April 8, 2024 • 21 mins
Tim O'Neal, CEO of Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona
With nearly three decades of experience working in the thrift industry, Tim O’Neal has spent the past 23 years focused on the vision of ending poverty through the power of work.
When O’Neal was brought on with Goodwill of Central Arizona, the organization was in serious financial trouble and at risk of having its membership removed by Goodwill Industries International. O’Neal’s arrival marked a turning point in the 75 year history of the organization, and his leadership was instrumental in keeping the organization running by increasing retail operations by 3000 percent during his tenure as the Vice President of Retail Operations (1999 – 2007).
O’Neal brought a distinct level of professionalism to the retail side of the organization, a characteristic that quickly spread throughout the organization. O’Neal values the time and effort of his team above all else. He knows the successful reach of Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona’s mission is due to the hard work and innovation all team members exhibit every day. O’Neal recognizes talent and feels it is important for the organization to cultivate leadership at all levels. He is most proud of the transparency the nonprofit presents, as well as the workplace culture that regularly earns top marks on “Best Places to Work” rankings.
Goodwill’s founder, Edgar Helms, envisioned providing people in need with the skills and opportunities that lead to self-sufficiency by providing a hand up, not a handout. O’Neal believes wholeheartedly in carrying out this mission to better the lives of everyone in our state. He knows the best way to bring a positive impact to Arizona is to work together, collaborate, and cultivate partnerships with community members, organizations, and leaders.
Tim O’Neal is proud of his team and proud of the positive impact Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona leaves on the local community.
With nearly three decades of experience working in the thrift industry, Tim O’Neal has spent the past 23 years focused on the vision of ending poverty through the power of work.
When O’Neal was brought on with Goodwill of Central Arizona, the organization was in serious financial trouble and at risk of having its membership removed by Goodwill Industries International. O’Neal’s arrival marked a turning point in the 75 year history of the organization, and his leadership was instrumental in keeping the organization running by increasing retail operations by 3000 percent during his tenure as the Vice President of Retail Operations (1999 – 2007).
O’Neal brought a distinct level of professionalism to the retail side of the organization, a characteristic that quickly spread throughout the organization. O’Neal values the time and effort of his team above all else. He knows the successful reach of Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona’s mission is due to the hard work and innovation all team members exhibit every day. O’Neal recognizes talent and feels it is important for the organization to cultivate leadership at all levels. He is most proud of the transparency the nonprofit presents, as well as the workplace culture that regularly earns top marks on “Best Places to Work” rankings.
Goodwill’s founder, Edgar Helms, envisioned providing people in need with the skills and opportunities that lead to self-sufficiency by providing a hand up, not a handout. O’Neal believes wholeheartedly in carrying out this mission to better the lives of everyone in our state. He knows the best way to bring a positive impact to Arizona is to work together, collaborate, and cultivate partnerships with community members, organizations, and leaders.
Tim O’Neal is proud of his team and proud of the positive impact Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona leaves on the local community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The CEO you Should Know, broughtto you by Roby Foster Miller Eric Insurance.
This week's CEO Tim O'Neil, CEOof Goodwill. I was born in
California on a farm. I'm theyoungest of six kids by a long way.
My parents were forty six and fortyseven when they had me, and
(00:20):
so they decided to do an earlyretirement in mid seventies when farming was not
the right right field to be in, and we ended up moving everywhere.
I can't even remember how many schoolsI went to around the country and ended
up in Arizona in about nineteen eightysix. I was actually out of my
own when I was sixteen, andso I was really fortunate. I had
some great mentors that taught me theretail business, and then when I was
(00:43):
eighteen, I found one of Goodwill'scompetitors and started with them as a donation
attendant, taking donations out of theback of people's cars. Worked my way
up, got into management with them, and moved all over the country helping
open stores for them, and thenI came to Goodwill in nineteen ninety nine,
and it's absolutely been the best thingthat's ever happened to me. The
mission of Goodwill is really that ideaof helping people be the best they can
(01:03):
be, ending poverty, generational shifts, the way we think about education,
and Goodwill does all those things.And so for me, I started out
here, grew through the ranks,and became a CEO about eleven years ago.
Well, Tim, it's fortuitous totalk to you because we don't get
an opportunity to talk to too manypeople that have been at a company for
so long. We've been in thesame industry for three plus decades, which
(01:26):
is extraordinary in itself. So I'mgoing to talk to you later about rising
the ranks and about what you wantedto do as opposed to maybe what they
wanted to do, and how thosethings came together for you to run the
company a CEO for Goodwill of Centraland Northern Arizona. Before we do that,
I would like to give a littlecontext overall. We'll ask a mission
statement, then we'll get into yourprogram as the capabilities. But before we
(01:49):
do any of that, I knowGoodwill's been associated with thrift and clothes,
but there's so much more than that. I'd love to hear about the evolution
because you've been there for all ofit at one time. Once again,
in the seventies, I'm a seventieskid too. You gave your clothes a
good Well, you could still dothat too in any of the places around
the United States and the country.But with that said, when did the
dynamic change of doing more than that? How did that all come about?
(02:10):
Well, actually, believe it ornot, it was the other way around.
