He’s worked world wide, giving aid, averting crises. Is Missouri-born man optimistic?

The planets aligned. I had coffee with a superhero. The kind who doesn’t wear a cape (they never do) and I’m certain the kind who would not spend a minute to consider himself a real-life Marvel character. That would be a minute of serious problem-solving wasted for David Gressly. This man is too laser-focused helping humanity and protecting large swaths of the planet. Like, literally.

Several weeks ago, in an ordinary Panera, I had a long chat with this extraordinary man. (I know a guy who knows a guy who tipped me off he’d be nearby.)

Gressly, United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, happened to be in the area visiting family. He grew up on a farm north of Kansas City, earned a degree in economics at the University of Missouri and an MBA from Thunderbird School of International Management in Arizona. His career is an inspiration to anyone who is considering helping to make a positive impact in a complicated world.

The first thing I asked Gressly, just to get it out of the way, was if it felt head-spinning to go from solving the world’s problems to spending a little time in rural Missouri.

“Actually, it’s relaxing to come here and decompress,” he said.

Fair enough, because his life’s work has been, and continues to be, a globetrotting whirlwind of preventing catastrophes, fixing ongoing ones, building infrastructure, negotiating peace, and procuring the exact talent and resources to accomplish it all.

Gressly, 67, gave a fascinating, almost professorial synopsis of his career, which was a mashup lesson of history, geography, epidemiology, psychology, philosophy and even meteorology.

“I wanted to work internationally at the time I was in university, so I joined the Peace Corps after. I went to Kenya where I spent four years.”

He then worked six years in northwest Africa supervising volunteers before becoming the director of planning and budget with the Peace Corps in Washington.

“It was an interesting time because that’s when the Soviet Union was breaking up and there were all these new countries we were going into,” he said.

Keep in mind, when I set up the meeting with this man whose international “work space” includes dodging violence, land mines, bad mosquitoes and a host of other dangers, I tried to come up with a quirky indie place to chat. Like some converted barn that serves only free-market coffee in recycled vessels. But we had a small window of time to meet.

I panicked and suggested an accessible midpoint between my leafy suburb and Gressly’s small hometown. A chain eatery just off the interstate offered a striking contrast to his harrowing tales of dealing with worldwide emergencies.

After his Peace Corps work, Gressly joined UNICEF in Nigeria, which eventually turned into a regional position.

“That’s when I started working in the emergency field where you have crises,” he said. “At that time, it was Liberia, New Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All were in different crises.”

Listening to his stories confirms how this world spins with ongoing disasters, or potential ones. Not just from the man-made problems of war — like having to move 15,000 displaced Sudanese citizens and 150,000 head of cattle across the Nile River — but also natural threats like disease.

Gressly spent a couple of years in India combating a polio outbreak.

“I was in charge of the polio eradication portfolio. India at one point had like 350,000 cases. We got it down to 50 cases a year. Now it’s eradicated. There’s no more polio in India.”

He was also put in charge of tamping down Ebola outbreaks in the Congo.

“I’m not an epidemiologist at all, but the key thing is logistics,” he said. “Getting everybody in the right place at the right time.”

Gressly’s style of logistics includes disaster prevention, which sadly is never as newsworthy as ongoing chaos. An example is how he helped large populations circumvent a famine when he worked with UNICEF. He showed me the map of countries in the Sahel region of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert.

“In 2012, there was a serious shortfall of food,” he said. “A million children were facing severe malnutrition, which kills them, basically. We were able to get enough food and water and health support — in time — so the people could get through that period. No news is good news.”

Most recently, Gressly has been working on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

“I tend to go from civil war to civil war to civil war,” he said.

He’s working to provide people with food assistance, healthcare and education across a country where more than 20 million people need aid.

“I have another job as well, which is trying to see how they initiate recovery work with the economy so that people can get jobs again, so they don’t need humanitarian assistance.”

And then there’s even a third project in Yemen, a real eyebrow-raiser most people in the U.S. probably don’t know about: a potential massive oil spill in the Red Sea. It’s yet another disaster-prevention job on Gressly’s to-do list.

A floating oil storage and offloading facility (FSO) moored off the coast of Yemen is, to put it bluntly, about to blow. Due to the civil war, the deterioration FSO Safer has not been maintained since 2015.

“It would be an oil spill four times the size of the Exxon Valdez, just as an order of magnitude.” Gressly said, adding that a spill or explosion would block harbors and vital food imports as well as shut down 200,000 fishing families. With 1.14 million barrels at stake, it would be a generational ecological disaster.

“The Red Sea is a pristine environment. The consequences are pretty severe if we don’t pay attention. It’s a catastrophe ready to happen. It will happen; it’s not a question of if.”

Fortunately, Gressly is supervising a high-risk spill prevention plan with the right expertise lined up and a replacement vessel on the way this month. But as massive operations go, there’s always something. Costs have shot up due to ripple effects from the war in Ukraine. To close the funding gap, the United Nations has raised resources from many nations and private corporations, and even from individual citizens concerned about the environment.

Gressly mentioned a sweet crowdfunding story.

“Out of Bethesda there was an elementary school that picked up on it. They sold lemonade. They even raised money they got from the tooth fairy.”

He said the United Nations invited the 6- and 7-year-old students to speak in New York.

“Everybody was deeply touched to see these little kids making a contribution.”

Nothing like a global response.

Anyone interested in learning more and helping close the gap to save the Red Sea can donate to the project at un.org/StopRedSeaSpill. And while you’re googling around, the UN website in general is user-friendly and an efficient tool to get a clear perspective on worldwide humanitarian efforts.

Gressly shared many stories of war and peace, building roads while living in tents, rescuing leaders from violence and navigating the Nile.

It’s the stuff most Panera dwellers rarely encounter. And after learning so much over a paper cup of hazelnut coffee, I felt obligated to ask him if he’s a pessimist or an optimist. He said, “I’m a short-term pessimist, long-term optimist.”

The long game. I found that hopeful. I also asked Gressly if he’s working on a memoir. He’s not. “I have work to do.”

Said like a true superhero.

Reach Denise Snodell at stripmalltree@gmail.com.