Name: Chad Magnuson
Age: 36
Family: Wife, Heidi; 2-year-old daughter, Paige.
Residence: South Lakeland since 2007. I went to high school close by in Hillsborough County.
Education: 1995 graduate of Florida Southern College with a degree in political science and cconomics.
Career: Chapter executive of the Polk County Chapter, American Red Cross.
Have you always worked in the "first-responder/disaster relief" field? Yes. My career has taken me around the world. Shortly after I graduated from college, I was looking for a position that would allow me to travel and see the world. I was in Washington, D.C., at the time working as a civilian at Fort Belvoir, Va. My wife was working at Fairfax County Medical Center. I went to go pick her up from work one day and the Red Cross national headquarters was across the street. I had some time and went over to see what positions they had available. I asked the human resources manager what I had to do to get my foot in the door with them, to have a career that is different, unique, exiting, interesting; just what everybody wants right out of college.
I was hired as what is called the assistant station manager. Those are American Red Cross members who are assigned to U.S. military bases and are deployed with the military when they are sent into combat zones.
Our primary mission is to provide emergency communications to members of the military and their families and also be responsible for managing a Red Cross office that is responsible for providing a gamut of Red Cross services.
After marrying your wife, where did your job take you? We went to Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Germany and The Netherlands. Then I deployed a number of times, first to Kosovo and then to Baghdad; both were six-month assignments, over a period of five years.
I was in Baghdad when they caught Saddam Hussein. I spent my first months in a bombed-out hanger with a few hundred military personnel. Our primary job there was to keep 24-hour emergency communication.
I would personally deliver 100 emergency messages a day; just me personally. You could really see how the stress and the strain on the U.S. military personnel were already very high, very pronounced. Sometimes when we delivered a message, they may have already known that a grandfather was sick, so they expect something. Other times, (they) were absolutely devastating, like the death of spouses, or death of children. There were very, very serious issues that we had to deal with every day.
In the nine years you have worked with the Red Cross, what was the toughest experience for you on the local level? The most challenging aspect was the '04 hurricanes. I witnessed first hand the devastation of hurricanes Wilma and Katrina. The most profound challenge was how to help people who have just lost everything in an instant.
How are you connected to the relief efforts in Haiti right now? We have sent 20 folks from our local chapter to the Orlando and Sanford airports. We help the folks coming here from Haiti. Most of them have U.S. passports. Some are orphans waiting for placement and are working with the (Florida) DCF (Department of Children and Families). We give them (Haitians) a hot meal and a grooming or comfort kit.
What would you say is the most challenging part of the Haiti relief effort? Food security is one of the biggest concerns. With the black markets, it has become a dangerous situation. Security in general has to be a major issue to deal with.
What is the best thing about your job? When people come back to us a year later and say that we were there at their greatest time of need.
