By Nicole Wallace and Ian Wilhelm
The American Red Cross, which has been under fire for its response to Hurricane Katrina, announced today that its chief executive -- Marsha J. Evans -- will resign at the end of the month.
In a statement, Ms. Evans said she had been contemplating her departure for several months.
"I had been thinking about leaving the organization after my three-year anniversary on August 5, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I knew I had to stay and lead our pivotal response to that epic tragedy," she told Red Cross personnel in an e-mail message. "Now, with our successful hurricane response continuing in steady hands, I believe the time is right to step down as your president and CEO at the end of this month. I look forward to spending more time with my family."
Ms. Evans joined the organization in 2002 after the Red Cross faced a public outcry for misspending contributions related to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When she was appointed chief executive, she told The Chronicle she planned to stay in the position for at least five years.
Jack McGuire, the organization's executive vice president of biomedical services, was appointed interim chief executive while the charity searches for Ms. Evans's replacement.
The organization has been the target of intense criticism for its response to the disaster on the Gulf Coast. Nonprofit and civil-rights leaders charged that the organization failed to adequately help poor black people and other minorities, and hurricane survivors complained about the difficulty of requesting assistance through the organization's often overwhelmed toll-free numbers.
The news of Ms. Evans's resignation came just hours before the start of Congressional hearings by a subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on charities' actions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The panel held a similar meeting after September 11.
During the hearing, Rep. Jim McCrery, a Republican from Louisiana, said the Red Cross was not prepared for Katrina, and that Congress should consider changing the government policy that identifies the charity as the primary provider of shelters and other emergency services during a large disaster.
"I question whether it is prudent for Congress to place such a great responsibility in the hands of one organization," he told members of the subcommittee. "The national Red Cross was poorly prepared."
While Rep. McCrery did not offer detailed ideas about how to redesign the nation's disaster plan, he did encourage lawmakers to consider giving other nonprofit groups a larger role to play in the federally coordinated effort.
Officials at the Red Cross said Ms. Evans's resignation was unrelated to the Congressional scrutiny the charity has been under, and instead pointed to the deteriorating relationship between Ms. Evans and the 50 members of the Red Cross Board of Governors.
"In terms of the actual running of the business of the Red Cross, the board was not unhappy with Marty, and the board was not unhappy with the organization," said Mr. McGuire, the newly appointed interim executive. "The issues here had to do with communication and coordination between Marty and the board."
He said the board of governors didn't feel that it was being properly informed about the operations of the organization, and that it was not involved in charting the organization's direction in the way it wanted and needed to be involved. He stressed that the issues between Ms. Evans and the board predated Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. McGuire said that he didn't know whether the board of governors asked for Ms. Evans's resignation.
"But I know that Marty and the board reached a mutual agreement on this," he said. "Marty had been here for 3 1/2 years, and that's not an insignificant period of time for a person. I think between Marty and the board, they both felt that this was the right time."
Members of the board of governors are elected largely by Red Cross chapters across the country. In the past, struggles between Red Cross chief executives and the board have been the product of resistance by chapters to direction or reform from the national organization. Ms. Evans's predecessor, Bernadine P. Healy, also resigned from her post, in part because of disagreement between herself and the Red Cross board over how to spend donations raised after the September 11 attacks.
Mr. McGuire said that he does not think such friction was the case this time. He said his "gut feeling" is that most chapters would say things are better now than before Ms. Evans's tenure.
But at the same time, he said the challenge of leading such a large entity should be the board's first priority as it searches for a new leader.
"They're going to need to look for a person who can move the organization forward," said Mr. McGuire. "This is not a small organization. It's going to take a person who really understands how to move organizations and reach consensus and build on capabilities within a large organization." In the meantime, Mr. McGuire said that the board has told him that his job is to work on solving the problems in the organization laid bare by Hurricane Katrina.
Among the key areas that need improvement, said Mr. McGuire: Increasing the diversity of the Red Cross staff and volunteers so that the charity looks more like the communities it serves, and improving the Red Cross's ability to coordinate with other charities providing disaster relief.
The Red Cross, he said, also needs to look at systems and processes that were severely stretched, such as the organization's toll-free telephone systems, which were completely overwhelmed in the weeks after Katrina, and figure out how to bolster them so that they don't fail again in the next big disaster.
"Katrina was the biggest disaster that we've ever had by an order of magnitude or two," he said, "and that size and scope showed that some of our systems were marginal in terms of handling anything bigger than the traditional ones that we've had."