Gary Strong is the CEO of the American Red Cross California Gold Country region, responsible for leading, engaging, and recognizing staff and thousands of volunteers in execution of the mission of preventing and alleviating human suffering in the face of emergencies.

As an audit manager in the Los Angeles office of Ernst & Young, he developed expertise in defense contracting and media companies. Strong was director of Auditing for the Times Mirror Company and controller of the Los Angeles Times, where he led the financial integration of acquisitions; enterprise financials systems implementations; and adoption of Sarbanes/Oxley controls. As SVP Finance of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, he was responsible for all financial operations and held interim assignments for leading marketing, interactive publishing, and printing operations.

Strong was a Red Cross board chair, where he led the integration of several independent chapter boards during a series of geographical consolidations. He was board chair for the American Leadership Forum - Mountain Valley Chapter and has served as finance chair and audit chair for both KVIE Public Television and The Sacramento Region Community Foundation. He is the founding board treasurer for the recently launched McClatchy Journalism Institute and has served as a board member for several other not-for-profits.

Strong holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics from UC Santa Barbara. In addition to his CPA designation, he has earned qualifications as a certified fraud examiner and certified information systems auditor.