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Forgotten Harvest's president and CEO quits for job in D.C. [Detroit Free Press :: ]
[March 12, 2014]

Forgotten Harvest's president and CEO quits for job in D.C. [Detroit Free Press :: ]


(Detroit Free Press (MI) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) March 13--Forgotten Harvest President and CEO Susan Goodell is leaving the Oak Park-based charity for a job with the Global Fund for Children in Washington, D.C.

Forgotten Harvest announced that retired BASF group vice president William Bernstein will serve as interim CEO, while the food-rescue charity searches for a permanent replacement.

Bernstein has been a pro bono consultant for Forgotten Harvest for the past four years and stepped in as CEO when Goodell took a sabbatical to learn about emergency food providers' best practices.

Goodell has been with Forgotten Harvest for the last 13 years; the Maine native came to the charity from Mentium, a Southfield organization that helped women find mentors. Her last day at Forgotten Harvest is March 21. She starts her new job March 24.



Founded in 1990, Forgotten Harvest collected 45.5 million pounds last year of extra prepared and perishable food from 1,200 sources, such as grocery stores, caterers and farmers, to distribute to needy people via 280 emergency food providers throughout the region.

"When I was approaching 50, I sort of sat down and looked at the paths in front of me and realized I could be at Forgotten Harvest forever or I could choose another path and look around and see what else is out there for me," Goodell said Wednesday. "Looking around, I was very skeptical I could find (something I could be) nearly as passionate about as Forgotten Harvest." The Global Fund for Children helps fund and improve existing grassroots groups that help vulnerable children, like those that help with education and prevent human trafficking, for example.


Goodell's annual salary at Forgotten Harvest was about $125,000, according to the organization's Internal Revenue Service Form 990, for the year ending in June 2012. The Global Fund for Children CEO at that time earned more than $162,000.

The changes Goodell instituted at Forgotten Harvest include increasing the staff from about four to 80, increasing the annual budget from $300,000 to $85 million-plus, and expanding the number of meals provided each year from 1 million to 47 million.

Bernstein said he was "very honored and very pleased that this opportunity came about. Just looking forward to doing my best to help our organization. ... Interim or not, I think the challenge has always been and continues to be to find new sources of food and funding to continue the growth the organization has experienced for essentially its history." The Global Fund for Children liked Goodell's "impressive track record as a successful executive in the nonprofit sector," said Mark McGoldrick, the chairman of the organization's board of directors. "Susan is a strategic and creative executive who is passionate about developing and strengthening programs that have a lasting impact on children's lives." Forgotten Harvest has set up the Susan Goodell Leadership Fund to support new initiatives at the not-for-profit in her honor.

Contact Zlati Meyer: 313-223-4439 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ZlatiMeyer.

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