Photo by Cindi Dixon
Thinking. About Business.
Ron Kratofil, CEO of Goodwill Keystone Area
A Good Will
Ron Kratofil at Goodwill Keystone Area
By Bill Simpson
When Ron Kratofil started working for Goodwill, he didn’t think that the organization would become his life’s work
and his passion. He was a young man just out of college, and like most people of that age, he was looking for a job and a
direction in life.
He had his degree in criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and he had student loans to pay back. “I
was trying to get a law enforcement job when I heard about Goodwill. They said that they had a part-time job for a night
watchman at a halfway house in Pittsburgh, and it helped cancel my college loan.”
Ron’s first night at Goodwill took place more than 35 years ago, and it turned out to be the beginning of a long career
with the organization. He left briefly, but then Goodwill recruited him back to run the halfway house, and he realized that
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Goodwill truly was his calling in life.
Today, he’s the CEO of Goodwill Keystone Area, and he’s highly passionate about the organization’s mission of helping
people with disabilities, whether those disabilities are physical or emotional and whether the person is old or young, find
both employment and fulfillment in their lives. “The DNA of Goodwill is to find your strength. Everybody has talent. You
don’t need the home run hitter to steal the base.
“We serve everyone from kids to senior citizens. Eighty percent of people with disabilities are unemployed, and we’re
trying to help those folks get to work.”
Ron’s passion is clear when he talks about his work, and he brings that same enthusiasm to the other parts of his life,
whether he’s hitting a golf ball or helping the community through his volunteer work. He grew up in Pittsburgh, and he
remembers a time when the Pirates were relevant and the Steelers were just beginning to experience some success. “I used
to go to games at Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium.” Both of those stadiums have since met the wrecking ball and left only
memories behind.
In his youth, Pittsburgh was a busy steel town where a man could get a job in a mill and work there all his life. Ron’s father
took a different path and worked for most of his life in a hotel. “I never thought I’d have the same job all my life, but that’s
how it’s worked out.”
The Pittsburgh of his youth had many ethnic neighborhoods where English wasn’t the only language heard coming out
of homes and churches. “You could walk past three Catholic churches to get to your church. In the 1970s, Saint Michael’s
still heard confessions in German.”
When Ron and his family were contemplating their move to Lancaster County, a beautiful autumn day sealed the deal.
That happened in 1991, when Goodwill of Southeastern Pennsylvania, which at the time covered only Lancaster and
Chester counties, offered him its CEO position.
“We were driving down Main Street in Lititz, and we looked at each other and said, ‘You mean we can live here?’” The
charming small town was distinctly different from his urban Pittsburgh neighborhood, and the family has been living
in Lititz ever since then. “We can walk to the shops, and Lititz has a real sense of community. Moving here was a great
decision.”
Lititz and Lancaster County as a whole have grown tremendously since the Kratofils arrived, and Ron sees the growth as
a positive. “In Pittsburgh, everybody was fleeing. Here, the question is how to manage the growth.”
The Kratofil family includes wife Fran, who was his high school sweetheart, and sons AJ and Jeff. Fran works for
Susquehanna Trust in Blue Ball. AJ lives in Chicago and works for Charles Schwab, but at one time he had dreams of a
career in professional hockey, and he played in several junior leagues. Jeff lives in Pittsburgh, and he’s a retail manager
there.
Sports have always been a big part of Ron’s life, and now he enjoys them as both a participant and a spectator. Golf
and bowling are two of his favorite activities, and he’s achieved some excellent success in both. On the golf course, he’s
dropped his handicap below 10. “I think it’s officially a 9.9.”
Golf provides an opportunity for Ron to bond with his friends, and they play a variety of different courses. “We like to do
the charity tours. This year we’ve played tournaments for Homefields and Partners in Achieving Independence (PAI). We
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played Semper Fi at Felicita in Dauphin County. That was a moving experience.
“I’m not a member of any course, and I think that my favorite is probably Dauphin Highlands. I almost broke 80 there. I
also like Pilgrim’s Oak.”
On the lanes, he has achieved certified perfection. “I bowled a sanctioned 300 game at Clearfield. Now I bowl once a week.”
When he rolled that perfect game, he did it with a well-used piece of equipment. “I bought my ball back in 1972. My father
was my hero, and he taught me to bowl.”
That 300 game has led to an ongoing discussion with one of his golfing buddies. That friend shot a hole in one, and that
shot and Ron’s 300 game have provided an ongoing topic of discussion over which achievement is more noble. “He only
had to swing once. I had to roll 12 perfect balls. We do debate it.”
And when he watches sports, he has more than a casual interest in who does the scoring. “I love hockey. I played hockey
as an adult. When I was a kid, we had no leagues. Now I’m in two fantasy hockey leagues. I’m also in two fantasy football
leagues. It’s all with friends and family, and it’s for fun. What fun is life if you can’t smack talk people?”
Ron describes himself as a food enthusiast. “My résumé lists eating as a hobby. In my family, we would feed a cold and
feed a fever. Now our favorite restaurant is probably El Serrano.”
Ron and Fran enjoy traveling, but airplanes don’t like Ron. He describes himself as both big and tall, and those cramped
seats take the fun out of flying. “I was a big fan of Air Tran. It was an affordable business class that was comfortable for a
big guy. I guess that if there’s one place that we would like to go back to, it’s San Francisco.”
The focus of Ron’s community service has come through Leadership Lancaster. “I love Leadership Lancaster. I was in the
core class in 1993. Now I’m a volunteer mentor for the Board Leadership Academy. I helped to create the program. I’ve
worked with more than 20 boards, and my mission is to serve boards, not to serve on boards.”
Goodwill Keystone Area is an organization that resulted from the merger of three smaller Goodwill regional organizations,
and Goodwill Keystone now covers 22 counties from the Philadelphia suburbs west to Franklin County and north to
Lycoming County. The merger took place in 2001, and after 6 years of joint leadership, Ron became CEO in 2007.
The economic troubles of recent years have been good for Goodwill, but they’ve created a sense of unease for the future.
“Our retail sales have grown during the recession, but we are concerned about the replacement cycle.”
Goodwill operates retail stores, and the organization has other less visible, important streams of revenue. Goodwill places
workers at local businesses, including Armstrong. “We have a crew at the plant in Marietta that works on recycling ceiling
tiles. This is outside traditional union work, and the union and Goodwill have co-existed for at least 7 years.”
Together, Goodwill’s businesses provide about 80 percent of its funding, and that number means that Ron is as much
a CFO as a CEO. When he realized that he would be responsible for the organization’s finances, he decided that some
financial training would be quite beneficial, so he earned an MBA from Penn State Great Valley.
While most people have seen Goodwill stores and have a general idea of how they operate, Ron acknowledges that one
misconception about how the organization obtains items is widespread. That misconception is that Goodwill has collection
boxes where people can drop off items, but the truth is that the only way to donate to Goodwill is to take items to a
donation center. Lancaster County is home nine of them, and six are at the organization’s retail stores.
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Other nonprofit organizations do have collection boxes, but so do companies that collect items and then sell them for a
profit. “They just put ‘We love God and puppies’ on their boxes. Some of them drop boxes at night without permission.”
So people who want to donate to Goodwill should be sure to take their items to a Goodwill location, and if they do, they
may meet the CEO of Goodwill Keystone Area. “I sometimes play Undercover Boss, and I’m always humbled that people
thank us for taking their donations.”
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