CEOs You Should Know- Goodwill of Central & N. Arizona

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I was born in California on afarm. I'm the youngest of six kids
by a long way. My parentswere forty six and forty seven when they
had me, and so they decidedto do an early retirement in mid seventies
when farming was not the right rightfield to be in, and we ended
up moving everywhere. I can't evenremember how many schools I went to around
the country and ended up in Arizonain about nineteen eighty six. I was

(00:23):
actually out on my own when Iwas sixteen, and so I was really
fortunate to find some great mentors thattaught me the retail business. And then
when I was eighteen, I foundone of Goodwill's competitors and started with them
as a donation attendant, taking donationsout of the back of people's cars.
Worked my way up, got intomanagement with them, and moved all over
the country helping open stores for them, and then I came to Goodwill in

(00:44):
nineteen ninety nine, and it's absolutelybeen the best thing that's ever happened to
me. The mission of Goodwill isreally that idea of helping people be the
best they can be, ending poverty, generational shifts. The way we think
about education, and Goodwill does allthose things, and so for me,
I started out here, I grewthrough the ranks and became the CEO about
eleven years ago. Well, Tim, it's fortuitives to talk to you because

(01:06):
we don't get an opportunity to talkto too many people that have been at
a company for so long. We'vebeen in the same industry for three plus
decades, which is extraordinary in itself. So I'm going to talk to you
later about rising the ranks and aboutwhat you wanted to do as opposed to
maybe what they wanted to do,and how those things came together for you
to run the company. A CEOfor goodwialth Central and Northern Arizona. Before

(01:26):
we do that, I would liketo give a little context overall. We'll
ask a mission statement, then we'llget into your program as the capabilities.
But before we do any of that, I know Goodwill's been associated with thrift
and clothes, but there's so muchmore than that. I'd love to hear
about the evolution because you've been therefor all of it at one time.
Once again, in the seventies.What I'm a seventies kid too. You

(01:49):
gave your clothes to good. Well, you could still do that too in
any of the places around the UnitedStates and the country. But with that
said, when did the dynamic changeof doing more than that? How did
that all come about? Well,actually, believe it or not, it
was the other way around. Sowe were very much a social service agency
before the retail part of it cameand founded in nineteen oh two by Reverend

(02:09):
Edgar J. Helms in Boston,Massachusetts, and it was really this idea
of taking clothes or articles, furniture, whatever it may be, from the
richest neighborhoods of Boston and moving themto the poorest neighborhoods. And what they
would do is they'd actually give thoseclothing or those furniture items to the folks
that were the most in need,and they could either use them for themselves

(02:29):
or they could repair them and resellthem. And so it was really this
idea of again helping people rise outof poverty and be the best they can
be. And the clothing piece ofit and the thrift piece of it came
out of that, and then itwas really formalized as we moved into probably
the twenties and thirties, and theretail model started growing and then really about

(02:49):
the seventies, thrift kind of tookhold. But all of that, the
only reason that we do any ofthose retail operations is the mission, and
it's this idea of here in Arizonaprovide almost five hundred thousand free services this
year alone, all because you cleanout your closets. That is everything from
our adult high school, getting peopleat better education so they have better lives.

(03:09):
We have a micro school concept thatallows kids in the most impoverished neighborhoods
to get a great quality education.We have an online platform called my Career
Advisor. It's actually global and itstarted here in Arizona and it serves people.
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.

(03:30):
So we created this online platform tobe the conduit to figure out in Triosh,
what do they need right now andwhere do we get them, either
they come to us or whether weget them to another partner to save them
the time. And it really isabout helping people get into the best possible
jobs so they can change their livesfor their families, and it has worked,
and so right now this goodwill froma retail standpoint is the largest in

(03:50):
the world by a long way.We also provide tens of thousands of people
services every year, those five hundredthousand free services, and there's so much
more to come. So it wasreally the mission first, and then the
retail came as the fundraising mechanism becauseat this organization specifically, we take very
little government funding. Really all ofour dollars are made through the thrift operations

