2011 STAR Awards Senior Category Winner: Keith Mortlock

In a partnership with the Kalamazoo Gazette, we are pleased to feature their STAR Award winner stories. To view the original of this article, please click here to be taken to the Kalamazoo Gazette’s website.

By Dave Person | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette

KALAMAZOO — Keith Mortlock knows he can’t go on forever, so he is training the next generation of Red Cross volunteers.

In the meantime, he fills a vital leadership role with the Greater Kalamazoo Area American Red Cross, particularly its Disaster Action Team both in Southwest Michigan and in other parts of the country.

Mortlock, who managed a warehouse filled with donated supplies in New Jersey after the 9-11 terrorist attack, has run shelters and headed up logistics during 14 other disaster-relief operations, such as floods, hurricanes and wildfires, around the country.

Although he doesn’t put his life on the line, he does put it on hold for up to three weeks at a time in order to improve the conditions of others.

“They don’t send us out in dangerous situations,” he said. “Our job is to shelter people who need that for a short period … make sure they have a way to get food and give them a change of clothing.”

For the more than 1,000 hours he put in during 2010 in assisting the Red Cross, Mortlock, 74, is this year’s Senior Volunteer STAR (Sharing Time and Resources) Award winner.

“He has been with us for more than 10 years, and his work is of the highest caliber,” said Vicki Eichstaedt, regional director for community relations for the local Red Cross, which nominated Mortlock for the STAR Award. “He is always willing to help, and he is truly dedicated to making sure that the mission and service delivery of the Red Cross goes beyond Keith Mortlock and beyond his generation of volunteers.”

Eichstaedt praised Mortlock for his leadership and “can-do” attitude.

“And he’s got an absolute heart of gold,” she said.

The Red Cross cited other reasons why Mortlock was deserving of a STAR Award. They are:

– Mentoring new volunteers upon their addition to the Disaster Action Team.

– Creating Personal Disaster Response packets.

– Relaying calls from dispatch to deploy emergency volunteers.

“There is not a single new or existing volunteer in the past 10 years who has not been impacted by the work Keith has done and continues to do,” the Red Cross nomination statement reads.

Mortlock takes his turn being on-call for the Red Cross, which is most frequently called upon locally to assist people displaced by fires.

“There are so many things people can volunteer for that are important, but to me, responding to a disaster held a little more interest,” he said.

When the call comes in for the Red Cross’s Critical Response Team, volunteers such as Mortlock have to be ready to go, day or night.

“We have to be able to move and be out of town in four hours,” he said.

For Mortlock, that’s not a serious problem. “I can pack and get ready to go … in eight minutes,” he said. And he has an understanding wife, Rosanne, who tells him to be careful and then sends him on his way.

Mortlock owned his own business, Kalamazoo Automotive Refinishers Supply, for 25 years, during which time he prepared his employees to take over the company, he said.

“I’d reached a point that I knew the people I employed were capable of running the business themselves,” he said.

“They (the Red Cross) knew I could leave work … so I started doing a lot of the daytime calls.”

Mortlock, who is now retired, said he enjoys volunteering because he wants others to be able to enjoy life the way he has.

“I’ve been very lucky,” he said. “I’ve had everything I needed and wanted in life. It was time to give back.”

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