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Goodwill is fulfilling its mission, retiring director says
LIBERTY
After 35 years as executive director of Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries, Michael W. McBride will retire this spring, having overseen substantial growth in the organization, which is devoted primarily to providing employment and other services to people with disabilities.
Having obtained a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Youngstown State University, McBride joined Goodwill as finance director in April 1978, becoming its executive director in May 1982.
Under McBride’s leadership, the agency’s annual budget soared from about $1.9 million to more than $6 million, with employee payroll growing from $1.2 million to more than $3 million a year.
Under his leadership, the local Goodwill has achieved 12-consecutive accreditations from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.
The agency, which employs some 460 people, established full commercial janitorial and laundry services to boost employment opportunities, doubled its retail presence from four to eight stores, and grew its endowment fund to about $1.6 million to help support its operating and capital requirements.
“Goodwill’s mission is to help people to become employed, to help them to become independent and productive tax-paying citizens,” McBride said.
“I think we’ve been successful with that, so I think that’s the biggest accomplishment,” McBride said, adding that some of the local Goodwill workers have been there as long as he has and would not otherwise be employed.
During his tenure, the local Goodwill has expanded beyond its core mission of serving disabled people to serving homeless people and welfare recipients and trying to return them to the workforce.
Serving more than 5,000 people annually, the agency offers vocational rehabilitation to disabled and homeless people and to those with other obstacles to employment.
Goodwill absorbed the financially troubled Youngstown Society for the Blind, which closed in 1992, and continues to operate the radio reading service for the blind.
The agency also offers vision screenings to pre-school children.
McBride said he is proud that Goodwill has enhanced worker comfort in its Liberty headquarters by improving ventilation and installing energy-efficient replacement windows.
Albert Slabe, Goodwill’s operations director, said McBride leads by example and everything McBride does is tempered with compassion.
“Obviously, you have to make some business decisions, but every decision he’s ever made has been tempered by the fact that we serve individuals here who need a lot of support,” Slabe said.
“He has kind of a laid-back style. He allows you to do what you need to do, and he’s not a micro manager,” said Erika Parker, the agency’s marketing director.
More than 70 percent of Goodwill’s revenue comes from sales of donated items in its retail stores, with store sales income supporting the agency’s occupational training and employment efforts.
Goodwill’s local stores are at its Liberty headquarters and in Warren, Austintown, Boardman, Salem and Calcutta and in Hermitage and New Castle, Pa.
In recent years, Goodwill began providing vouchers to mental-health and social-service agencies for issuance to needy people to help them obtain merchandise from Goodwill stores.
McBride, 65, said one of the challenges facing his successor, who has not yet been chosen, will be to expand online merchandise sales without driving away store customers by depleting store offerings.
“Funding is also going to continue to be difficult, with federal, state and local governments all tightening their belts,” he added.
Ninety-four percent of Goodwill’s revenue is self-generated from store sales and laundry and janitorial services, with the remaining 6 percent coming from state funds, United Way and Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board monies, grants and cash donations.
McBride’s retirement had initially been scheduled to take effect March 1, but he said he now hopes it will become effective near the end of April after CARF re-accreditation evaluators visit the agency.
In retirement, McBride said he wants to spend more time with his wife and grandchildren.
“I would like to work and do something, but on a more limited basis,” he said.
“Last year, my children built me a greenhouse. I like to garden, so, hopefully, I’ll be able to do some of that this spring and enjoy life for awhile,” he concluded.