(04:11):
and that's all put back into servingthe community. 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's a lot of people, so that
means you have to have strong managementand great communication but as a leader to
make sure that everybody gets to dowhat you need them to do. But
also they all have fulfilling lives.And we're in a new world now where

(04:33):
there's hybrid there's a working away fromwork, there's traveling so forth. There's
so many different venues in different layersthat you can go to. How do
you get it done making sure thatthere's a good work life balance with that
entire team that you have. Well, you know, I will tell you
we are very fortunate. And youreferenced I've been in the business for three
decades before, believe it or not, my second in command here, her

(04:53):
and I have been working together forall thirty plus years. Wow. And
so you know, without her andwithout the strength and we have a lot
of folks here. We have peoplethat are twenty plus years all over our
leadership team. And so we're veryfortunate, and I think that creates the
foundation. We very much believe ina servant leadership model, always have.
We kind of preach it, wekind of teach it, and we want
to make sure that our leaders aregiving our teams the best possible training and

(05:16):
education. And we're also an organizationthat promotes heavily from within. You know,
Thrift is a very specific business,social service a very specific business,
and very different mindsets than those twokinds of industries. We have to bring
those together and we have to bildthat training, and we do that pretty
well, and we do it againthe foundation of the strong leadership. But
we also this organization probably spends moreas a percent to revenue than any organization

(05:41):
I've seen around culture, and sowe have these crazy culture events where really
more than anything is around getting toknow your teammates, getting to know your
leaders, your fellow leaders, andit's everything from leadership games to going out
and breaking bread together. I thinkthat too many businesses anymore have become very
sanitized, and there's this idea thatyou shouldn't know the people you work with,

(06:01):
and I completely disagree with that.I think that we treat this like
a family and it comes across thatway, and I hope our teams feel
it. We are very unique inthat the culture breeds our ability to grow
people and to make them the bestpeople, best leaders they can be.
We're also an organization that does somethingcompletely backwards in the way you would think
of normal business. And so Ireference our online platform that goes out to

(06:25):
the public called my Career Matters ormy Career Advisor. Our online platform for
our team is called my Career Matters, and we will take them. We
will give them every service to anybodyin the community could ask for that we
provide to the general community. Wewill also train them for a job,
and not a job with us.We will train them to go get a
job with someone else. So ifsomebody can pay more than we can pay,

(06:47):
and that person is qualified for it, we encourage them to go get
that job. So in our case, we think of turnover as being good
winterver. It's done that way,and I don't know many employers that would
even think of training somebody knowing youwant them to go get a job somewhere
else. Let's talk about how youwork with the community and get the word
out, because you have all thesedifferent fantastic programs that you do online and

(07:11):
so forth. If you want toget a new job or how to do
this or how to do that.We talked about the closed portion, and
there's so many more capabilities and programsthat you do that you can touch on
in just a moment. But whenit comes to out reaching the community to
let them know what you're doing.Beside interviews like this, how do you
get a chance to meet up withthem and let them know we've got this
for you. You should join usand check it out. We do a
lot of storytelling and so along withtraditional marketing and the way you think of

(07:33):
marketing any business. We do thosethings, but we learned a long time
ago that we're complex, and asyou said, everybody knows the thrift stores.
Not a lot of people know themission impact, and so we bring
in community organizations, we bring leaders, we bring in local politicians, anybody
that we can into our facilities.We tour them, we talk about the
mission. We let them hear frompeople that have actually gone through our trainings

(07:56):
and helping them be the best theycan be. And so, you know,
all these years I've been doing this, what you hear from one place
around the country to the next isI didn't know Goodwill did that. And
the best possible way to fix thatis to storytell. I mean, you
know, I'm sure my board herewould tell you. You know. What
they challenged me with was be outin the community, be a leader,
be talking, you know, learnhow to showcase the brand. And that's

(08:18):
the way we really get the messageout. The first time we started doing
this, I had a gentleman comeup and he said, you know,
I've been working with Goodwill for twentyyears and I had no idea. This
is what you did. All themass media, all the radio interviews you
could ever ask for, TV interviews, storytelling and being personal has been the
best way to get the message outand the best way to get people involved.
You know, I'm glad you talkedabout that because it brought back a

(08:39):
core memory for me. When Iwas in this industry back in the early
odds, there was a non namedfurniture store that's very famous, said does
Marker Loungers Okay, and I rememberthey came in and said, we don't
want to be known as your dad'sso and so anymore. And that's something
that you guys have probably wrestled withGoodwill these years, basically reinventing yourself.

