HOF 6.8.25 - Flipbook - Page 31
The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, June 8, 2025 31
WILLIAM J. ‘BILL’
MCCARTHY JR.
William J. “Bill” McCarthy Jr. had long since established himself as a banking executive in his native Baltimore when tragedy shook the foundations of his life:
His beloved daughter, Erinn, contracted a rare form of bone cancer at age 11, battled the illness for three years, and succumbed to it at 14.
What McCarthy, then a wealth management specialist, remembers most about those days is the way Erinn, a popular, hardworking student at Maryvale Prep,
never complained about her condition, never asked “Why me?” and always retained the selflessness to remind him and her mother, Maria, that other children in
the hospital were sicker than she was.
“After watching Erinn live with such courage, grace and purpose as she fought her disease, I asked myself, ‘How I could live with purpose every day?'” he said.
“I was looking for a greater purpose.”
He found it in his next job opportunity, and his
hometown and state are better for it.
McCarthy retires in July as executive director of
Catholic Charities of Baltimore, the largest private
human-services agency in Maryland. He has held the
position for 16 years.
Whereas his predecessor, Harold A. “Hal” Smith,
drew on a social worker’s expertise to expand Catholic
Charities’ operations over his long career, McCarthy
is known for bringing his management, finance and
fund-raising expertise to bear on its mission, which
he describes as “loving your neighbor, cherishing the
divine within all, and creating a society, a Maryland,
where every person has the opportunity to fulfill their
God-given potential.”
The Catholic Charities he’s about to leave behind
offers 80 programs that serve children and families,
individuals with intellectual disabilities, immigrants,
seniors and people living in poverty in more than 200
locations across the state. It employs more than 2,000
people and works with some 4,000 volunteers and
10,000 donors.
McCarthy’s tenure, those who know his work say,
has had a profound impact on lives across the Baltimore area as well as in communities from Garrett
County to Anne Arundel County.
“He has made sure that the most vulnerable in
our midst have a path to better futures,” said Mary
Ann Scully, dean of the Joseph A. Sellinger School
of Business and Management at Loyola University
of Maryland and a longtime friend. “He has made a
huge difference in the lives of thousands of people.”
Growing up in the Ten Hills neighborhood of
Southwest Baltimore, McCarthy struck friends and
schoolmates like William Stromberg, the future president and CEO of T. Rowe Price, as a “good, easygoing,
easy-to-like person,” one who always took seriously
the Catholic social teaching that encourages people
to apply Gospel wisdom to the betterment of society.
While building a career as a tax lawyer, then as a
corporate leader with Allfirst Bank, its later incarnation M&T Bank, and SunTrust Bank of Maryland, he
Name: William J.“Bill”McCarthy Jr.
Age: 64
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Lutherville
Education: Loyola High School (now Loyola
Blakefield); Seton Hall University, B.A.; University
of Baltimore School of Law, J.D. and LLM
Career highlights: Executive management roles
at First National Bank of Maryland and its later
incarnations, Allfirst Bank and M&T Bank; market
president, SunTrust Bank; former board chair,
Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of
Richmond; chosen by Pope Francis to serve on
Vatican commission to investigate a Catholicsponsored university in Jordan; executive director,
Catholic Charities of Baltimore
Civic and charitable activities: Former board
chair, Loyola Blakefield; board member of the
Greater Baltimore Committee, One Baltimore,
the Thomas O’Neill Catholic Health Care Fund,
the Board of Financial Administration of the
Archdiocese of Baltimore, and the Maryland
Catholic Conference
Family: Married to Maria Maggenti McCarthy;
two children (one is deceased); one grandchild
regularly volunteered in the community, often with
the agency he’d later lead.
A few months after Erinn’s death, the directorship
of Catholic Charities came open, McCarthy applied,
and the group’s search committee snapped him up.
“He was looking for something to give back, the
right opportunity came along, and boy, did he run with
it,” said Stromberg, who was president of the board of
directors at the time.
Smith had emerged as a local legend in 33 years at
the helm, introducing and organizing programs for
the hungry, adding shelter and senior services, and
expanding the agency’s work with immigrants. McCarthy has built on that progress and more.
“The agency looks much different today than it did
16 years ago,” McCarthy said.
In response to the opioid crisis, the agency
expanded access to substance abuse treatment
centers across Maryland. In answer to gun violence,
it helped spearhead the city’s Safe Streets program.
It assumed operation of Baltimore’s largest support
facility for unhoused people, the Weinberg Housing
and Resource Center, more than doubled Head Start
services for city children and their families, established a food assistance program in Western Maryland, and founded a workforce development program
in Irvington.
“Bill loves the mission and loves the people who
are served by Catholic Charities, and he has grown,
strengthened and greatly expanded the work of the
agency,” said the Most Rev. William E. Lori, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
McCarthy didn’t slow down as retirement drew
near. He led the development of a project designed to
offer support for individuals in need from infancy to
retirement. Catholic Charities broke ground on the
$32 million Intergenerational Center of West Baltimore on April 25.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has called such
projects vital to the future of America’s cities, “especially (to) our young people and older adults looking to
age in place,” and said it epitomizes McCarthy’s work.
“We will miss his partnership, though I’m confident
he’ll continue to be a strong advocate for all Baltimoreans, even in retirement,” Scott said in an email to The
Baltimore Sun.
McCarthy believes the agency is in good hands with
his successor, longtime Baltimore litigator David W.
Kinkopf, and he’s confident that with Catholic Charities’ continued help, his native city has even better
days in store.
“We don’t share enough of the good news. We need
to dwell on the many good things that happen every
day. I’m bullish on Baltimore,” he said.
— Jonathan M. Pitts
