By Eilene E. Guy, American Red Cross volunteer

Semper Gumby: Always flexible. That’s a cherished characteristic of American Red Cross volunteers – and Dave Martaus is Gumby in person.

“Dave is a key volunteer here at the North Central Ohio chapter. He’s willing to do anything that needs to be done – not just the high-profile, public-facing activities, but even the so-called ‘little things’ that keep an operation running,” said chapter Executive Director Todd James.

A retiree from Marathon Petroleum Corp. in Findlay, where he rose through a series of interesting assignments, Dave has been involved with Red Cross facilities maintenance, logistics, disaster response and support for our armed forces.

“Cheryl Wolfe (operations manager for the chapter) always has a list of things for me to do,” he said with a chuckle. Recently, he assembled a couple of new filing cabinets for the office. “Wasn’t something I’d ever done before, but it was interesting.

“When Lora Taylor (disaster program manager) came on board, we needed to account for our disaster trailers. So we brought all four trailers from around the chapter to a vacant garage here in Findlay and emptied all the contents,” he recalled. “We laid all the stuff out; it looked like a giant garage sale.”

He and his co-workers sorted the contents and repacked the trailers with the right number of cots, blankets, comfort kits and other supplies that would be needed in case of a major disaster. He said it was interesting, getting familiar with what’s involved in preparing for a big response.

Dave appreciates the variety of volunteer opportunities within the Red Cross. “I’ve thought about possibly getting involved with blood services,” he said. “I know they need people to transport blood (from blood drives to the blood processing center in Cleveland and from there to hospitals). I could do that.”

Dave Martaus is one of the more than 265,000 Red Cross volunteers that we’re saluting during Volunteer week. But their selflessness is invaluable all year round.

If you’d like to find out more about the many volunteer opportunities with the Red Cross, please click here for more information.

Edited by Glenda Bogar, American Red Cross volunteer

Posted by Ryan Lang, American Red Cross board member and volunteer