Continuing a life of service

Dave Griffith serves as director of the American Red Cross chapter in Mid-Missouri.
Dave Griffith serves as director of the American Red Cross chapter in Mid-Missouri.

Dave Griffith was thinking about when he might retire, not about looking for a new job three years ago when the chairman of the Red Cross board of directors suggested he consider applying for the director's vacancy.

"I think sometimes the best jobs you get are ones that you're not really looking for," Griffith said last week. "Community service and, really, volunteer work - that's how I was raised.

"My mother was a Red Cross volunteer for 35 years - and she instilled in my and my brothers the real need to be of service to fellow man."

Griffith was an advertising account executive at KRCG, a member of Jefferson City's Council and a member of the Red Cross board when he accepted the Red Cross director's position.

His father was a Methodist minister and, although Griffith didn't follow his father into the professional ministry, he's a lay leader at the Community of Christ Church and says his Red Cross job "is more of a ministry to me than it is a job."

He added: "There's so much goodwill and there are so many good things that I see happen - there aren't very many jobs where you can say virtually every single day, that we have affected people's lives in one way or another. And the Red Cross does that."

Nationally, Griffith noted, the American Red Cross responds to more than 70,000 disasters each year.

In the 21-county Heart of Missouri Chapter he directs, Griffith said: "We respond to between 300 and 500 (disasters) a year, here. I think last year we had 360."

Many of those disasters are fires, he said, and - although they can strike a family at any time of the year, the bulk of those fires occur in the winter or summer months, as some "people either heat or try to cool (their homes) in unconventional ways."

Often, he said, the Red Cross volunteer is one of the first people to respond to a fire - after the fire department and other emergency services and after the fire officials have determined the family wants help from the Red Cross.

"Not only are we there providing them with a debit card that's got cash where they can get food and clothes and a motel room," Griffith said, "but I think the big thing that we're there for is support.

"Most people are in shock after they've lost their homes. We wrap our arms around them and we assure them that we're going to help them get through this and begin that road to recovery."

That same kind of assistance applies to natural disasters, Griffith noted, whether it's a flood, a major storm or other unexpected event.

Griffith said the Red Cross appreciates the offers of clothing or food assistance - but monetary donations provide the agency and the clients with the most flexibility in a given emergency.

And the Red Cross works with other groups - like the Salvation Army and Samaritan Center - to coordinate assistance rather than get in each other's way.

Although he always has been involved in service work, his professional life had a number of twists and turns.

Because his father was a minister, his family lived in a number of towns before landing in Chillicothe, where they settled, and his father eventually retired. (Both parents since have died).

After graduating from Chillicothe High School, he went to college in Warrensburg for one year "and did so well there that I was at the top of the Draft Board list. So, I enlisted in the Army in 1967, and spent three years in the Army," including a tour with the 8th Special Forces group, in the Panama Canal Zone.

After the Army, Griffith went to California, where he tried to start a rock-and-roll band. "That didn't work out so well - 50,000 other people had the same idea that I did," he said.

About 1½ years later, he was back in Missouri.

He worked in the home mortgage and insurance businesses, then went back to college.

"I took a 17-year hiatus between my freshman and sophomore years," Griffith quipped. After graduating from Missouri Southern in Joplin, a friend encouraged him to apply for a job opening at KRCG - and he spent the next 19 years at the Jefferson City-based TV station. Then he worked for Mike Kehoe's auto dealership and as the state Revenue Department's information officer before he returned to KRCG for another three years.

Now he's been at the Red Cross for almost three years.

Griffith doesn't see himself staying quite as long as Melissa Friel's 14 years as director.

"I promised the board when they hired me that I'd stay five to seven years," he said.

Meanwhile, he's excited by the Red Cross challenges and experiences, and wants people to see him as a "servant."

"The people that we work with - the volunteers that we work with - seeing the dedication that they have, I'm inspired by them," Griffith said. "We talk about a servant's heart.

"That is the key to what we do."