Goodwill Integrated Solutions - 2025 Manufacturing Community Impact
This article will appear in the August 2026 issue of MiMfg Magazine. Find past issues online.
Goodwill Integrated Solutions has been serving global manufacturing companies and metro Detroit residents for more than a century, transforming lives and opening doors to manufacturing careers.
Founded in 1924 and headquartered in Dearborn, Goodwill Integrated Solutions serves the automotive and consumer product sectors, leveraging its infrastructure and industry contracts to provide training and career opportunities for individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental health challenges and justice-involvement.
This unique nonprofit organization empowers these individuals with meaningful employment that leads to productive and fulfilled lives, while also creating a culture of empathy, accountability and community.
For these reasons and many others, Goodwill Integrated Solutions has been honored with the 2025 Manufacturing Community Impact Award.
Transformative Opportunities
Goodwill Integrated Solutions has been a cornerstone of metro Detroit’s manufacturing landscape for more than a century. It has evolved from producing glovebox manuals to its place as a Tier I supplier for industry leaders like GM, Ford and Stellantis. Today, the business operates out of a 100,000-square-foot facility, where it assembles and ships more than 1.4 million parts each month.
Sixty percent of Goodwill Integrated Solutions’ workforce comes from Goodwill’s mission programs. By integrating vocational training and social support into high-volume manufacturing, it operates at the intersection of industry excellence and community service.
While classroom settings teach basic principles, hands-on manufacturing production jobs are more active and engaging, making them ideal for the organization’s mentorship program, according to Goodwill Integrated Solutions President and CEO Blair Vesterfelt.
Kathy’s story serves as the perfect illustration of what participation in the program can do.
When she came to Goodwill, she lacked skills. She didn’t use technology. She was reliant on others. She was unable to work.
With Goodwill’s support, Kathy learned to cook her own food, navigate new spaces, use an elevator and operate a computer. Her confidence soared. She now is employed at Goodwill Integrated Solutions and recently advanced from her position producing industrial kits to a new role as quality inspector. Kathy is thriving.
Kathy is one of thousands supported by Goodwill programs each year.
“What we get to do is reimagine what is possible with each individual based on their barrier,” Vesterfelt explains. “We have individuals who have been homeless, in addiction programs or post-incarceration that have been disregarded by society. As we lift them up and accept them for where they are in their lives, we’ve seen them excel. We’ve taken individuals from homeless to their first fixed address.”
In 2025 alone, 19 adult employees at Goodwill Integrated Solutions have gotten into their first homes, he adds.
“Their pride, independence and value go through the roof when someone is willing to develop them and help them grow,” Vesterfelt says.
The impact multiplies as participants often tell others about their experiences.
“A lot of individuals refer their friends and family to us because there’s an opportunity here, where they’ve been turned down elsewhere,” Vesterfelt says.
Infectious Enthusiasm
Job Coach Duane Jackson’s role is to help prepare participants for full-time employment. He says that, in some ways, they are helping him more than he has helped them.
Every day they come in with a passion and a desire to do great things, he says, and he finds their resilience and persistence inspirational.
“They break barriers,” Jackson says as he reflects on the impact they have made on him. “I said to myself, ‘If they can do this, I have no excuse,’ so I went back to school and got my MBA and doctorate.”
“And I only did it because of them,” he adds. “When things got really hard, I thought about them. I thought about how they never gave up, how they stayed encouraged. And those days where I just wanted to say, ‘Forget it, I quit,’ I thought that if they can do it, I can do it as well.”
When you have a will, a purpose and a vision, like Vesterfelt did when he developed the program, there’s nothing you cannot do as long as you have the proper support, he says.
Vesterfelt adds that they couldn’t offer this opportunity without the support of their partners, including Bridgewater Interiors, Ford and Stellantis.
“This 100-year-old organization has been a valued kitting and assembly supplier to Bridgewater Interiors since 2024, and in that short time has delivered measurable business impact while creating life-changing opportunities for individuals in our community,” says Bridgewater CEO Ronald Hall. “Goodwill Integrated Solutions exemplifies what this award is designed to recognize — innovation, excellence in manufacturing and a positive, sustainable impact on people and communities.”
With this kind of heart for the community and the ability to empower people that live in it, Goodwill Integrated Solutions is the epitome of a Manufacturing Community Impact Award winner.
The Manufacturing Community Impact award is part of the annual Manufacturing Excellence Awards which celebrates the leaders and products that are pushing the industry forward. Learn more about the awards program and gala.
The 2025 Manufacturing Community Impact award was sponsored by the Fullerton Tool Company. Visit online: fullertontool.com.