2023 Crystal Globe Award Recipients

Edward A. Kelly
General President, International Association of Fire Fighters

Ed is general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). He previously served as the union’s general secretary-treasurer from 2016 to 2021. Ed joined the Boston Fire Department as a fire fighter/EMT in 1997 and rapidly climbed the ranks of organized labor. He is known and respected for his strong dedication to the rank-and-file members of the IAFF and his visionary leadership across the labor movement.

While serving as general secretary-treasurer of the IAFF, he oversaw programs that modernized communications and database tools among IAFF affiliates in the United States and Canada, as well as organizational changes in healthcare and other expense reductions, which saved approximately $2 million. Ed also made changes to ensure compliance with various oversight and regulatory obligations which protect the union from scrutiny.

He was also among the thousands of fire fighters at Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and responded to the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. He is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors for Massachusetts Iraq and Afghanistan Fallen Heroes and a trustee for the Boston Fire Department Charitable Association, first established in 1828 to ensure proper burial for indigent firefighters and which now assists widows and widowers of fire fighters of modest means. A proud military veteran, Ed served as a fire fighter in the U.S. Air Force.

William T. McDonough
CEO, Southwest Service Administrators

Bill is CEO of Southwest Service Administrators, a third-party administrator providing specialized services to Taft-Hartley Trust Funds in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Bill has a long and distinguished career in the labor movement which began when he joined the then Retail Clerks Union while still in high school. Bill worked as a union representative and organizer and in 1986, became president of UFCW Local 711 in Las Vegas.

Seven years later, Bill became president of UFCW Local 99 in Phoenix serving from 1993 to 2001 after which he was became the director of the western region for the UFCW International Union. Bill led the Southern California local unions through one of the largest and most historic strikes/lockouts in the history of the Labor Movement. He was then called to Washington D.C. and promoted to director of organizing and then director of collective bargaining for the UFCW International Union. He served as a trustee on more than 15 different benefit funds. Bill retired for 2.5 days and, in 2014, went to work in the private sector as the CEO of Southwest Service Administrators, a unionized third-party administrator of health care and pension funds managing 60 + Taft Hartley Funds in 14 states with $30 million in annual revenue.

Featuring a special presentation

CORPaTH honors Fran Drescher, the members of Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America.