Red Cross Services Officer Resigns

The turmoil at the San Gabriel Valley American Red Cross chapter intensified after its second-in-command resigned, citing conflicts with management and morale problems among the volunteer and paid staff ranks.

The departure was the latest blow to a chapter publicly bedeviled since it unwittingly hired a con artist as a top fundraiser earlier this year.

Fred Brito was hired in August as chief development officer -- which would have made him responsible for an area encompassing 35 cities and 1.9 million people -- despite a background check that showed a criminal conviction and numerous aliases.

Angie Turner, chief executive of the chapter, which covers fundraising for the San Gabriel Valley and Pomona area, signed off on the background check.

That began a series of events at the Red Cross that has left the San Gabriel Pomona Valley chapter reeling.

The official who uncovered Brito’s deceit, chapter spokesman Dereck Andrade, was fired, and an internal memo said the reason was that he leaked the embarrassing episode to the press.

After that, some Pasadena city officials expressed doubts about making a planned $100,000 donation to the chapter. Pasadena agreed to make the donation only after top Red Cross officials reassured them the money would be handled properly.

Now, the chapter is receiving heat from volunteers who make up the backbone of the organization.

A survey of longtime volunteers, 22 of whom responded, was conducted by Julie Heather, a veteran volunteer for American Red Cross organizations. It found that many believed the Pasadena-based chapter was fostering a poor relationship between management and volunteers.

“Because we are volunteers, the chapter CEO, many of her appointees and several on the board seem to feel we are incompetent and stupid,” one volunteer wrote.

In response to questions, chapter management released results of its own survey, to which about 120 volunteers responded last spring, which showed a positive view of the organization.

Each survey sampled only a small fraction of the chapter’s volunteer corps.

Still, Red Cross leaders acknowledge they need to address the discord.

In a recent interview, board Chairman Michael Zoeller said the problems boiled down to trust and communication problems. Hiring a con man to do fundraising didn’t help, he said.

He said the chapter would make changes in the makeup of the board of directors to bridge a gulf that has grown between decision-makers and the more than 2,000 volunteers who deliver services.

That means people with volunteer experience will be added to the board of directors, Zoeller said.

“In years before, the board was heavily represented by long-term volunteers,” he said. “We’ve gone from 50% service delivery people to practically nobody on the board. Frankly, that’s something we have to go back and fix.”

In a separate interview, Turner, who has become a lightning rod for criticism from volunteers and departed staff members, said, “The issues [with the volunteers] are very real and we do need to address them.”

The chief executive said that not having a top fundraiser since the spring -- except for Brito’s notorious one-month tenure -- has increasingly required her to focus on fundraising, to the detriment of dealing with volunteers.

“When CEOs are focusing on board development and raising money, it makes it difficult to be actively involved in front-line services,” Turner said. “The volunteers are just asking to be involved more in finding solutions.”

Turner and Zoeller said a new fundraising chief should be hired by the end of the month.

Zoeller added that many of the tensions arose in large part from sweeping changes in the way the chapter raised funds and made appointments to its board.

The chapter has increasingly appointed board members with corporate and financially oriented backgrounds, Zoeller said.

That helped the chapter climb out of a deficit but created a communication gap between top-tier officials and volunteers, he said.

As a result, many volunteers have felt estranged from decision-making, Zoeller said.

Zoeller said changing the board would not mean any of the 38 directors would be removed. Rather, volunteers would be added to a board that would top out at 45, he said.

But addressing the concerns of the volunteers is just one issue. Another is dealing with the loss of credibility that resulted from Brito’s tenure.

Shortly after Brito was hired, his exploits were featured in a Times article detailing criminal convictions and a 30-year history of faking credentials to get jobs, including positions as a priest and a psychiatrist.

Brito kept his job for nearly a month, until Andrade did an Internet search and read The Times’ article.

After Andrade was fired, he sued the Red Cross chapter, alleging wrongful termination.

Since the embarrassment, the chapter has imposed a series of reforms. Among them, it will become one of the few nonprofits to run fingerprint checks on all newly hired personnel above a certain level.

“Also, we’re going to go farther with reference checks,” Zoeller said.

“We’re going to be calling people who don’t appear in the documentation.... No question, the Fred Brito thing was a big mistake. We want to make sure it never takes place again,” he said.

But Ed Anderson, the program and services officer who stepped down this month, said he doubted that would be enough. Anderson said the Brito affair -- and efforts to keep it under a lid -- illustrated another problem that needed to be addressed.

“There’s no transparency. That’s the spirit of what goes on there,” he said “They should have just said they didn’t do due diligence and they were going to change procedures. But to try to hide it like that, and then show some retribution against people who talk about it, that’s not right.”

Anderson, 40, said he tired of feeling that he, paid staff and volunteers were being second-guessed or ignored by Turner and the board.

“We all believe in the mission of the Red Cross and the fundamental principles,” Anderson said.

“But there came a point where I woke up in the morning and asked, ‘Did I make a difference that’s worth the stress I’m going through?’ ”