Patrick McCarthy Named President & CEO

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion Board of Trustees announced today that it has named Patrick T. McCarthy as pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, effec­tive April 4, 2010. McCarthy is the senior vice pres­i­dent of the Casey Foun­da­tion, the nation’s lead­ing advo­ca­cy phil­an­thropy for at-risk chil­dren and fam­i­lies. He suc­ceeds Dou­glas W. Nel­son, who announced his retire­ment last Sep­tem­ber after twen­ty years of leadership.

“Patrick McCarthy is a high­ly tal­ent­ed and proven leader who has ded­i­cat­ed his career to help­ing chil­dren and fam­i­lies through a myr­i­ad of pro­fes­sion­al and lead­er­ship roles over the past 30 years,” said Michael L. Eskew, chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. ​“Our search process for Casey’s next leader focused on a large pool of excep­tion­al can­di­dates who under­stood the core val­ues of the Foun­da­tion and had a deep per­son­al inter­est in and com­mit­ment to the Casey mis­sion of improv­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and out­comes for dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren. As a Board, we were flat­tered by the qual­i­ty and breadth of the inter­est­ed can­di­dates, and it was a priv­i­lege to be asso­ci­at­ed with such an excep­tion­al pool of professionals.”

“It was McCarthy’s strong under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of best prac­tices in chil­dren and fam­i­ly ser­vices; the need for reform in the major child- and fam­i­ly-serv­ing sys­tems (edu­ca­tion, child wel­fare, juve­nile jus­tice); and the basic dynam­ics of pos­i­tive neigh­bor­hood change, com­bined with McCarthy’s abil­i­ty to con­vey and exem­pli­fy Casey’s ideas, expe­ri­ence, val­ues and strate­gies to diverse audi­ences that made him our top choice to con­tin­ue our mis­sion of serv­ing the nation’s most dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren and fam­i­lies,” said Eskew.

McCarthy joined the Casey Foun­da­tion in 1994 and has more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the field of children’s well-being. In his cur­rent role as senior vice pres­i­dent, he has been respon­si­ble for align­ing prac­tice and sys­tem reform activ­i­ties across the Foun­da­tion, as well as direct­ing the over­sight and inte­gra­tion of all direct ser­vices and strate­gic con­sult­ing. Pri­or to join­ing Casey, he was senior pro­gram offi­cer at the Cen­ter for Assess­ment and Pol­i­cy Devel­op­ment in Bala Cyn­wyd, Pa., where he worked with foun­da­tions, states and cities on sys­tem plan­ning and devel­op­ment of gov­er­nance strate­gies. From 1985 to 1992, McCarthy held posi­tions of increas­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty at the Depart­ment of Ser­vices for Chil­dren, Youth, and their Fam­i­lies, State of Delaware, cul­mi­nat­ing in his appoint­ment as direc­tor of the Divi­sion of Youth Reha­bil­i­ta­tive Ser­vices. Dur­ing his tenure in this posi­tion, he had over­sight of a 225-per­son staff, as well as respon­si­bil­i­ty for the redesign of insti­tu­tion­al treat­ment and cre­ation of a range of alter­na­tives to detention.

McCarthy began his career as a psy­chi­atric social work­er at the Cam­den Coun­ty (New Jer­sey) Men­tal Health Cen­ter in the ear­ly 1970s. He has been an assis­tant pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Grad­u­ate School of Social Work and also a lec­tur­er at Bryn Mawr College’s Grad­u­ate School of Social Work and Social Research, where he earned his doc­tor­ate degree and wrote a dis­ser­ta­tion on deci­sion-mak­ing mod­els in child wel­fare. McCarthy also holds a master’s degree in social work from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and a bach­e­lor of arts degree in psy­chol­o­gy from Man­hat­tan Col­lege in New York City, where he was elect­ed to Phi Beta Kappa.

“Patrick McCarthy is the right per­son to advance the Casey Foundation’s mis­sion in the years ahead,” said out­go­ing CEO Doug Nel­son. ​“He has the per­fect bal­ance of knowl­edge about our work, plus the abil­i­ty to bring for­ward his own exper­tise, vision and ideas. Through­out the exten­sive inter­view­ing process, his under­stand­ing of the Foundation’s chal­lenges, his man­age­r­i­al skills and a high-sense of good humor and grace shone through. I am con­fi­dent that he will be an excel­lent per­son­al guardian of Casey’s assets and will be able to man­age the endow­ment in a dis­ci­plined and cre­ative manner.”

“I am great­ly hon­ored by the Board of Trustees’ con­fi­dence in me today,” said McCarthy. ​“Doug Nel­son has set the stan­dard for Casey and Casey’s work and it has been a priv­i­lege and a learn­ing expe­ri­ence to work for him over the past 15 years. The Foun­da­tion is seen as one of the most thought­ful, informed, effec­tive and inno­v­a­tive advo­cates for improved out­comes for dis­ad­van­taged kids. I believe this plat­form gives us immense poten­tial to build on our strengths, while con­tin­u­ing to explore new opportunities. ”

The firm of Isaac­son Miller man­aged the search process for the new pres­i­dent and CEO, which includ­ed inter­views with inter­nal and exter­nal can­di­dates, rep­re­sent­ing a wide spec­trum of civic lead­ers and pro­fes­sion­als from across the country.

The Casey Foun­da­tion is head­quar­tered in Bal­ti­more, Md. It has grown from a staff of 40 social work­ers and six grant mak­ing pro­fes­sion­als in 1990 to a staff of more than 500, includ­ing region­al ser­vice oper­a­tions around the coun­try with 300 direct ser­vice work­ers and staff, as well as 200 staff sup­port­ing the grant mak­ing work of the Foundation.