Jake Wood, former Marine sniper, believes there’s a better way to do disaster relief. While giant bureaucratic organizations like the Red Cross have come under increasing scrutiny for mismanaged funds and poor response, Wood has built an organization that weds military precision, training, and logistical capacity with humanitarian impact. He co-founded Team Rubicon in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake with an aim to provide efficient, compassionate response, and to give American veterans a renewed sense of service.

Since then, Team Rubicon has paired the skills of vets with first responders, medical professionals, and technology solutions to respond to disasters on five continents. We caught up with Wood while his staff and army of volunteers were knee deep in the floodwaters of Houston, working furiously to rescue as many residents and salvage as many homes as they could. With one eye on the incoming tropical storm Irma, Team Rubicon was also staging gear in Atlanta and assembling reconnaissance teams to respond to the next threat.

Jake: We need to remember that this is a long game. We’re still rebuilding twelve years after Katrina. It will be two years before we can make any substantial dent in the recovery here, and in five years there will still be communities that are not the same. Organizations are going to need patient capital. It’s important for funders to be patient, work with the right organizations, and understand that outcomes will be measured perhaps over years, and not weeks or months.

Read the source article at Skoll