After being named chief executive officer of the American Red Cross Southwestern Pennsylvania Chapter last month, Patricia Waldinger was rummaging through closets in her Downtown office and found a few vintage Red Cross recruiting posters from the early 20th century.

Now they hang on her office wall as a reminder of what Ms. Waldinger considers to be a driving tenet of the organization that has provided disaster relief and health and safety training since its founding in 1881.

"It's an American story," said Ms. Waldinger. "It's community helping community."

As chief executive of the local branch, Ms. Waldinger oversees a budget of $5 million and Red Cross activities in Allegheny, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties.

Before taking the post, she spent 34 years as a manager and executive at Mellon Financial Corp. When she left the bank in 2006, she worked alongside her mother to help shutter the Venus Diner, a 1950s-style landmark eatery in Hampton that her parents owned and where the family served real milk shakes and fresh-baked pies.

Q: You spent two years in between your Mellon and Red Cross jobs helping your mother close her restaurant. What was that like?

A: She was 85, she's now 87, and she was literally working five days a week. Sometimes you don't have time for your parents, and they don't have time for you, especially when you work. It was a time in my life when she was in need of someone to help her. I felt a little guilty being my age and she was in her 80s and still working.

We closed the business after many years. And we moved her closer to me. I have this inbred in me: You just work. My father actually worked until the day he went into the hospital before he passed away in 2000.

Q: What attracted you to a nonprofit organization after years in the corporate sector?

A: Being off for a while, you have a chance to really reflect on what you enjoy and don't enjoy. I made a conscious decision I was going to look at the not-for-profit sector and determine if there would be a good fit.

One of the pieces that attracted me to the Red Cross is there's an operational aspect to it. At a lot of the nonprofits, the focus is strictly fund-raising. I liked the diversity. One day you have on your jeans or khakis, the next day you have a suit on.

Q: Is there a difference in working cultures coming from a huge global company?

A: It's certainly different. We have on staff here less than 50 people. But we have something like 1,500 volunteers. The Red Cross has a national organization, so there's a tremendous amount of support that you get. We don't have to design how you respond to a disaster …. We don't have to design a CPR training class. We have information technology support; we have human resources support. So even though it seems like a very small organization, it's part of a large organization.

The piece that's really different is you have volunteers and community supporting the community. And that's something I'm very much not used to. At a corporation, you hire your staff and you raise your money through debt or equity. And then you fulfill your mission. Here, you actually raise your money through the community -- a combination of individuals, corporations and foundations -- and then you execute your business plan through volunteers. Which is a whole management challenge in itself.

Q: How is fund raising going in the face of a sluggish economy?

A: We've been challenged. It's kind of hit everybody across the board. We don't have funding from the government. And that's actually to me more appealing because you're not reliant on the government. You're reliant on your own community.

Part of what I can do, from the experience I've had, is call on companies, and I feel very comfortable being able to establish relationships with both companies in our region and with foundations. That piece of me makes me feel prepared for this position.

The fund-raising side is interesting because you have national events and local events. Currently, the central U.S. flooding and tornadoes are a main focus because the overall Red Cross is going to be devoting about $15 million toward that from the Disaster Relief Fund. When an event like that happens, or major events like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, all fund-raising shifts to those major events. But on the local level, when that happens, funds we might get … might be forgone a little bit. On the other hand, we have protection so that if we have a local event, like Hurricane Ivan (the September 2004 storm that caused severe flooding in the Pittsburgh region), national [Red Cross assistance] comes in generally after three to five days. And they take over and will fund everything.

Q: How has the escalating price of gas impacted the ability of your volunteers to get to events?

A: We reimburse our volunteers and staff who use their own vehicles for Red Cross work. For the fiscal year that ended in June 2007, our chapter spent $11,362 for gas for our chapter-owned vehicles. For this fiscal year through May 2008, that number has risen to about $18,000. (June figures are not yet available). These figures illustrate the need for community support. We have to just cover it through donations. A lot of the volunteers take public transportation.

Q: Some observers believe a series of events at the national level have tarnished the Red Cross' image. Last fall, the chief executive of the national organization was fired as a result of a sex scandal. Questions arose about how supplies were distributed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the national president quit in the face of criticism about how contributions, including blood donations, were used. Do you think those events have hurt the organization and its fund-raising?

A: I definitely thought about that and discussed it with my board contacts involved in my hiring process. I think my background makes me a good candidate to be in a position like this because of having a strong history with a company that places a very high priority on integrity and ethics. I think there will be challenges.

From my understanding, the Red Cross has taken significant actions to mitigate and prevent those sorts of things from happening again. They've made changes in how they handle donations and today, the donor intent is very important to us. We take it very seriously. If a donor says their money is to go to the Disaster Relief Fund, then that's where it all goes. Or if they want to fund baby-sitting classes, we pay very strict attention to that.

Q: What do you do when you're not working?

A: I love to cook. I love to be a homemaker. I'm a beginning golfer, which, living at Nevillewood, you kind of have to be. Boy, is that hard.

I enjoy all the arts. And I love spending time with my mom and the [two college-age] kids. And my husband. I don't want to leave him out.