WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patricia Murtagh, the American Red Cross of Maine Regional Chief Executive Officer had this to say in a news release about Larry French from the American Red Cross National Awards and Recognition Dinner and ceremony.

"I am pleased to announce that Larry French, Disaster Program Manager, Rockland, was selected as a winner of the American Red Cross Presidential Award for Excellence — Humanitarian Services. These are among the most prestigious awards that our national headquarters has to give. This award is presented to less than 20 individuals nationally each year. This is also the first time that this award has been presented to a Maine recipient."

The Presidential Award for Excellence is presented to American Red Cross employees and volunteers who demonstrate superior job performance aligning with the organization's priorities in one of the following areas: Maintaining Financial Stability; Revenue Generation; Providing Safe Blood Products; Modernizing IT Systems; Capitalizing on Social Media or Mission Fulfillment.

Larry French has been part of the Maine American Red Cross Disaster Services team since 2002. As a senior in high school, Larry's family sought Red Cross Shelter during a winter storm. Since then, Larry has pursued every opportunity to serve those in need of assistance following disaster as an American Red Cross volunteer.

In 2013, Larry stepped into the role of Disaster Program Manager of the coastal territory in Maine. Upon taking his position, he learned that many disaster volunteers were dissatisfied with the timing, location and amount of course offerings for disaster training. Recognizing that the Red Cross could do better, Larry created the Zero2Hero Program. Through Zero2Hero, prospective disaster volunteers can take the courses they need to be "disaster field ready" over the course of just one weekend. Zero2Hero was first offered in 2014 and out of the 147 original program participants, 138 (94 percent) are still active Red Cross volunteers — the national averages within nonprofits are 62 percent. This is the single largest volunteer recruitment, onboarding, training, and retention program within the region.

As the program continues to grow, the current focus has been the creation of volunteer instructor teams that allows the program to continue to develop and expand. He has continued to fine-tune the program and even replicate the program across the state into three additional DPM territories, and now seven other states across the country. This alone has significantly increased the region's capacity to fulfill the Red Cross mission and increased volunteers from 600 in FY14 to over 1,000 currently.

In addition, Larry volunteered as the regional project manager lead for the DCA Client Assistance Model. As a result of his leadership, he was asked to help develop the nationwide training strategy and documents, spending three weeks working out of our national headquarters in Washington D.C. Larry's leadership and insight to the overall project helped simplify our mission delivery and improve consistency in determining client financial assistance.

Larry's initiative and outside the box thinking has revitalized the disaster services training program in Maine. As a result, the Red Cross is better prepared to alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies.