Gordon Cressy

Gordon Cressy (MSW 1969) has been involved with the not-for-profit and academic sectors for more than 50 years. He was a youth worker in Trinidad, on the south side of Chicago and in the inner city of Toronto. He has been an elected school trustee and chairman of the Toronto Board of Education, and an elected city councillor. He has also been president of the United Way of Greater Toronto, a vice-president of Ryerson University and the University of Toronto and President of the George Brown College Foundation, as well as an instructor at U of T for 15 years. 

The University of Toronto Alumni Association named the Cressy Award in his honour on the occasion of his departure from the University in 1993. As a volunteer, Gordon has chaired the boards of the YMCA of Canada and Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO). He is the founding president of The Learning Partnership, best known for the Take Our Kids to Work™ program, and a founding director of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. He is involved in an honorary capacity with many other charities.

Gordon is married to Joanne Campbell and has four children, Jennifer, Jillian, Joe and Keith. Gordon and Joanne spent three years, from 2008 to 2010, working with the local community to build the Tobago YMCA, including its first ever public swimming pool. Today over 1,000 young people are using these facilities every week.