So we were very much a socialservice agency before the retail part of
it came and founded in nineteen ohtwo by Reverend Edgar J. Helms in
Boston, Massachusetts, and it wasreally this idea of taking clothes or articles,
furniture, whatever it may be,from the richest neighborhoods of Boston and
(02:32):
moving them to the poorest neighborhoods.And what they would do is they'd actually
give those clothing or those furniture itemsto the folks that were the most in
need, and they could either usethem for themselves or they could repair them
and resell them. And so itwas really this idea of again helping people
rise out of poverty and be thebest they can be. And the clothing
piece of it, and the thriftpiece of it came out of that,
(02:53):
and then it was really formalized aswe moved into probably the twenties and thirties
and the retail model growing, andthen really about the seventies, thrift kind
of took hold. But all ofthat, the only reason that we do
any of those retail operations is themission, and it's this idea of you
know, here in Arizona, we'llprovide almost five hundred thousand free services this
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year alone, all because you cleanout your closets. That is everything from
our adult high school, getting peoplebetter education so they have better lives.
We have a micro school concept thatallows kids in the most impoverished neighborhoods to
get a great quality education. Wehave an online platform called my Career Advisor.
It's actually global and it started herein Arizona and it serves people.
(03:35):
One of the real barriers to peoplereceiving the best possible services is transportation.
They simply can't get to a placeto receive the services they need. So
we created this online platform to bethe conduit to figure out, in Triosh,
what do they need right now andwhere do we get them either they
come to us or whether we getthem to another partner to save them the
time, and it really is abouthelping people get into the best possible jobs
so they can change the lives fortheir families. And it has worked,
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and so right now this goodwill froma retail standpoint is the largest in the
world by a long way. Wealso provide tens of thousands of people services
every year. There's five hundred thousandfree services, and there's so much more
to come. So it was reallythe mission first, and then the retail
came as the fundraising mechanism because atthis organization specifically, we take very little
(04:19):
government funding. Really all of ourdollars are made through the thrift operations and
that's all put back into serving thecommunity. Tell us a little bit about
the team that you work with,and we're talking about six thousand plus and
going strong with that said, that'sa lot of people, so that means
you have to have strong management andgreat communication but as a leader to make
sure that everybody gets to do whatyou need them to do. But also
(04:42):
they all have fulfilling lives and we'rein a new world now where there's hybrid
there's a working away from work,there's traveling so forth, there's so many
different venues in different layers that youcan go to. How do you get
it done making sure that there's agood work life balance with that entire team
that you have. Well, youknow, I will tell you are very
fortunate. And you referenced I've beenin the business for three decades before,
(05:03):
believe it or not. My secondin command here, her and I have
been working together for all thirty plusyears, and so you know, without
her and without the strength and wehave a lot of folks here. We
have people that are twenty plus yearsall over our leadership team, and so
we're very fortunate, and I thinkthat creates the foundation. We very much
believe in a servant leadership model,always have. We kind of preach it,
(05:24):
we kind of teach it, andwe want to make sure that our
leaders are giving our teams the bestpossible training and education. And we're also
an organization that promotes heavily from within. You know, Thrift is a very
specific business, social service a veryspecific business, and very different mindsets in
those two kinds of industries. Wehave to bring those together and we have
to bild that training and we dothat pretty well. And we do it
(05:45):
again. The foundation of the strongleadership. But we also this organization probably
spends more as a percent to revenuethan any organization I've seen around culture,
and so we have these crazy cultureevents where really more than anything is around
getting to know your teammates, gettingto know your leaders, your fellow leaders,
and it's everything from leadership games togoing out and breaking bread together.
(06:08):
I think that too many businesses anymorehave become very sanitized, and there's this
idea that you shouldn't know the peopleyou work with, and I completely disagree
with that. I think that wetreat this like a family and it comes
across that way, and I hopeour teams feel it. We are very
unique in that the culture breeds ourability to grow people and to make them
the best people, best leaders theycan be. We're also an organization that
(06:30):
does something completely backwards in the wayyou would think of normal business. And
so I reference our online platform thatgoes out to the public called my Career
Matters or my Career Advisor. Ouronline platform for our team is called my
Career Matters, and we will takethem. We will give them every service
that anybody in the community could askfor that we provide to the general community.
(06:50):
We will also train them for ajob, and not a job with
us. We will train them togo get a job with someone else.
So if somebody can pay more thanwe can pay, and that person is
qualified for it, we encourage themto go get that job. So in
our case, we think of turnoveras being good winever it's done that way,
and I don't know many employers thatwould even think of training somebody knowing
(07:13):
you want them to go get ajob somewhere else. Let's talk about how
you work with the community and getthe word out because you have all these
different fantastic programs that you do onlineand so forth. If you want to
get a new job or how todo this or how to do that.
We talked about the closed portion,and there's so many more capabilities and programs
that you do that you can touchon in just a moment. But when
it comes to out reaching the communityto let them know what you're doing.
(07:35):
Beside interviews like this, how doyou get a chance to meet up with
them and let them know we've gotthis for you. You should join us
and check it out. We doa lot of storytelling and so along with
traditional marketing and the way you thinkof marketing any business. We do those
things, but we learned a longtime ago that we're complex. And as
you said, everybody knows the thriftstores, not a lot of people know
(07:55):
the mission impact. And so webring in community organizations, we bring leaders,
we bring in local politicians, anybodythat we can into our facilities.
We tour them, we talk aboutthe mission. We let them hear from
people that have actually gone through ourtrainings and helping them be the best they
can be. And so, youknow, all these years I've been doing
this, what you hear from oneplace around the country to the next is
(08:16):
I didn't know Goodwill did that.And the best possible way to fix that
is to storytell. I mean,you know, I'm sure my board here
would tell you. You know.What they challenged me with was be out
in the community, be a leader, be talking, you know, learn
how to showcase the brand. Andthat's the way we really get the message
out. The first time we starteddoing this, I had a gentleman come
up and he said, you know, I've been working with Goodwill for twenty
(08:37):
years and I had no idea.This is what you did. All the
mass media, all the radio interviewsyou could ever ask for TV interviews.