(09:00):
Yeah, very much. And youknow, I mean Goodwill is truly a
legacy brand. I mean, howmany organizations do you know that last one
hundred and twenty plus years? Andso part of what we have to do
is we have to showcase and missionchanges. Right, So, when you
go back and you think about inthe seventies and the way that we looked
at helping people that were in themost distress, severely disabled, mentally ill,
whatever it may be. We actuallydid things like kitting, which meant

(09:24):
we put together like your new homeownerkit from at that time, like the
telephone company or whatever it may havebeen. We did things like we helped
build boat covers for bim Andy boats, and those were all things that were
simple tasks that were easy to do. But what happened with those folks is
once those industries went away, theyweren't trained for the real world anymore.
And so we went from that andwe had to transition into things like really

(09:46):
teaching them soft skills, then teachingthem just life skills, and then teaching
them how to work in a traditionalemployment environment to make them the best they
can be. And so mission forus changes with the times for whatever needed.
And so you have to invince yourselfand reinvince yourself over and over and
over. And so that's why forus, telling the story constantly is important.

(10:09):
You know, this is a reallygood leadership teaching moment. I'm glad
you brought that up, Tim,because what you're talking about something that I
do in my line of work too, is that I never stand pat and
I always freshen it up. Icome on new ideas. Some things are
going to stick against the wall,some aren't. But as a leader,
it's always fluid is And I thinkthat's the point we want to get across
to future entrepreneurs there and people thatwant to run a company, that you

(10:31):
should never stop the walking the thinking, the talking about it now, I
completely agree, and I'll tell youyou know that I change is hard,
and we have all seen when changedidn't work. But I really believe change
is good and if you do itthe right way, it's healthy. It
helps you grow your company, ithelps people become the best they can be,
because when you go through hard timesor you go through a new situation,

(10:52):
you should come out of it betterif we've done it right. And
so I totally think that that thatmetamorphosis never stops. Well said Tim.
As far as going on right nowor maybe even the future of the next
couple of years, is there anythingthey're really excites you about what's coming up
next or something that you're super proudof. Yeah. So one of the
things that I love the most isthe way we've gotten into education. And
you know, I've spent a lotof time traveling and trying to understand where

(11:16):
communities really need to be served.And you know, we've got this concept
called the Excel Center and their adulthigh schools for people twenty two and up
very needed because for the lifespan ofsomebody working, the difference between having a
GD and having a high school diplomais almost six hundred thousand dollars over their
working life, and that's changing,that changes their family. It's a generational

(11:37):
shift in education and poverty. Butwhat that really does is it kind of
fixes today's problem. Meaning just inArizona alone, we have over a million
people that don't have a high schooldiploma and only one school, our school
put in place to fix that andfor us. And I tell people this
when we storytell that is a problemabout helping grow our tax spase. I
mean, these people make more,they now give back to society different ways,

(11:58):
and they do prove their lives andtheir families' lives. What I've really
been most excited about is this ideaof our micro schools. And it's a
school system where you have ten totwelve students with one teacher, and you
can put them in a partner organization. You need a small room and a
table, and it's every grade levelyou could imagine, kind of mixed.
These kids go through it, theyusually come out far above their peers and

(12:18):
testing when they come out of aschool system like this, and you put
them in the most impoverished communities whereyou put them in specialized populations and it
creates this mechanism where the people thatare going to be the most challenged growing
up, because I've seen these kids, we've done this. They don't have
breakfast at home, they don't havelunch at home, they don't have dinner
at home, so we have tofeed them. In a lot of cases,

(12:39):
or even on the weekends. We'vedone this before, we had to
send food packets home for their families. A kid cannot go to school if
they have to go twenty miles acrosstown, if they have to walk and
fight their way there because of thegangs every day, and if they don't
have food, so their minds canwork. So these micro schools can actually
be put in these neighborhoods so thatyou can actually control some of what happens.
And all of a sudden, youshifted the mindset in that somebody does

