By Rick Padden, American Red Cross Public Affairs
Name: Karine Zubialde
Location: Wiggins
GAP: NOCO community chapter board member, community volunteer leader- ambassador, DAT service associate, DAT supervisor, logistics DCS member, shelter DCS member and a shelter DCS supervisor trainee Length of service: 1 year
Karine Zubialde was 27 when she left her birthplace of Seignosse in southwestern France (known for its world-class surfing waves), moved to Canada, and eventually wound up amidst the amber waves of grain in Wiggins, Colorado. “I wasn’t a surfer per se,” the Red Cross volunteer said, “but I did take surfing lessons while living in France.”
Close enough.
“It was fun,” she added, “but I’m more of a lay-on-the-beach-play-in-the-waves type of person.”
About a year ago, Zubialde joined the Red Cross as a volunteer, fulfilling a wish she’d had since high school. “I’ve always wanted to work for the Red Cross,” she said. “When Covid came and we were quarantined, we couldn’t go to work or do a whole lot, so I used that opportunity to take all the training and be ready to go when it was time to go.”
She left France in 2004 to work for Rip Curl (ironically, a surfing attire company) in Canada, and then moved to Denver, a year and a half later. She would eventually find Wiggins, Colorado, and a life on two rural acres with her husband and two daughters.
“I’ve wanted to work for a non-profit (in logistics) ever since a got out of high school,” she said.
Zubialde has an undergraduate degree in accounting management and logistics from the University of Bordeaux, works in Windsor for windmill manufacturer Vestas – in logistics – and so it was logical for her to become involved with logistics with the Red Cross. For the past 12 years at Vestas, she’s helped get equipment to where it needs to be, and concentrated on supplier relations, similar to her Red Cross ambitions.
Zulbialde, 44, shares area leadership duties with Amy Walker for Logan, Morgan, Phillips and Sedgwick counties. “There’s eleven counties in the NoCo chapter,” she said. “In Colorado there’s Larimer, Weld – and then the plains.”
Her daughters are four and 13, and the older child is already following in mom’s footsteps. She volunteered to work with the Red Cross as soon as she turned 13 in October. Raising kids prevents Zubialde from going on full, 2-week deployments, but she’s able to offer her services on-going virtually, and first went to work during the Cameron Peak fire – sometimes in person, and sometimes elsewise.
“I did a lot of work on that one doing intakes over the phone,” she said, “And I did Covid-safety checks in the hotels where we had our clients later. First, we were physically at the evacuation center in LaPorte, doing paper work and arranging hotels for the clients, and as things slowed down there, we worked at the hotels and over the phone.”
She said that after she went through training early last year, it was entirely online, but Cameron Peak provided an opportunity be around people – to an extent. “It was nice to actually see people at the evacuation center when we were there, and deal with clients in-person at the hotels.
“At the evacuation center, the second client I dealt with was a former colleague of mine who had just retired, and then been evacuated. We were both happy to see a familiar face in such a completely different environment.” She said the whole event represented what she’d been waiting for with the Red Cross: working with other volunteers, people with the same mind set, and helping clients directly.”
While not deploying out of state, Zubialde said there is plenty of on-going Red Cross business that needs her attention in her four-county area. “Being area leads,” she said, “they have a lot of work for us to do – recruiting volunteers, developing preparedness, building relationships with the fire departments and emergency managers. Out on the plains it’s not really very populated, but we do get tornadoes and floods. We need to be prepared.”
She said that the Sound the Alarm program was being put to work in her area, and that she hoped to get the Pillowcase project going there as well.
Wiggins students went back to school in person in August, but Zubialde’s older daughter went through quarantine twice – once because Karine’s husband had contracted Covid-19. “We all got quarantined in November for two weeks,” she said. She’d tested negative at one point, but said she thought she’d had it anyway. “I was tired and had a raging headache for two or three days.” The day of this interview, Zubialde was on her way back from getting vaccinated at the Red Cross office in Denver.
Will she stay in the Wiggins area? “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” she said. “My husband is a volunteer firefighter and EMT. We have two radios in the house. “I want to recruit volunteers,” she said, “and keep taking training in logistics. I want to take the FEMA training for emergency management, and there’s a Red Cross University qualification for disaster cycle services that I’m looking into.”
“I am very impressed and happy to be with like-minded people. In my personal and professional life, logistics people are … a little different. And the Red cross is a well-oiled machine. We take it as it comes in and react from there. I’m really happy with that.”
Even the process of getting vaccinated at the Red Cross office went smoothly, she said. “It’s how the red cross works. We spend a lot of time preparing, and when the time comes, we’re ready. It’s been a great experience.”