Dick Gygi - Executive Director & Board Chair

For more than 35 years, Dick provided executive leadership to consumer products companies in the US.  After 13 years as President of CPS Corporation, Dick led the sale of the company to American Greetings and merged CPS with Plusmark to form the largest gift wrap manufacturing company in the world with sales of more than $240 million.  Dick served as President of Plusmark before retiring in 2001.  

Dick is passionate about Social Entrepreneurship and Co-founded ThriftSmart (www.thriftsmart.com) in 2005.  He was recognized by Civic Ventures as a Purpose Prize Fellow in 2007 for his work with ThriftSmart, and is a founding board member of the Nashville Chapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance. 

Dick is active as a Consultant to early stage companies and their leaders.  He founded Fuel For Good, LLC  (www.fuelforgood.co) in 2016, and works with early stage companies that have a multiple bottom line for social impact and financial return, raising capital, building community around the leaders with banking, legal and financial, advising for scale, and leadership development. 

Dick has been active on corporate and non-profit boards and currently serves as a Trustee Emeritus on the Board of Trustees of Taylor University, his alma mater, where he received a BA in Business Administration prior to receiving an MBA from Indiana University.  Dick coaches corporate executives and also provides coaching and strategic consulting to non-profits on board governance, board development and recruitment.  He served the Halftime Institute as a Master Coach and was recognized as Coach of the Year in 2014.

He has been married to Bonni for 53 years and lives in Franklin, TN. Dick and Bonni have four married children and seven grandchildren.