(13:01):
care about me. Somebody does carethat equality school is in my area.
And they may not realize that inkindergarten, but I guarantee you, by
the time they get to be ten, eleven, twelve years old and certainly
on, they're going to be thankfulthat they had a carrying teacher, that
a small classroom size and somebody thattaught them at their pace. Well,
Tim, I'm glad you share that. I can see why you're so excited
about that. The future looks right. I did want to ask you about

(13:22):
some challenges, because we always knowwhen you're running a company, it's not
always rainbows and unicorns all the time. It's windy up there at the top.
So with all that said, whatkind of current challenges do you have
right now? You know, Isee the real challenges is more around the
way that we think are fellow humans. You know, the homeless population is
growing dramatically, and I can't speakfor the East Coast, but I can
tell you in the West Coast ispervasive and it's getting worse by each day.

(13:48):
And we have to come up witha solution where we get these folks
housed, whether it's emergency shelters,getting them into hotel conversions, and getting
them into real housing and home ownership. But at the same time, we
needed them skills and that's for thiseducation or skills training comes in. And
you know, I was having ahead of debate with one of our housing
directors here in Arizona a number ofyears ago, and the question was,
what do you need first a jobor a house. The answers you need

(14:11):
both. And so if you canget them housed, even if it's in
an emergency shelter, get them skilledso that the next time they move into
a hotel, conversion, or whateverit may be, then they are starting
to work. And so it maybe a process of ninety days, it
may be a process of nine months, but you're doing both because with just
housing and not training them, they'llbe homeless again soon. Without housing and

(14:33):
just a job, they will beout of that job because they can't take
a shower, they can't sleep,they can't do those things. So it
has to be both, and soI think the real challenge is we need
to kind of accept this idea thathomelessness is not necessarily a choice by people.
A lot of people, especially afterthe pandemic, have just been completely
displaced, and so you have chronichomeless and then you have the people that

(14:54):
really wish that someone could help them, really wish that somebody cared enough to
get them trained and into a job, and really wished that there was an
organization that cured enough to get themselvesand their families back into a safe space.
That is one hundred percent what Goodwilldoes. Well. Thanks for sharing
that and expounding on it, becausethat's really important stuff. So I'm glad
that we talked about that for afew moments. I did want to talk
to you about you, and wekind of went over this at the top.

(15:18):
I mean, your growth and yourascension is incredible. Now. It
probably took several years, and Idon't know if it took as long as
you wanted to, but you startedout at the base level and now you're
CEO of a company. Now.We have a lot of current CEOs that
listen to the series and future entrepreneursthat would like to run their own companies.
I realized that your story is yourstory. But with all that said,
can you tell us a little bitabout your thoughts and your hopes?

(15:41):
How the company treated you, howyou treated the company as you stayed in
this working to get to the CEOthat you are now. It's an incredible
story, so I hope you sharethat with us now. Happy too.
You know, I was lucky thatI had great parents, and I never
forget my mom and dad saying ifyou work harder than everybody else and have
a better attitude than everybody else,you can go as far as you want

(16:03):
to. And I've always kind ofheld that belief. And there's always been
ups and downs, people that Ilove working for, people that I didn't
love working for, and I thinkthat everybody goes through those things. But
the idea for me was kind ofperseverance and that I was willing to do
whatever it takes. When I toldyou earlier about my career, from roughly
eighteen until about twenty seven, Iwas in twenty three different cities, ten
different states in nine years moving andI will never forget this. People still

(16:29):
tease me about it that know mefrom back then. They would walk in
and say, so my boss orthe boss's boss would walk in and say,
Tim, we want to promote you, We want you to go here.
My answer was absolutely, Do youwant to know how much you're going
to get paid? Nope, justwant to go. And so in one
year, I was like in fourdifferent states with promotion, next promotion,
next promotion, or even lateral,but just the experience. And so,

