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With a master’s degree in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism, Adrienne Baughman spent eight years in Brussels, Belgium, as a freelance journalist covering NATO. In 2005, she moved to Chicago, and later took a position there with the American Red Cross. In July, she was assigned to Des Moines with the organization’s Midwest Service Area headquarters. As senior associate for communications, marketing and government relations, Baughman works with Red Cross chapters in a nine-state region that provide disaster relief operations. She chose to live downtown so that she could easily bike to work and enjoy Des Moines’ emerging urban lifestyle. Where are you from originally?

I grew up in the Ozarks in Missouri on a farm. My father was executive director of the Red Cross there, so I grew up in a Red Cross family. My dad would take me out on disasters with him, and I never thought much about it. I thought most 12-year-old girls got put in a car when a tornado was on its way.

How did the opportunity to work overseas come about?

I took a year off from graduate school to become a graduate fellow (in Washington, D.C.) with the Wo-men’s Research and Education Institute. I worked in the office of Susan Molinari, the Republican (Congresswoman) from New York. One day we had a group of Bosnian women come and lobby Congress. I became infatuated with the war crimes tribunal at The Hague. I found a program at Leiden (in the Netherlands) in 1996, studied there for the summer, and did my field work at the Bosnian War Crimes Tribunal.

Did you start freelancing immediately?

No. I was focused on my studying, and then I met my husband, so real life kind of took over. I married a Dutch engineer. I’m sorry to say that years later he became very ill and we divorced amicably. It was actually his illness that propelled me back into journalism. … It just made me realize I had to get back into the workplace. I ap-proached (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) through my contacts in Brussels, and I started volunteering to do radio reports from NATO headquarters. That got the attention of the editors at Jane’s Defence Weekly, be-cause they didn’t have a correspondent at NATO.

Why did you decide to leave Europe?

When a U.S. Chinook helicopter went down in Afghanistan (in 2005), I was invited with the international press corps to go, and I wrote a brief piece for Jane’s. When I was there I looked around and I thought, “This is a wonderful opportunity, but this is not what I want to do with my life.”

Was moving from Chicago to Des Moines a difficult decision?

My manager asked me to come to the Midwest hub in Des Moines, and I had to really think about that. In many ways, it was returning to my roots, because I did grow up in the Midwest. … I notice that a lot of people downtown are doing interesting things with their jobs. The world traveler coming to Des Moines is not that unusual, I think.

What’s your role with the Red Cross?

My duties are to support the unit capacity of the communications, marketing and government relations unit, which serves about 132 chapters. I am an instructor; we actually train local representatives as spokespersons, because we want each chapter to have a local voice. We also help each state with their Red Cross Days at the Statehouse, as well as marketing campaigns, reputation management and crisis communications on a daily basis.

How is biking part of your lifestyle?

I have a chain-free, shaft-drive cycle made by Dynamic so that I can ride it to work without worrying about ruining my work clothes. … It was surprising to me when I came back to the States that so many people were corpulent and suffering from the effects of obesity, even children. It made me sad. … The Europeans just get on their bicycles and go grocery shopping, or go to the library. I think we’d be a healthier nation if we didn’t obsess with the designer accessories that went with exercise.