Making Good by Doing Good

To understand how an Ozarks boy like George Kessinger made it to the top of Goodwill Industries International requires all of an hour.

First, there’s his Dagwood Bumstead charm, which sneaks up slowly as he unfurls his life story. His birth in a tar-paper shack in Neosho, Mo., no heat or bathroom, the family sleeping clothed to keep warm. His first job at 11, digging up earthworms for a penny each to save up for a ham radio. Working his way through college, divinity school and ordainment as a Methodist minister.

In just under 60 minutes, he has proven himself the antihero you want to help. He conveys his success yet seems to knock himself down to size. Did he mention he got lousy grades?

By 1969, Kessinger had arrived at Goodwill, where--like the thousands it has served for nearly a century--he found job opportunity and a future.

“I just knew that it was where I wanted to be; you could see people actually being helped,” Kessinger says of visiting that first Goodwill in Houston and never looking back. “Maybe because I’d seen poor, been poor, Goodwill and I just matched.”

Now, 32 years later and after 24 years as president of Goodwill’s Orange County operations, he will step onto the national stage of do-gooders with plans to use technology to bring Goodwill Industries into more corners of the world.

On June 1, Kessinger becomes president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries International, headquartered in Bethesda, Md. All 216 Goodwills are independent enterprises. But paid membership in GII, as staffers call it, affords them a wide pool of support, resources and guidance.

Kessinger, 59, hopes to harness that collective horsepower and a staggering $1.85 billion in annual revenue from the Goodwills for greater impact globally.

Founded in 1902 by a Boston Methodist minister, Goodwill provides training and employment to people with mental or physical disabilities or other barriers to a job, such as illiteracy, homelessness or a criminal history.

A Study in Contradictions

Most familiar to the public are Goodwill’s donation centers and stores, where used clothing and household items can be bought. But more than half the tonnage of merchandise donated gets sold to brokers who then sell it in Third World countries. The proceeds of these and store sales--plus grants and private donations--fund the vocational training programs for what Goodwill calls its “clients.”

Kessinger’s affinity for the cause is an oft-told story, but less known and equally interesting are some of his contradictions.

He is the father of two grown daughters and, as a minister, believes the family is a community’s cornerstone, yet he is on his fourth marriage. He says he still deeply regrets divorcing his first wife during what he calls a midlife crisis. He clucks about how people--those trained and employed by Goodwill among them--are too often judged by their exterior when what counts is what’s inside. Yet he enjoys overseas travel and toys such as a $25,000 touring motorcycle--on which he and his new wife can communicate helmet to helmet, like fighter pilots.

He has been married since last year to Shouli Xu Kessinger, 41, a Chinese actress and winner of that country’s best-actress awards (the Golden Rooster--akin to an Oscar--and the Hundred Flowers--akin to the U.S.’s People’s Choice prize).

A Goodwill board member introduced George to Shouli on Valentine’s Day 1999, during his visit to China. She speaks little English and is studying at Irvine Valley College, near their home. She left the most populous country in the world, where she was recognized everywhere, for a place where she is recognized as Mrs. George Kessinger.

“It’s been an adjustment,” a clearly infatuated Kessinger admits of their relationship, which involves frequent use of dictionaries.

It is a life far from the spartan shack in which he was born and raised, along with four siblings. His father, Kessinger said, tried and failed at a number of endeavors, from farming to carpentry, and eventually found his niche as a substitute Methodist preacher. To earn more money and a parsonage, he became an ordained Methodist minister and, after studying nights, finally earned a college degree at age 55. He moved through several country parishes, his brood in tow. All five kids graduated from college, four with advanced degrees.

His late-blooming father’s perseverance made the Goodwill mission a familiar one to Kessinger, he and others say.

Goodwill’s primary aim is to train and employ people whose physical or mental challenges make it harder for them to find work.

Trainees are most commonly perceived as people with developmental disabilities who might work sorting donated used clothing. But there is an array of trainee types.

That they earn a low wage eclipses the fact that they are less likely to find work at all. More important than the money, Goodwill gives its trainees a purpose and a destination when they might otherwise sit in a group home watching television.

After three decades, Kessinger shows no signs of hardening to the often bittersweet trials and triumphs of the 850 or so clients served daily at Goodwill Industries of Orange County, which employs as staff another 350 people.

“You walk through the plant with him and he can call most everybody by name,” said Marian Knott Montapert, whose family is a major donor to the Orange County Goodwill. “I felt it wasn’t just that he knew who they were, but he knew their lives.”

Knott’s father is the namesake of a yearly Goodwill award given to the disabled who have overcome their challenges.

Kessinger, she said, “told us stories about the hardships that they’d had, and he’d been moved, and you could feel that from him. George certainly has provided good leadership in the county and has done it in a very nice, low-key way that makes you want to help what he’s doing.”

Darryl Anderson, a former Goodwill board member and major arts patron who sits on the boards of several nonprofits, agreed about Kessinger’s appeal.

“There are two things that make him successful,” said Anderson, who is Montapert’s son. “He truly believes we can make a difference in the lives of people, and he implements great leadership skills, in that he engages people and gets them involved but doesn’t waste a lot of time.”

“Part of why he’s really good at what he does is he doesn’t blow his own horn,” Anderson added. “But at the end of the day, he’s responsible for it.”

For that, he is paid handsomely. Among similar ventures, like the Salvation Army or American Red Cross, Kessinger is by far the highest-paid director of a nonprofit in Orange County at $230,000 a year in salary and bonuses. His new post will pay him even more: an annual salary of $290,000, plus car and benefit perks.

A Lifetime of Preparation

While salaries of nonprofit executives vary wildly, from zero at the Salvation Army to more than $1 million, Kessinger’s compensation is impressive. But those who work with him say that Kessinger’s pay is fair and note that nonprofit organizations of almost any type face the perennial balance of public perception versus paying enough to land a good leader.

During his tenure, Goodwill Industries of Orange County has seen a 100% hike in the number of clients served and a 200% jump in overall revenue, with gross revenue last year of about $23 million. It has also successfully moved onto the Internet.

As a Goodwill veteran, Kessinger already knows the organization, said Dr. Carl Hansen, board chairman of Goodwill Industries International. That was not always the case with predecessors such as former Iowa congressman Fred Grandy, who played purser “Gopher” Smith on “The Love Boat” TV series.

For his next role, Kessinger believes that he has been preparing in some way or another for most of his life. The ham radio of his youth was his first brush with technology, low-tech though it was. He could not afford an antenna. But when he wrapped foil around a bamboo pole and poked it out a window, he could reach faraway people and places. The Huck Finn-like effort foreshadowed the job he assumes in June: using the Internet and other technology to help more people abroad.

Goodwill Industries of Orange County was the first in the country to have an online store--shopgoodwill.com--which is run something like eBay and through which 70 Goodwills post or offer merchandise. Kessinger also oversaw creation of kruzin.com, which provides Web site development, design and hosting for profit and nonprofit companies. Proceeds help pay for other programs.

Associates say Kessinger has several attributes not often found in one person: business savvy, creative thinking abilities, disarming openness to staff ideas and empathy for those who most need Goodwill.

But perhaps his greatest strength is his viewpoint. Kessinger arrives at work each day and sees not the tons of old coats and toasters and previously enjoyed shoes, but hope.

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Compensation Comparison

Goodwill Industries chief George Kessinger is among the highest paid nonprofit executives in Southern California, according to tax records. A sampling of salaries:

Source: IRS 990 forms for tax-exempt organizations

Researched by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times