A Goodwill Ambassador Takes an International Role

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., with no heat or bathroom. His first job at 11, digging up earthworms for a penny each to save for a ham radio. Working his way through college and divinity school and being ordained as a Methodist minister.

In just under 60 minutes, he has proved 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?

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

“I just knew that it was where I wanted to be; you could see people actually being helped,” Kessinger said 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, 30 years later and after 10 years as president of Goodwill’s Orange County operations, he will step onto the national charity stage with plans to use technology to take the Goodwill movement into more corners of the world.

On June 1, Kessinger, 59, will become president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries International, which is headquartered in Bethesda, Md. All 216 Goodwill operations are independent enterprises. But paid membership in GII, as staffers call it, affords them a wide pool of support, resources and guidance.

Kessinger hopes to harness that collective horsepower and $1.85 billion in annual revenue from Goodwill sites 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 employment such as illiteracy, homelessness or criminal history.

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

He is the father of two grown daughters, and as a minister, he says he believes the family is a community’s cornerstone, yet he is on his fourth marriage. He will cluck about how people--the Goodwill-trained and -employed, 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 the country’s best actress awards (the Golden Rooster, akin to an Oscar, and the Hundred Flowers, similar to our People’s Choice prize).

His 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 minister and, after studying nights, finally earned a college degree at the age of 55.

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

After three decades, Kessinger shows no signs of hardening to the often bittersweet trials and triumphs of the 850 or so clients served each day at Goodwill of Orange County, which employs a staff of 350.

“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 Orange County Goodwill. “I felt it wasn’t just that he knew who they were, but he knew their lives.”

Montapert’s father, Walter Knott, is the namesake of a yearly Goodwill award 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.” As Darryl Anderson, Montapert’s son and a former Goodwill board member who serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, explained, “Part of why he’s really good at what he does is he doesn’t blow his own horn. But at the end of the day, he’s responsible for it.”

For that, he is paid handsomely. Among similar organizations, such as the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross, Kessinger is by far the highest-paid director of a nonprofit in Orange County at $230,000 a year. His new post will pay him even more: $290,000 a year, plus car and benefits.

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

Goodwill Industries of Orange County was the first in the country to have an online store,https://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 Web hosting for companies and nonprofit organizations (they get a discount). Proceeds help pay for other programs.

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.