Goodwill Industries Names Freeze Executive Director

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries has named Jim Freeze to succeed Mike McBride as executive director, Mark Gasser, chairman of the Goodwill board, announced this week.

McBride is retiring at the end of April after 39 years with the organization that employs and provides rehabilitation services to people with disabilities.

Freeze assumed the position March 22 and is working along side McBride to become more familiar with the organization and to renew its accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Rehabilitation Facilities.

In a statement, McBride said, “I am pleased that the board has chosen Jim who has the desire to be in our community and to continue with the tradition of helping people through Goodwill’s programs and services.”

Freeze, who grew up in Boardman, is a graduate of Boardman High School (class of 2001) and of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (2005) where he majored in psychology and minored in computer science. He went on to serve six years in the Army including two tours of duty in Iraq.

Upon leaving active service, Freeze settled in Raleigh, N.C., where he worked at a recruiting firm and helped veterans find jobs. He went on to help found Carroll’s Kitchen, a restaurant that employs women who live in shelters.

Looking to return to Boardman, he and his wife, Grace, also a graduate of West Point, came back “because I was hearing and reading about a lot of exciting things that were taking place in Youngstown and I wanted to be a part of it,” Freeze said.

He “was drawn to the mission of Goodwill,” Gasser said.

“Goodwill appealed to me because it is a nonprofit that provides vocational training and employment opportunities,” Freeze said, “and how it can provide hope and dignity to individuals.”

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