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01/17/2024 08:30 AMRichard Branigan of North Haven believes that regardless of the cause, those who believe in what they are doing for the right reasons are always doing something that has a great amount of value. Richard understands this concept as a result of his leadership roles with multiple humanitarian organizations and his more than 30 years of local and state government experience. He will be committed to that belief once again as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the Connecticut and Rhode Island Region of the American Red Cross.
Richard has been with the Red Cross for 11 years and was previously the Connecticut and Rhode Island region’s Chief Operating Officer. Having spent more than a decade with the Red Cross, he finds that “every day there's something new and amazing that our volunteers continue to do for the people that we serve.”
Feeling “honored” and “excited” to be the new CEO of the region, Richard will assume a greater “exterior facing function, in addition to all of the operational responsibilities that we have in running a region,” in this role.
The region consists of nearly all of Connecticut and Rhode Island, with the exception of the town of Greenwich, which is part of the Red Cross’ Greater New York Region. While the coverage area for the region that Richard is leading is smaller geographically compared to most other areas in the United States, that by no means diminishes the need for all kinds of humanitarian support in the two of the smallest states in the country.
“Our population density and the needs that we have, our exposure risk for disaster, our need to collect blood, and all of the things that we are challenged with day in and day out, are the same here as they are in every other region that we have,” says Richard. “In fact, more so in some cases.”
Richard says some of populations of the region are facing a gap in some of the services, and those gaps are magnified in periods of crises. As the new CEO, he is looking to close those gaps, be attentive to communities that need the Red Cross’ regional support, and be responsive to the best of their abilities.
The funds to support that challenge and others can be donated to the Red Cross by foundations and corporations, but those funds also come from “the generosity of the American public,” such as individual community members of North Haven and East Haven, according to Richard.
Finding ways to continuously generate that support encourages volunteerism with the Red Cross—something that Richard feels is a major contribution to helping those in need in the aftermath of a natural disaster or mass shooting.
“In disaster services, about 90 percent of our workforce is volunteers. It’s a unique organization that can leverage and utilize all of those voluntary resources from people who are so talented and so committed and have such big hearts,” says Richard. “But it is a challenge to work with that each and every day and to make sure that people are engaged and motivated and new people are coming in all the time.”
Richard has been a responder to numerous crises in the Connecticut and Rhode Island region, from natural disasters like Superstorm Sandy and Tropical Storm Isaias to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and, most recently, in Lewiston, Maine. In any of these situations, Richard knows how invaluable the support is for anyone who has been affected.
“I think of a little girl in Lewiston, Maine that I gave a Red Cross pin to because she had shared something with other victims who are of her age, and she just thought outside of herself and some gifts that she had received,” Richard says. “I was honored to present her with a Red Cross pin and challenge coin to thank her for being a humanitarian in the midst of having endured [and] being present while people were being shot in a bowling alley.”
Richard encourages anyone interested in supporting the Red Cross to lend a hand in their community because he knows that those efforts will make a big difference.
“We're always looking for people to take it upon themselves to be a little bit more resilient, to be a little bit more prepared for disasters, so that their communities get stronger and stronger,” says Richard. “If people want to do something to positively impact their own community and the North Haven community in particular, they can volunteer, they can donate blood, they can make contributions, they can do things for their neighbors.”
To donate to the Red Cross, visit https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/.