Storytelling and being personal has been thebest way to get the message out and
the best way to get people involved. You know. I'm glad you talked
about that because it brought back acore memory for me. When I was
in this industry back in the earlyodds, there was a non named furniture
(08:58):
store that's very famous, said doesMarker Loungers Okay, And I remember they
came in and said, we don'twant to be known as your dad's so
and so anymore. And that's somethingthat you guys have probably wrestled with Goodwill
these years, basically reinventing yourself.Yeah, very much. And you know,
I mean Goodwill is truly a legacybrand. I mean, how many
organizations do you know that last onehundred and twenty plus years, right,
(09:18):
And so part of what we haveto do is we have to showcase and
mission changes. Right. So,when you go back and you think about
in the seventies and the way thatwe looked at helping people that were in
the most distress, severely disabled,mentally, ill, whatever it may be,
we actually did things like kidding,which meant we put together like your
(09:39):
new homeowner kit from at that time, like the telephone company or whatever it
may have been. We did thingslike we helped build boat covers for Bimini
boats, and those were all thingsthat were simple tasks or easy to do.
But what happened with those folks isonce those industries went away, they
weren't trained for the real world anymore. And so we went from that and
we had to transition into things likereally teach them soft skills, then teaching
(10:01):
them just life skills, and thenteaching them how to work in a traditional
employment environment to make them the bestthey can be. And so mission for
us changes with the times for whateveris needed. And so you have to
invince yourself and reinventce yourself over andover and over. And so that's why
for us, telling the story constantlyis important. You know, this is
(10:22):
a really good leadership teaching moment.I'm glad you brought that up, Tim,
because what you're talking about something thatI do in my line of work
too, is that I never standpat and I always freshen it up.
I come on new ideas. Somethings are going to stick against the wall,
some aren't. But as a leader, it's always fluid is and I
think that's the point we want toget across to future entrepreneurs there and people
that want to run a company,that you should never stop the walking,
(10:45):
the thinking, the talking about it. Now, I completely agree, and
I'll tell you you know that Ichange is hard, and we have all
seen when change didn't work. ButI really believe change is good and if
you do it the right way,it's healthy. It helps you grow your
company, it helps people become thebest they can be, because when you
go through hard times or you gothrough a new situation, you should come
out of it better if we've doneit right. And so I totally think
(11:07):
that that that metamorphosis never stops.Well said Tim. As far as going
on right now or maybe even thefuture of the next couple of years,
is there anything they're really excites youabout what's coming up next or something that
you're super proud of. Yeah.So one of the things that I love
the most is the way we've gotteninto education. And you know, I've
spent a lot of time traveling andtrying to understand where communities really need to
(11:30):
be served. And you know,we've got this concept called the Excel Center
and their adult high schools for peopletwenty two and up very needed because for
the life span of somebody working,the difference between having a GED and having
a high school diploma is almost sixhundred thousand dollars over their working life,
and that's changing, that changes theirfamily. It's a generational shift in education
and poverty. But what that reallydoes is it kind of fixes today's problem.
(11:54):
Meaning just in Arizona alone, wehave over a million people that don't
have a high school diploma and onlyone school, our school put in place
to fix that and for us,and I tell people this when we storytell
that is a problem about helping growour tax spase. I mean, these
people make more, they now getback to society different ways, and they
do improve their lives and their families'lives. What I've really been most excited
(12:16):
about is this idea of our microschools. And it's a school system where
you have ten to twelve students withone teacher and you can put them in
a partner organization. You need asmall room and a table, and it's
every grade level you can imagine kindof mixed. These kids go through it,
they usually come out far above theirpeers and testing when they come out
of a school system like this andyou put them in the most impoverished communities,
where you put them in specialized populations, and it creates this mechanism where
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the people that are going to bethe most challenged growing up. Because I've
seen these kids, we've done this. They don't have breakfast at home,
they don't have lunch at home,they don't have dinner at home, so
we have to feed them. Ina lot of cases, or even on
the weekends. We've done this before, we had to send food packets home
for their families. A kid cannotgo to school if they have to go
twenty miles across, if they haveto walk and fight their way there because
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of the gangs every day, andif they don't have food, so their
minds can work. So these microschools can actually be put in these neighborhoods
so that you can actually control someof what happens. And all of a
sudden, you shifted their mindset inthat somebody does care about me, somebody
does care that equality school is inmy area. And they may not realize
that in kindergarten, but I guaranteeyou by the time they get to be
ten, eleven, twelve years old, and certainly on they're going to be
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thankful that they had a caring teacherthat a small classroom size, and somebody
that taught them at their pace.Well, Tim, I'm glad you share
that. I can see why you'reso excited about that. The future looks
bright. I did want to askyou about some challenges, because we always
know when you're running a company,it's not always rainbows and unicorns all the
time. It's windy up there atthe top. So with all that said,
what kind of current challenges do youhave right now? You know,
(13:45):
I see the real challenges is morearound the way that we think are fellow
humans. You know, the homelesspopulation is growing dramatically, and I can't
speak for the East Coast, butI can tell you in the West Coast
is pervasive and it's getting worse byeach day. And we have to come
up with a solution where we getthese folks housed, whether it's emergency shelters,
getting them into hotel conversions, thengetting them into real housing and home
(14:07):
ownership. But at the same time, we need them skills and that's where
this education or skills training comes in. And you know. I was having
a head of debate with one ofour housing directors here in Arizona a number
of years ago, and the questionwas what do you need first, a
job or a house? The answers, you need both. And so if
you can get them housed, evenif it's in an emergency shelter, get
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them skilled so that the next timethey move into a hotel, conversion,
or whatever it may be, thenthey are starting to work. And so
it may be a process of ninetydays, it may be a process of
nine months, but you're doing bothbecause with just housing and not training them,
they'll be homeless again soon. Withouthousing and just a job, they
will be out of that job becausethey can't take a shower, they can't
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sleep, they can't do those things. So it has to be both.
