Daily Inspiration: Meet Timothy Dahlum

Today we’d like to introduce you to Timothy Dahlum.

Hi Timothy, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started volunteering with the American Red Cross, Los Angeles Region in March 2020 when the city stopped due to the Covid pandemic, we were partnering with LAUSD to provide meals, and eventually food resiliency boxes in partnership with LA Foodbank. A month into the feeding operations I started contributing to the Information and Planning team, and their work to gather, analyze, and disseminate information about the services we we delivered, plan to deliver, as well as hazards and threats to the people in our care, their communities, and our capability to provide services. I’ve been able to grow into multiple leadership roles over the last six years that led to my most recent operational management role as the director that led a team or responders to Guam and CNMI ahead of landfall from Super Typhoon Sinlaku where we prepositioned our people and supplies so we could ride out the typhoon and then respond to mass care needs after the storm passed.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Because I deal with disasters the road hasn’t always been smooth, but it has been manageable due to our training and exercising for responses to disasters. What makes our work achievable is the dedication to our mission to alleviate suffering during emergencies and disasters by our volunteers and employees, we can have random teams come together and work brilliantly since we all train to the same standards.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My degrees are in anthropology and I worked in manufacturing for most of my professional life, but I’ve recently turned to apply my education and experiences to humanitarian efforts with the American Red Cross starting in 2020 during the pandemic. While my anthropology education was useful in manufacturing and commercial environments, it has been especially helpful in humanitarian environments by applying grounded anthropological practices to see the individual as well as cultural groups and how they all interact and are interconnected with each other to adapt programs to be the most sustainable, effective, and culturally appropriate. I’m proud of a lot the work I’ve done over my professional years, but by far I’m most proud the humanitarian work I’ve been doing over the last six years.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Nothing I’ve done was possible on my own, my life has been a series of experiences with mentors, advocates, teammates, and family members that have allowed me to grow and thrive. By far, on my recent journey in humanitarian work, my husband has been my biggest supporter, I wouldn’t have been able to navigate the pandemic and everything that has happened since then without him.

Pricing:

• not applicable

Contact Info:

• Website: https://timothydahlum.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dahlumii/

Image Credits
either myself, or the American Red Cross, Los Angeles Region