Retiring Goodwill CEO leaves legacy of change
Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest has announced the retirement of president and CEO Bobbi Johnson, whose nationally recognized innovation and management acumen over the past 27 years transformed the regional organization dedicated to building independence among the disadvantaged.
Goodwill’s board of directors named as Johnson’s successor Clarke M. Brekke, who has worked for the nonprofit agency since 1996, most recently as chief operating officer.
Johnson, who accepted the leadership of Goodwill on an interim basis in 1982, oversaw the transformation of the agency from near bankruptcy to a $15 million operation with 12 retail stores and seven work force development offices in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.
Her flair for retail helped turn the operation around. She had the once-musty stores painted, hung clothing on racks, improved merchandise displays and advertised on TV.
“We run our retail stores like a business. We don’t look at ourselves as a charity,” Johnson told The Spokesman-Review in 1998.
Last year, Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest helped more than 2,600 disabled and low-income people become independent through job training, job placement and other services.
In 1997, Johnson received the highest award for a Goodwill Industries International CEO, the Kenneth K. King Outstanding Management Award.
She had previously won a national Goodwill Award for staff development.
In 2005, Johnson won Goodwill Industries International’s Robert E. Watkins Award for Mission Advancement for her work in reintegrating prison inmates into the community.
The Community Gateway program she led saw a 90 percent job placement rate and an 84 percent job retention rate.
As a result of Goodwill’s success in this area, Goodwill also served as community adviser for the Going Home Initiative, a federally funded project to match violent young offenders with community mentors.
She also is the only person to twice win the YWCA Spokane’s Woman of Achievement Award, for public and community services in 1985, and for businesswoman of the year 1995.
“She is a unique combination of passion for service and exuberance for life,” Diane Galloway, Goodwill’s public relations manager, said of her longtime friend and boss.