencer: It's great to see your leadership that has started off from that first volunteer call. And what a clear passion that has created in your life and the number of people that you have served.
Right.
Spencer: And so I just think it's great to see your leadership and, um, how well you serve the state.
Spencer: Absolutely. Well, thank
Joel: you. [00:35:00] It's, it's a, it's an honor for me to be able to do that because it makes a difference in people's lives.
Spencer: here's how I want to end this, Joel. We've got, uh, three statements that we're gonna ask you to fill in the blank for.
Spencer: Okay. That'll be short. Alright, here you go. The most rewarding part of my job is blank.
Joel: The most rewarding part of my job is seeing our mission in action. Hmm. Just seeing people served.
Spencer: Yeah. It's made a huge impact on my life too. It's like you see people that. The Red Cross is served and then they come back two years later, five years later, 10 years later. And a lot of the story is like you don't remember forever, but they remember.
Spencer: Yeah. And those are the stories that really will bring you to tears. I mean, it's just
Spencer: If I could change one thing about our disaster preparedness, it
Joel: would be blank. If I could change one thing about our disaster preparedness, it would be for more [00:36:00] people to take advantage of free stuff that's out there to help them be prepared.
Joel: Yeah, The resources are there, the awareness, right, isn't, yeah. I, I wanna overcome that. It won't happen to me because it does.
Spencer: Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Spencer: All right. Last one, Joel. The most important thing the Red Cross can do to serve Tennesseans. Is blank.
Joel: The most important thing that the Red Cross can do to serve Tennesseans is be there and ready when the time comes.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Spencer: It is great to know that you're in the spot of leadership, that you're our Joel. I'm very thankful for you. Thank you for managing your staff well, the volunteers well, and a huge organization that runs in a way that, uh, doesn't always get a lot of thanks. But on these blue sky days where you're doing all the work and nobody's looking.
Spencer: Thank you.
Spencer: Joel Sullivan with the American Red Cross. That was a really [00:37:00] great confidence affirming podcast.
Mm-hmm.
Spencer: You want to know that somebody is out there thinking and preparing, they're experienced. Mm-hmm. And you could tell. Joel had that in spades. Like he can talk the business side. He understands that side too.
Spencer: But he also really understands the mission side as well, that um, I can see him standing in front of a couple hundred volunteers giving a message that makes everybody really understand that I'm making a difference.
Carli: Hmm. I think so much of what we talked about feels out of control, right? You see whether tornadoes, definition of chaos, out of control, earthquakes, all of the rest.
Carli: And he was so practical in saying, Hey, if you go to the website, you can look at what you need to do in your specific area to be prepared. And if you don't get a hundred percent right, we are gonna be there for you and I in a, in a situation that would feel really scary, I could have imagined leaving this [00:38:00] conversation feeling stress or nerves.
Carli: Mm-hmm. Instead, I feel. Okay. I know what to do. I'd want to go home and think about this more thoroughly. I wanna talk to our kids about it more thoroughly. Um, but I also feel like there's a safety net. There's support that exists and it makes me grateful. We've supported them so much.
Spencer: Really appreciate their stewardship of the 90 cents of every dollar.
Spencer: Mm-hmm. Goes, you know, just from personal experience with raising money with the American Red Cross. It is so competitive to compete for those dollars from individuals that see an organization as large as the American Red Cross and say, oh, well, you know, they've got everything that they need. And that's a really dangerous mindset.
Spencer: Because, just because they're big, I. Uh, their budget is big and they do have corporate sponsors, but they really rely upon individuals, and a lot of that fundraising comes from that disaster moment where you see it pop up at the bottom of your screen and you can send a text message through [00:39:00] Verizon or AT&T and it donates $5 or $10 on your next bill.
Spencer: That is a meaningful amount of money for the Red Cross. And so just for whatever encouragement it is for people that if you feel compelled, it doesn't have to be some huge big check. It can be, Hey, that disaster means something to me. That's a zip code that I care about. That's a people group that mm-hmm.
Spencer: I'm sympathetic towards, and I will give $5 or $10 and text the number. It, it really does make a difference.
Carli: Well, 'cause it's big, but it's also so local. I mean, everything they're doing is for individuals. They're, I mean, you think about hurricanes and they're helping swaths of communities, right? Or regions.
Carli: But it comes down to what is the individual need of that family or that person that is going through this trauma period and. It's not just a mass conglomerate, it's individual work and that takes time and money and energy and trained resources. Um, I mean, we've seen it with the devastation from the [00:40:00] hurricanes not that long ago.
Carli: We've seen it in Tennessee with all these tornadoes. It's really personal and we all know somebody that is going through their very worst day. Because of those types of things.
Spencer: Mm-hmm. I think that's why the American Red Cross's structure of having local leadership Is also really important. because I think nonprofits that aim to have an international presence can make a compelling case to say, Hey, we need to centralize our leadership.
Spencer: We need to have one corporate headquarters and, you know, 500,000 square feet of space and we will save money on not having to have redundant. You know, organizations and staff, but they then lose touch with the local knowledge that you get from someone like Joel that has spent his whole career knowing.
Spencer: The real distinctions of the one road in and one road out. Aspects of East Tennessee. I mean, that is true stuff, and you don't get that until you've spent some [00:41:00] time out there.
Carli: I also thought it was super applicable, maybe just in our own lives, this idea of blue sky days and gray sky days and how I think on our blue sky days, the, the days where there's less going on, it's a little more chill.
Carli: It's easy to just let things ride 'cause we're all so busy and there's so much to get done to just relax. But then the gray sky days come and you wish you had prepared for whatever that is. Um, and just really giving some thought and intention to, I. What are my goals? Like what do we need to prepare for as a family?
Carli: Maybe it's a natural disaster, but maybe it's other simple things like our finances or our loved ones that are aging or any number of things that, I liked his principle of celebrate your blue sky days, but use them to prepare for your gray sky days. Mm-hmm. And I feel like that's applicable to all areas of life.
Spencer: [00:42:00] Yeah.