And so I think the real challengeis we need to kind of accept this
idea that homelessness is not necessarily achoice people. A lot of people,
especially after the pandemic, have justbeen completely displaced, and so you have
chronic homeless and then you have thepeople that really wish that someone could help
them, really wish that somebody caredenough to get them trained into a job.
(15:13):
And really wished that there was anorganization that cared enough to get themselves
and their families back into a safespace. That is one hundred percent what
Goodwill does. Well, thanks forsharing that and expounding on it, because
that's really important stuff. So I'mglad that we talked about that for a
few moments. I did want totalk to you about you, and we
kind of went over this at thetop. I mean, your growth and
your ascension is incredible now. Itprobably took several years, and I don't
(15:35):
know if it took as long asyou wanted to, but you started at
at the base level and now you'reCEO of a company. Now we have
a lot of curren CEOs that listento the series and future entrepreneurs that would
like to run their own companies.I realized that your story is your story.
But with all that said, canyou tell us a little bit about
your thoughts and your hopes, howthe company treated you, how you treated
(15:56):
the company as you stayed in thisworking to get to this. It's the
EEO that you are now. It'san incredible story, so I hope you
share that with us now. Happyto you know, I was lucky that
I had great parents, and Inever forget my mom and dad saying if
you work harder than everybody else andhave a better attitude than everybody else,
you can go as far as youwant to. And I've always kind of
(16:17):
held that belief. And there's alwaysbeen ups and downs, people that I
love working for, people that Ididn't love working for, and I think
that everybody goes through those things.But the idea for me was kind of
perseverance and that I was willing todo whatever it takes. When I told
you earlier about my career, fromroughly eighteen until about twenty seven, I
was in twenty three different cities,ten different states in nine years moving and
(16:38):
I will never forget this. Peoplestill tease me about it that know me
from back then. They would walkin and say, so my boss or
the boss's boss would walk in andsay, Tim, we want to promote
you, we want you to gohere. My answer was absolutely, Do
you want to know how much you'regonna get paid? Nope, just want
to go. And so in oneyear, I was like in four different
states with promotion, next promotion,next promotion, or even lateral, but
(17:03):
just the experience. And so youknow, I think that most people don't
realize they sabotage their own careers bynot taking opportunities when they're given. And
you talk about any I think anyCEO you talk to will tell you that
people that are willing and wanting togrow, they love that, they support
that. It's the people that say, gosh, I'm really happy and I
don't want to do a whole lotmore. That's hard. And if that's
(17:25):
what your company has as the baseof who the team members are, people
that say, no, I reallydon't want to do a lot more,
you're going to have a hard timegrowing. And that's one of the things
we are so fortunate about here isour leaders are hungry. We want to
make sure we keep them hungry.We pay them well, we incent them
well. And it's all this ideathat here you can be anything you want
to be. And I'm really fortunate. You know, years ago, I
wouldn't tell my story. I didn'twant people to know that I didn't finish
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high school. I didn't want peopleto know that I was out of my
own sixteen. I didn't want anybodyto know that. And one of my
former former CEO here and a greatmentor of mindset. You have to tell
people this. I mean, thisis exactly the kind of stories that people
need to hear. And I startedtelling it, and then all of a
sudden people come up going I hadno idea. I really feel like I
(18:10):
have a chance to do something.Now. We just had one of our
great team members come in and hespoke. We had a breakfast for our
alumni board members. Right, we'vebeen around for a long time. There's
a lot of people that have servedon our boards, and so we have
a breakfast every year to kind ofthank them. And so this young man
came in and told his story.He was the first enrollly at our adult
high school. He started with usat the very bottom, worked his way
(18:33):
up. He now runs one ofour divisions in our kind of landscaping side
of our company. And he talkedabout how it changed his life and how
it changed his family's life. Butwhat got me is is he was telling
his story, he was talking abouthim and wanted to go back and get
his education. He said, andnow both of my kids are at the
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top of their class. That's whatthe value of skills training is. That's
what the value of being a companywhere you promote people within, where you
take care of them, where yougive them skills, because it's not just
about him. He's now instilled thatin his children and they're the top of
their class. And for me,I mean, how can you think of
anything better to do with your lifethan doing something like I'm doing? Agreed,
And I know that I'm not thefirst one, and I certainly won't
(19:17):
be the last. That really isan extraordinary story where I know that as
you're telling it, the passion comesthrough folks, and that's a common thread,
Tim, and I know it's notgoing to surprise you. Passion,
tenacity, saying yes and not takingno for an answer as well too.
All those things come together if youwant to be a leader and get the
opportunities and work your tail off andmaybe a little luck and the little timing
(19:40):
and you get what you want outthere. So thank you for sharing all
that, Tim, I did wantto leave the floor with you. As
we wrap up. It seems likethere are so many extraordinary things happening with
a goodwill of Central and Northern Arizonaright now, and it looks like the
future is also bright. But maybethere's some final thoughts for some people that
live in the region that you wouldlike to share with them before we let
you go. Yeah, asolutely,and not just in the region, but
(20:00):
anywhere that people may be listening.Remember all the great things that I just
talked about that Goodwill does, It'snot Goodwill that does them. It's all
of you. It's the people thatclean out their closets. It's the people
that donate to us, it's thepeople that shop with us, it's the
people that refer their friends and familyfor our employment services. You're the ones
that make all of this happen,and you're the ones that have always made
all of this happen. So ifyou love what Goodwill does, if you
(20:22):
want to see your fellow human bethe best version they can be, no
matter where they are in life,donate to Goodwill because we really take those
dollars. People think we're a forprofit. We are not. We are
a five oh one c three notfor profit. Every Goodwill is that,
And when you donate to us,all those dollars go back and they stay
in your community to provide services forthe people that are most in need.
