By Ormonde E. Lewis

James (“Jim”) Stiff of Augusta is the president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries of Middle Georgia and the Central Savannah River Area, an agency that is making great strides in serving the unemployed.

He was born near a small village in Michigan. Like many of us, some of his earliest images as a child were of being brought up Catholic. These include memories of kneeling and saying the Rosary with his grand­mother, while nearby his grandfather watched the Jackie Gleason Show on television. He also recalls how his altar boy training at Saint John the Evan­gelist Church in Fenton, Michigan, changed midway as Vatican II evolved and altered the liturgy. The Baltimore Catechism would be replaced by religion class textbooks. It was a period of change for the church and, for Stiff, it was a period of discovery.

Career change

While in college, Stiff changed his mind regarding his career choice after meeting a group of American Church of Christ missionaries in the Greek Islands. There to do anthropology studies in his junior year, Stiff was invited by the missionaries to join them as they traced the steps of Saint Paul through the New Testament churches of Asia Minor. According to Stiff, “theology, rather than psychology, became my ‘ology’ of choice and it set the stage for future religious graduate studies. I began to see that the process of spiritual conversion in Christ is ultimately a result of God’s power, beyond my thirst for truth, logic and seeking.”

The next few years saw Stiff be­come an outspoken “born again crusader.” His critical views of the Catholic Church, which he believed failed to evangelize and catechize him in the period after Vatican II, softened after he met John Michael Talbot, the singer-guitarist and founder of the monastic group, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. After numerous discussion sessions with Talbot and a friend, Daniel Nichols, Stiff sensed that the Lord was calling him back to the Catholic Church through the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Stiff says he sensed that the Lord was saying to him, “Jim, I love the Catholic Church, I founded her over 2,000 years ago and she is filled with and led by forgiven sinners just like you. Go back into my beautiful Church and rebuild it, but only after you have been rebuilt and renewed by the many graces within her.” He returned to the church and went on to earn a graduate degree in Religious Studies from the Notre Dame Pontifical Catechetical Institute.

Goodwill Industries

After doing night shift work as a counselor at a psychiatric hospital, Stiff was led to Goodwill Industries by Jay Jagoe, a successful businessman and fellow parishioner at Holy Redeemer Church in Ken­sington, Maryland. Stiff went on to do six years of executive training with Goodwill Industries, and then accepted a position in 1994 as president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries of Middle Ge­orgia.
One of Stiff’s first accomplishments at Goodwill was to convince the agency’s board to place the word “God” in the mission statement that defines Goodwill’s purpose. Today, Goodwill Industries of Middle Georgia and the Central Savannah River Area is the only Goodwill in the world to directly connect Goodwill to its spiritual roots in its organizational mission statement: “The mission of Goodwill Industries is to build lives, families and communities—one job at a time—by helping people discover and develop their God-given gifts through work and career development services.”
During his first six months, Stiff prayed daily at Saint Joseph Church in Macon for guidance in building Goodwill’s businesses to serve the unemployed. It appears his prayers were answered for in seven years the area served by his organization has expanded from a 14 county area to a 35 county service area and the number of employees increased from 60 to 600. Goodwill’s operating budget went from $1.2 million to over $60 million. It has become the largest pro­vider of welfare to work services in the state of Georgia and the fastest growing Goodwill in the world for five consecutive years. He now tra­vels be­tween Augusta and Macon each week as the services of Good­will con­tinue to reach out across the state.

Visionary dreamer

Sister Rosina Bayliss, rsm, former board chair and education committee chair and Sister Geraldyne Yerg, op, director of education have been two important leaders on Jim Stiff’s Goodwill team. According to Sister Rosina, “When working with Jim Stiff, one must have on running shoes. Keeping up with him is a challenge. As a visionary dreamer, he is always trying to improve existing programs and develop new ones to address the needs of the clients.” Both sisters would have the public recognize that when they donate items to Goodwill the profits go into the training programs to complete Goodwill's mission, “to build lives, families, and communities, one job at a time, by helping people discover and develop their God-given gifts through work and career development services.”

Stiff’s wife, Meredith, is Executive Director of Goodwill Works Foundation. She is a recent convert to the Catholic Church. They have six children: Sarah, Anna, Rebekah, Philip, Clare, and Valerie Rose. The Stiffs continue to “arm wrestle” over which parish will become their home parish: Saint Mary on the Hill or Most Holy Trinity.
Jim Stiff is another Catholic in the Diocese of Savannah who is making a difference in the lives of others.