MARSHALLTOWN (SPECIAL) – Mary Dooley, Iowa Rivers Chapter Red Cross executive director, has been named to a two-year term on the American National Red Cross President’s Advisory Council. 

The PAC is an advisory group comprised of 21 chapter executives from across the country.  Their assignment is to provide “unfiltered counsel” to the Red Cross president and CEO, president of Humanitarian Services and other national Red Cross leaders on strategy, policy, and operational matters.

Next week Dooley will travel to Washington D.C. for the group’s first meeting of this fiscal year.  She is the only Iowan named to the Council and one of two from the four-state division of which Iowa is a part.  Those selected had to submit two letters of recommendation and receive regional and division-level recommendations.

Now in her 18th year as head of the local chapter, Dooley has served on several national Red Cross task forces.  On large-scale disaster relief operations, she deploys as either an Operations Support administrator or a Public Affairs manager.  Her disaster experiences include the Sept. 11 Terrorist Attack on New York City and all of the largest hurricanes in the last decade. 

“I’m honored, of course, to have been selected,” Dooley said, “and I’m really excited about the prospect of giving our top Red Cross leaders my small-chapter, rural perspective.  What sounds good in concept needs to be vetted by a wide variety of people who will implement those ideas.  That’s the task of this President’s Advisory Council.”

The Iowa Rivers Chapter, based in Marshalltown, earned the top distinction this past year as a Highly Performing Chapter, one of just two in Iowa and 38 nationwide to earn that rank.  Iowa Rivers serves Tama, Hardin, Jasper, Marshall and Poweshiek counties.