Well said Tim, And let's giveeverybody that website before we let you go
(20:45):
sure ours is goodwillas dot org.Please visit us. You can see all
of our retail locations, where todonate, all the services we offer.
And again, just thank all ofyou for all the support you've given to
Goodwill all these years. Well damit's been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed
our conversation. I can't tell youhow much I really enjoyed this in all
the great work you and your teamare doing, because I know you're really
proud of them too. So keepup the good work, continued success,
and thank you so much for joiningus on CEOs you should know. Thanks
(21:07):
Sir Tim O'Neil, CEO of Goodwill, the CEO you should know, read
a bio, see a photo,and here the extended interview at WMA n
FM dot com. Leading means havinga vision and sharing it with others.
I'm John Roby of RFI Insurance.We're excited to bring you this program featuring
(21:29):
CEOs from our area who will sharethe thoughts and what it means to work
and live in north central Ohio.
The CEO you Should Know, broughtto you by Roby Foster Miller Eric Insurance.
This week's CEO Tim O'Neil, CEOof Goodwill. I was born in
California on a farm. I'm theyoungest of six kids by a long way.
My parents were forty six and fortyseven when they had me, and
(00:20):
so they decided to do an earlyretirement in mid seventies when farming was not
the right right field to be in, and we ended up moving everywhere.
I can't even remember how many schoolsI went to around the country and ended
up in Arizona in about nineteen eightysix. I was actually out of my
own when I was sixteen, andso I was really fortunate. I had
some great mentors that taught me theretail business, and then when I was
(00:43):
eighteen, I found one of Goodwill'scompetitors and started with them as a donation
attendant, taking donations out of theback of people's cars. Worked my way
up, got into management with them, and moved all over the country helping
open stores for them, and thenI came to Goodwill in nineteen ninety nine,
and it's absolutely been the best thingthat's ever happened to me. The
mission of Goodwill is really that ideaof helping people be the best they can
(01:03):
be, ending poverty, generational shifts, the way we think about education,
and Goodwill does all those things.And so for me, I started out
here, grew through the ranks,and became a CEO about eleven years ago.
Well, Tim, it's fortuitous totalk to you because we don't get
an opportunity to talk to too manypeople that have been at a company for
so long. We've been in thesame industry for three plus decades, which
(01:26):
is extraordinary in itself. So I'mgoing to talk to you later about rising
the ranks and about what you wantedto do as opposed to maybe what they
wanted to do, and how thosethings came together for you to run the
company a CEO for Goodwill of Centraland Northern Arizona. Before we do that,
I would like to give a littlecontext overall. We'll ask a mission
statement, then we'll get into yourprogram as the capabilities. But before we
(01:49):
do any of that, I knowGoodwill's been associated with thrift and clothes,
but there's so much more than that. I'd love to hear about the evolution
because you've been there for all ofit at one time. Once again,
in the seventies, I'm a seventieskid too. You gave your clothes a
good Well, you could still dothat too in any of the places around
the United States and the country.But with that said, when did the
dynamic change of doing more than that? How did that all come about?
(02:10):
Well, actually, believe it ornot, it was the other way around.
So we were very much a socialservice agency before the retail part of
it came and founded in nineteen ohtwo by Reverend Edgar J. Helms in
Boston, Massachusetts, and it wasreally this idea of taking clothes or articles,
furniture, whatever it may be,from the richest neighborhoods of Boston and
(02:32):
moving them to the poorest neighborhoods.And what they would do is they'd actually
give those clothing or those furniture itemsto the folks that were the most in
need, and they could either usethem for themselves or they could repair them
and resell them. And so itwas really this idea of again helping people
rise out of poverty and be thebest they can be. And the clothing
piece of it, and the thriftpiece of it came out of that,
(02:53):
and then it was really formalized aswe moved into probably the twenties and thirties
and the retail model growing, andthen really about the seventies, thrift kind
of took hold. But all ofthat, the only reason that we do
any of those retail operations is themission, and it's this idea of you
know, here in Arizona, we'llprovide almost five hundred thousand free services this
(03:14):
year alone, all because you cleanout your closets. That is everything from
our adult high school, getting peoplebetter education so they have better lives.
We have a micro school concept thatallows kids in the most impoverished neighborhoods to
get a great quality education. Wehave an online platform called my Career Advisor.
It's actually global and it started herein Arizona and it serves people.
(03:35):
One of the real barriers to peoplereceiving the best possible services is transportation.