(16:52):
you know, I think that mostpeople don't realize they sabotage their own careers
by not taking opportunities when they're given. And you talk about any I think
any CEO you talk to will tellyou that people that are willing and wanting
to grow, they love that,they support that. It's the people that
say, gosh, I'm really happyand I don't want to do a whole
lot more. That's hard. Andif that's what your company has as the

(17:14):
base of who the team members are, people that say, no, I
really don't want to do a lotmore, you're going to have a hard
time growing. And that's one ofthe things we are so fortunate about here
is our leaders are hungry. Wewant to make sure we keep them hungry.
We pay them well, we incentthem well, and it's all this
idea that here you can be anythingyou want to be. And I'm really
fortunate. You know, years agoI wouldn't tell my story. I didn't

(17:36):
want people to know that I didn'tfinish high school. I didn't want people
to know that I was out ofmy own sixteen. I didn't want anybody
to know that. And one ofmy former former CEO here and a great
mentor of mindset, you have totell people this, I mean, this
is exactly the kind of stories thatpeople need to hear. And I started
telling it, and then all ofa sudden, people come up going I

(17:56):
had no idea. I really feellike I have a chance to do something.
Now we just have one of ourgreat team members come in and he
spoke, We had a breakfast forour alumni board members. Right, we've
been around for a long time.There's a lot of people that have served
on our boards, and so wehave a breakfast every year to kind of
thank them. And so this youngman came in and told his story.
He was the first enrollly at ouradult high school. He started with us

(18:19):
at the very bottom, worked hisway up. He now runs one of
our divisions in our kind of landscapingside of our company. And he talked
about how it changed his life andhow it changed his family's life. But
what got me is is he wastelling his story, he was talking about
him and wanted to go back andget his education. He said, And

(18:41):
now both of my kids are atthe top of their class. That's what
the value of skills training is.That's what the value of being a company
where you promote people within, whereyou take care of them, where you
give them skills. Because it's notjust about him. He's now instilled that
his children and they're the top oftheir class. And for me, I
mean, how can you think ofanything better to do with your life?
Been doing something like I'm doing,agreed, And I know that I'm not

(19:03):
the first one and I certainly won'tbe the last. That really is an
extraordinary story where I know that asyou're telling yet the passion comes through folks,
and that's a common thread, Timthat I know it's not going to
surprise you. Passion, tenacity,saying yes and not taking no for an
answer as well too. All thosethings come together if you want to be
a leader and get the opportunities andwork your tail off and maybe a little

(19:26):
luck and the little timing and youget what you want out there. So
thank you for sharing all that,Tim, I did want to leave the
floor with you as we wrap up. It seems like there are so many
extraordinary things happening with a goodwill ofCentral and Northern Arizona right now, and
it looks like the future is alsobright. But maybe there's some final thoughts
for some people that live in theregion that you would like to share with
them before we let you go.Yeah. Absolutely, not just in the

(19:48):
region, but anywhere that people maybe listening. Remember all the great things
that I just talked about that Goodwilldoes. It's not Goodwill that does them,
it's all of you. It's thepeople that clean out their closets,
it's the people that donate to us. It's the people that with us.
It's the people that refer their friendsand family for our employment services. You're
the ones that make all of thishappen. And you're the ones that have
always made all of this happen.So if you love what Goodwill does,

(20:08):
if you want to see your fellowhuman be the best version they can be,
no matter where they are in life, donate to Goodwill because we really
take those dollars. People think we'rea for profit. We are not.
We are a five oh one Cthree not for profit. Every Goodwill is
that, and when you donate tous, all those dollars go back and
they stay in your community to provideservices for the people that are most in
need. Well said Tim, Andlet's give everybody that website before we let

(20:32):
you go, sure ours is goodwillasdot org. Please visit us. You
can see all of our retail locations, where to donate, all the services
we offer, and again, justthank all of you for all the support
you've given to Goodwill all these years. Well, dam it's been my pleasure.
I've really enjoyed our conversation. Ican't tell you how much I really
enjoyed this and all the great workyou and your team are doing, because
I know you're really proud of themtoo. So keep up the good work,

(20:52):
continue success, and thank you somuch for joining us on CEOs.
You should know, thanks sir,