Goodwill uses its retail stores to meet its mission of helping people get back into society.

At the well-lit, spacious Goodwill/Easter Seals store in St. Paul's Midway area, the working poor arrive from the bus stop while bargain hunters in late-model SUVs pull in to shop for lightly worn $6 pants, $1.99 belts and $20 suits.

Retail sales from 17 Goodwill stores rose an impressive 11 percent for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. The brass at Target and Macy's can only dream about that kind growth during this tepid holiday season.

Just don't call Goodwill another retailer in front of CEO Michael Wirth-Davis. His nonprofit outfit also provides $16 million worth of counseling, training, life skills and job searches annually to the developmentally disabled, ex-convicts and the chronically unemployed.

Every year, more than 100 clients intern as minimum-wage trainees in the Goodwill operation while about 800 clients are placed in permanent jobs outside Goodwill that range from $8-an-hour retail work to $12-an-hour customer service positions and $23-per-hour construction jobs.

"We are mission-driven and retail is the way we have been able to support that mission," Wirth-Davis said in an interview this month from his modest office in the St. Paul retail and training center complex. "We are first and foremost about helping people prepare for work and become self-sufficient."

"We believe that people want to be self-sufficient. And we also work with hundreds who are employed to advance to a better job."

Goodwill reuses goods, fixes, recycles and sells wheelchairs, medical equipment and other items.

"But everything is built around the mission," Wirth-Davis said. "The stores support mission. Retail is just the vehicle we use."

In fiscal 2007, Goodwill/Easter Seals generated $25 million from sales of clothing and equipment and about $6 million from philanthropic contributions and training contracts with local governments, businesses and nonprofits. (The figures in the accompanying chart are for fiscal 2006, which are most recent audited figures reported on the organization's Form 990.)

"We earn about 80 percent of our revenue from operations and we get 20 percent from contributions and contracts," said board member Joe Barsky, a retired investment manager and an instructor at the University of Minnesota business school. "It's just the opposite for most nonprofits. I'm also on the board of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and we earn about 20 percent from revenue and get 80 percent from giving.''

Barsky calls Goodwill/Easter Seals "the ultimate recycler. I don't know all the intricacies but I've become passionate about it over the last four years."

Staff and volunteers collect inventory, repair it, distribute and stock the 17-store network that's considered one of the best-run Goodwill operations in the nation, said Mike Howe, a director of Goodwill/Easter Seals Minnesota since 1995 and a financial adviser at Robert W. Baird.

Clothing not good enough for re-sale is baled into five-ton bundles and sold to recyclers for overseas shipment or industrial uses.

Meanwhile, in offices and training rooms around the St. Paul complex, dozens of Goodwill/Easter Seals counselors develop personalized training and career plans with hundreds of clients annually. Some of these folks spend up to 16 months completing a high school equivalency degree, interning, taking a construction-management or computer-related program and otherwise preparing for employment.

Focus on the basics

Goodwill collaborates with other nonprofits, such as Project for Pride in Living, Common Bond, Catholic Charities, health care agencies and community colleges to help individual and client families secure low-cost rental housing, health care, a high school degree or technical education.

"We spend an enormous amount of time on where the person wants to go and helping him get there," Wirth-Davis said. "You also have to do a reality check. Somebody without a high school degree may want to be an airline pilot. We'll say, 'Let's first earn a GED, and then get you off the street and into an apartment and maybe a job at the airport and training in aircraft mechanics.'''

Three years ago, Margaret Campbell was behind bars, completing a drug-related felony sentence. She had found a Goodwill counselor's card in prison. When she got out, she contacted the organization.

"I went in for orientation and somebody mentioned a construction class. I raised my hand and I was the only female," Campbell recalled. "Goodwill really supports you and works with you, but you also have to really want it and be willing to work hard."

She attended a job fair in March 2006 and was hired by John Farrington, an executive with Building Restoration of Roseville.

"He asked me if I was afraid of heights and if I knew what to do with my tools," Campbell said. "I told him I could do the [tuckpointing] work, but that I had a felony. He said lots of guys in construction have had their troubles. He gave me a job and a chance."

Today, Campbell, 39, makes $23 an hour, plus bonuses on the most-profitable jobs.

She recently was laid off because of cold weather and less work, but she expects to be recalled soon. She's using her time off to work with her kids on school projects and enjoy the holidays.

"The pay is good," Campbell said. "Goodwill and my foreman, Dave Drevahl, believed in me. It's hard work, but I like the work. And Dave has gotten me raises and bonuses and says some of my jobs look like a veteran did them."

CEO Wirth-Davis, 56, has a good job, too, for which he received $214,141 in total compensation in 2006.

Wirth-Davis, who holds a doctorate in public administration, started out 30-some years ago as a vocational counselor at Courage Center. He joined Goodwill/Easter Seals in 1990. He has good range and is equally adept at mingling with disadvantaged clients and overpaid CEOs.

"Michael is worth more in the private sector and he's worth more to us," board member Howe said. "We pay him a fair salary. He's good and he loves what he's doing.

"My biggest fear when I took over as chair of the board in 2005 was that he was going to leave to run one of the national parent organizations, Goodwill or Easter Seals," Howe said. "He could do that.''

Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144 • nstanthony@startribune.com