Lee Ann Taylor on Giving Back

Lee Ann and Gina

Lee Ann Taylor will have been with the Red Cross for five years in May. A former acute care nurse, Lee Ann lived in Cincinnati, OH before she moved to Louisville to help provide care to her in-laws and needed to find a new job. She’d crossed paths with the Red Cross in Cincinnati as part of her job and was excited to see an opening in the Louisville area. Now she is a Senior Account Manager for our blood services and works in direct contact with our hospital partners in the Louisville area to determine their supply needs, resolve problems, and maintain their contracts.

Being able to enhance the continuity of care is one of the most rewarding parts of Lee Ann's job. “I want to ensure that processes are seamless, of high quality, we're efficient, safe, and the service we provide to the hospitals is optimized. In a lot of ways, I still feel like I'm being a nurse, but being a nurse to my healthcare colleagues.”

Lee Ann was not new to the Red Cross. Her family had ties to the Red Cross through the military and found it interesting that life led her to working for the organization.

Lee Ann's parents at their wedding.

“I'm half Korean and half American. My father was in the army and stationed in South Korea, and that's where he met my mother. My mother will be 84, and back in the day, she went through a lot of war between North and South Korea. The Red Cross was there to help her village from a humanitarian perspective,” said Lee Ann. “My parents were always big supporters of the American Red Cross, and they reared me to be as well. My father passed away in 2016 and to this day I'm always going to believe that he had a hand in this.”

Lee Ann loves what she does because she knows it makes a difference in patients’ lives: “I know that if I serve the doctors, nurses, blood banks, and do right by them, it is going to have a positive effect on the end user, which is the patient.”

One of her favorite work memories is of working closely with donor recruitment and her colleagues in blood services to accomplish their goals and push into new markets. "I cannot say enough about John Davis and Eric Holden. We've laughed, we've cried, we're just all passionate individuals and I just love how we roll.”

Working for a nonprofit is important to Lee Ann. She spent a couple of years at Eli Lilly after getting her MBA and tries to bring what she learned back to the nonprofit world. “I love the commitment to our mission and the service, but [...] you still have to do things in the right manner in order to help all those we help, and that's whether it's on the humanitarian or the medical side.”

“It's a blessing and a privilege to work for the American Red Cross,” Lee Ann said. “I never want to take it for granted. And my hope is, God willing, this is where I will retire, and when I retire, I'll volunteer.”

Before she left Cincinnati, Lee Ann was nominated for the UC Health Healthcare Leader of the Year award. She has been married to her spouse, Gina, for 27 years. Lee Ann and Gina serve as caregivers to Lee Ann’s mother, and one of her goals is to be the best caregiver she can possibly be. They enjoy swimming, birdwatching, and spending time with their miniature schnauzer, Grace.