They simply can't get to a placeto receive the services they need. So
we created this online platform to bethe conduit to figure out, in Triosh,
what do they need right now andwhere do we get them either they
come to us or whether we getthem to another partner to save them the
time, and it really is abouthelping people get into the best possible jobs
so they can change the lives fortheir families. And it has worked,
(03:59):
and so right now this goodwill froma retail standpoint is the largest in the
world by a long way. Wealso provide tens of thousands of people services
every year. There's five hundred thousandfree services, and there's so much more
to come. So it was reallythe mission first, and then the retail
came as the fundraising mechanism because atthis organization specifically, we take very little
(04:19):
government funding. Really all of ourdollars are made through the thrift operations and
that's all put back into serving thecommunity. Tell us a little bit about
the team that you work with,and we're talking about six thousand plus and
going strong with that said, that'sa lot of people, so that means
you have to have strong management andgreat communication but as a leader to make
sure that everybody gets to do whatyou need them to do. But also
(04:42):
they all have fulfilling lives and we'rein a new world now where there's hybrid
there's a working away from work,there's traveling so forth, there's so many
different venues in different layers that youcan go to. How do you get
it done making sure that there's agood work life balance with that entire team
that you have. Well, youknow, I will tell you are very
fortunate. And you referenced I've beenin the business for three decades before,
(05:03):
believe it or not. My secondin command here, her and I have
been working together for all thirty plusyears, and so you know, without
her and without the strength and wehave a lot of folks here. We
have people that are twenty plus yearsall over our leadership team, and so
we're very fortunate, and I thinkthat creates the foundation. We very much
believe in a servant leadership model,always have. We kind of preach it,
(05:24):
we kind of teach it, andwe want to make sure that our
leaders are giving our teams the bestpossible training and education. And we're also
an organization that promotes heavily from within. You know, Thrift is a very
specific business, social service a veryspecific business, and very different mindsets in
those two kinds of industries. Wehave to bring those together and we have
to bild that training and we dothat pretty well. And we do it
(05:45):
again. The foundation of the strongleadership. But we also this organization probably
spends more as a percent to revenuethan any organization I've seen around culture,
and so we have these crazy cultureevents where really more than anything is around
getting to know your teammates, gettingto know your leaders, your fellow leaders,
and it's everything from leadership games togoing out and breaking bread together.
(06:08):
I think that too many businesses anymorehave become very sanitized, and there's this
idea that you shouldn't know the peopleyou work with, and I completely disagree
with that. I think that wetreat this like a family and it comes
across that way, and I hopeour teams feel it. We are very
unique in that the culture breeds ourability to grow people and to make them
the best people, best leaders theycan be. We're also an organization that
(06:30):
does something completely backwards in the wayyou would think of normal business. And
so I reference our online platform thatgoes out to the public called my Career
Matters or my Career Advisor. Ouronline platform for our team is called my
Career Matters, and we will takethem. We will give them every service
that anybody in the community could askfor that we provide to the general community.
(06:50):
We will also train them for ajob, and not a job with
us. We will train them togo get a job with someone else.
So if somebody can pay more thanwe can pay, and that person is
qualified for it, we encourage themto go get that job. So in
our case, we think of turnoveras being good winever it's done that way,
and I don't know many employers thatwould even think of training somebody knowing
(07:13):
you want them to go get ajob somewhere else. Let's talk about how
you work with the community and getthe word out because you have all these
different fantastic programs that you do onlineand so forth. If you want to
get a new job or how todo this or how to do that.
We talked about the closed portion,and there's so many more capabilities and programs
that you do that you can touchon in just a moment. But when
it comes to out reaching the communityto let them know what you're doing.
(07:35):
Beside interviews like this, how doyou get a chance to meet up with
them and let them know we've gotthis for you. You should join us
and check it out. We doa lot of storytelling and so along with
traditional marketing and the way you thinkof marketing any business. We do those
things, but we learned a longtime ago that we're complex. And as
you said, everybody knows the thriftstores, not a lot of people know
(07:55):
the mission impact. And so webring in community organizations, we bring leaders,
we bring in local politicians, anybodythat we can into our facilities.
We tour them, we talk aboutthe mission. We let them hear from
people that have actually gone through ourtrainings and helping them be the best they
can be. And so, youknow, all these years I've been doing
this, what you hear from oneplace around the country to the next is
(08:16):
I didn't know Goodwill did that.And the best possible way to fix that
is to storytell. I mean,you know, I'm sure my board here
would tell you. You know.What they challenged me with was be out
in the community, be a leader, be talking, you know, learn
how to showcase the brand. Andthat's the way we really get the message
out. The first time we starteddoing this, I had a gentleman come
up and he said, you know, I've been working with Goodwill for twenty
(08:37):
years and I had no idea.This is what you did. All the
mass media, all the radio interviewsyou could ever ask for TV interviews.
Storytelling and being personal has been thebest way to get the message out and
the best way to get people involved. You know. I'm glad you talked
about that because it brought back acore memory for me. When I was
in this industry back in the earlyodds, there was a non named furniture
(08:58):
store that's very famous, said doesMarker Loungers Okay, And I remember they
came in and said, we don'twant to be known as your dad's so
and so anymore. And that's somethingthat you guys have probably wrestled with Goodwill
these years, basically reinventing yourself.Yeah, very much. And you know,
I mean Goodwill is truly a legacybrand. I mean, how many
organizations do you know that last onehundred and twenty plus years, right,
(09:18):
And so part of what we haveto do is we have to showcase and
mission changes. Right. So,when you go back and you think about
in the seventies and the way thatwe looked at helping people that were in
the most distress, severely disabled,mentally, ill, whatever it may be,
we actually did things like kidding,which meant we put together like your
(09:39):
new homeowner kit from at that time, like the telephone company or whatever it
may have been. We did thingslike we helped build boat covers for Bimini
boats, and those were all thingsthat were simple tasks or easy to do.
But what happened with those folks isonce those industries went away, they
weren't trained for the real world anymore. And so we went from that and
we had to transition into things likereally teach them soft skills, then teaching
(10:01):
them just life skills, and thenteaching them how to work in a traditional
employment environment to make them the bestthey can be. And so mission for
us changes with the times for whateveris needed. And so you have to
invince yourself and reinventce yourself over andover and over. And so that's why
for us, telling the story constantlyis important. You know, this is
(10:22):
a really good leadership teaching moment.I'm glad you brought that up, Tim,
because what you're talking about something thatI do in my line of work
too, is that I never standpat and I always freshen it up.
I come on new ideas. Somethings are going to stick against the wall,
some aren't. But as a leader, it's always fluid is and I
think that's the point we want toget across to future entrepreneurs there and people
that want to run a company,that you should never stop the walking,
(10:45):
the thinking, the talking about it. Now, I completely agree, and
I'll tell you you know that Ichange is hard, and we have all
seen when change didn't work. ButI really believe change is good and if
you do it the right way,it's healthy. It helps you grow your
company, it helps people become thebest they can be, because when you
go through hard times or you gothrough a new situation, you should come
out of it better if we've doneit right. And so I totally think
(11:07):
that that that metamorphosis never stops.Well said Tim. As far as going
on right now or maybe even thefuture of the next couple of years,
is there anything they're really excites youabout what's coming up next or something that
you're super proud of. Yeah.So one of the things that I love
the most is the way we've gotteninto education. And you know, I've
spent a lot of time traveling andtrying to understand where communities really need to
(11:30):
be served. And you know,we've got this concept called the Excel Center
and their adult high schools for peopletwenty two and up very needed because for
the life span of somebody working,the difference between having a GED and having
a high school diploma is almost sixhundred thousand dollars over their working life,
and that's changing, that changes theirfamily. It's a generational shift in education
and poverty. But what that reallydoes is it kind of fixes today's problem.
(11:54):
Meaning just in Arizona alone, wehave over a million people that don't
have a high school diploma and onlyone school, our school put in place
to fix that and for us,and I tell people this when we storytell
that is a problem about helping growour tax spase. I mean, these
people make more, they now getback to society different ways, and they
do improve their lives and their families'lives. What I've really been most excited
(12:16):
about is this idea of our microschools. And it's a school system where
you have ten to twelve students withone teacher and you can put them in
a partner organization. You need asmall room and a table, and it's
every grade level you can imagine kindof mixed. These kids go through it,
they usually come out far above theirpeers and testing when they come out
of a school system like this andyou put them in the most impoverished communities,
where you put them in specialized populations, and it creates this mechanism where
(12:39):
the people that are going to bethe most challenged growing up. Because I've
seen these kids, we've done this. They don't have breakfast at home,
they don't have lunch at home,they don't have dinner at home, so
we have to feed them. Ina lot of cases, or even on
the weekends. We've done this before, we had to send food packets home
for their families. A kid cannotgo to school if they have to go
twenty miles across, if they haveto walk and fight their way there because
(13:01):
of the gangs every day, andif they don't have food, so their
minds can work. So these microschools can actually be put in these neighborhoods
so that you can actually control someof what happens. And all of a
sudden, you shifted their mindset inthat somebody does care about me, somebody
does care that equality school is inmy area. And they may not realize
that in kindergarten, but I guaranteeyou by the time they get to be
ten, eleven, twelve years old, and certainly on they're going to be
(13:24):
thankful that they had a caring teacherthat a small classroom size, and somebody
that taught them at their pace.Well, Tim, I'm glad you share
that. I can see why you'reso excited about that. The future looks
bright. I did want to askyou about some challenges, because we always
know when you're running a company,it's not always rainbows and unicorns all the
time. It's windy up there atthe top. So with all that said,
what kind of current challenges do youhave right now? You know,
(13:45):
I see the real challenges is morearound the way that we think are fellow
humans. You know, the homelesspopulation is growing dramatically, and I can't
speak for the East Coast, butI can tell you in the West Coast
is pervasive and it's getting worse byeach day. And we have to come
up with a solution where we getthese folks housed, whether it's emergency shelters,
getting them into hotel conversions, thengetting them into real housing and home
(14:07):
ownership. But at the same time, we need them skills and that's where
this education or skills training comes in. And you know. I was having
a head of debate with one ofour housing directors here in Arizona a number
of years ago, and the questionwas what do you need first, a
job or a house? The answers, you need both. And so if
you can get them housed, evenif it's in an emergency shelter, get
(14:28):
them skilled so that the next timethey move into a hotel, conversion,
or whatever it may be, thenthey are starting to work. And so
it may be a process of ninetydays, it may be a process of
nine months, but you're doing bothbecause with just housing and not training them,
they'll be homeless again soon. Withouthousing and just a job, they
will be out of that job becausethey can't take a shower, they can't
(14:50):
sleep, they can't do those things. So it has to be both.
And so I think the real challengeis we need to kind of accept this
idea that homelessness is not necessarily achoice people. A lot of people,
especially after the pandemic, have justbeen completely displaced, and so you have
chronic homeless and then you have thepeople that really wish that someone could help
them, really wish that somebody caredenough to get them trained into a job.
(15:13):
And really wished that there was anorganization that cared enough to get themselves
and their families back into a safespace. That is one hundred percent what
Goodwill does. Well, thanks forsharing that and expounding on it, because
that's really important stuff. So I'mglad that we talked about that for a
few moments. I did want totalk to you about you, and we
kind of went over this at thetop. I mean, your growth and
your ascension is incredible now. Itprobably took several years, and I don't
(15:35):
know if it took as long asyou wanted to, but you started at
at the base level and now you'reCEO of a company. Now we have
a lot of curren CEOs that listento the series and future entrepreneurs that would
like to run their own companies.I realized that your story is your story.
But with all that said, canyou tell us a little bit about
your thoughts and your hopes, howthe company treated you, how you treated
(15:56):
the company as you stayed in thisworking to get to this. It's the
EEO that you are now. It'san incredible story, so I hope you
share that with us now. Happyto you know, I was lucky that
I had great parents, and Inever forget my mom and dad saying if
you work harder than everybody else andhave a better attitude than everybody else,
you can go as far as youwant to. And I've always kind of
(16:17):
held that belief. And there's alwaysbeen ups and downs, people that I
love working for, people that Ididn't love working for, and I think
that everybody goes through those things.But the idea for me was kind of
perseverance and that I was willing todo whatever it takes. When I told
you earlier about my career, fromroughly eighteen until about twenty seven, I
was in twenty three different cities,ten different states in nine years moving and
(16:38):
I will never forget this. Peoplestill tease me about it that know me
from back then. They would walkin and say, so my boss or
the boss's boss would walk in andsay, Tim, we want to promote
you, we want you to gohere. My answer was absolutely, Do
you want to know how much you'regonna get paid? Nope, just want
to go. And so in oneyear, I was like in four different
states with promotion, next promotion,next promotion, or even lateral, but
(17:03):
just the experience. And so youknow, I think that most people don't
realize they sabotage their own careers bynot taking opportunities when they're given. And
you talk about any I think anyCEO you talk to will tell you that
people that are willing and wanting togrow, they love that, they support
that. It's the people that say, gosh, I'm really happy and I
don't want to do a whole lotmore. That's hard. And if that's
(17:25):
what your company has as the baseof who the team members are, people
that say, no, I reallydon't want to do a lot more,
you're going to have a hard timegrowing. And that's one of the things
we are so fortunate about here isour leaders are hungry. We want to
make sure we keep them hungry.We pay them well, we incent them
well. And it's all this ideathat here you can be anything you want
to be. And I'm really fortunate. You know, years ago, I
wouldn't tell my story. I didn'twant people to know that I didn't finish
(17:49):
high school. I didn't want peopleto know that I was out of my
own sixteen. I didn't want anybodyto know that. And one of my
former former CEO here and a greatmentor of mindset. You have to tell
people this. I mean, thisis exactly the kind of stories that people
need to hear. And I startedtelling it, and then all of a
sudden people come up going I hadno idea. I really feel like I
(18:10):
have a chance to do something.Now. We just had one of our
great team members come in and hespoke. We had a breakfast for our
alumni board members. Right, we'vebeen around for a long time. There's
a lot of people that have servedon our boards, and so we have
a breakfast every year to kind ofthank them. And so this young man
came in and told his story.He was the first enrollly at our adult
high school. He started with usat the very bottom, worked his way
(18:33):
up. He now runs one ofour divisions in our kind of landscaping side
of our company. And he talkedabout how it changed his life and how
it changed his family's life. Butwhat got me is is he was telling
his story, he was talking abouthim and wanted to go back and get
his education. He said, andnow both of my kids are at the
(18:55):
top of their class. That's whatthe value of skills training is. That's
what the value of being a companywhere you promote people within, where you
take care of them, where yougive them skills, because it's not just
about him. He's now instilled thatin his children and they're the top of
their class. And for me,I mean, how can you think of
anything better to do with your lifethan doing something like I'm doing? Agreed,
And I know that I'm not thefirst one, and I certainly won't
(19:17):
be the last. That really isan extraordinary story where I know that as
you're telling it, the passion comesthrough folks, and that's a common thread,
Tim, and I know it's notgoing to surprise you. Passion,
tenacity, saying yes and not takingno for an answer as well too.
All those things come together if youwant to be a leader and get the
opportunities and work your tail off andmaybe a little luck and the little timing
(19:40):
and you get what you want outthere. So thank you for sharing all
that, Tim, I did wantto leave the floor with you. As
we wrap up. It seems likethere are so many extraordinary things happening with
a goodwill of Central and Northern Arizonaright now, and it looks like the
future is also bright. But maybethere's some final thoughts for some people that
live in the region that you wouldlike to share with them before we let
you go. Yeah, asolutely,and not just in the region, but
(20:00):
anywhere that people may be listening.Remember all the great things that I just
talked about that Goodwill does, It'snot Goodwill that does them. It's all
of you. It's the people thatclean out their closets. It's the people
that donate to us, it's thepeople that shop with us, it's the
people that refer their friends and familyfor our employment services. You're the ones
that make all of this happen,and you're the ones that have always made
all of this happen. So ifyou love what Goodwill does, if you
(20:22):
want to see your fellow human bethe best version they can be, no
matter where they are in life,donate to Goodwill because we really take those
dollars. People think we're a forprofit. We are not. We are
a five oh one c three notfor profit. Every Goodwill is that,
And when you donate to us,all those dollars go back and they stay
in your community to provide services forthe people that are most in need.
Well said Tim, And let's giveeverybody that website before we let you go
(20:45):
sure ours is goodwillas dot org.Please visit us. You can see all
of our retail locations, where todonate, all the services we offer.
And again, just thank all ofyou for all the support you've given to
Goodwill all these years. Well damit's been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed
our conversation. I can't tell youhow much I really enjoyed this in all
the great work you and your teamare doing, because I know you're really
proud of them too. So keepup the good work, continued success,
and thank you so much for joiningus on CEOs you should know. Thanks
(21:07):
Sir Tim O'Neil, CEO of Goodwill, the CEO you should know, read
a bio, see a photo,and here the extended interview at WMA n
FM dot com. Leading means havinga vision and sharing it with others.
I'm John Roby of RFI Insurance.We're excited to bring you this program featuring
(21:29):
CEOs from our area who will sharethe thoughts and what it means to work
and live in north central Ohio.
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