Joseph F. Duffy

Vice Chairman

Joseph F. Duffy is an award-winning author and retired President of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, an organization that serves nearly 70,000 people annually. Joe has also served as Executive Director of Straight & Narrow, Inc., the largest comprehensive drug and alcohol treatment program in New Jersey. Joe has over 40 years of nonprofit and for-profit board member experience both locally and nationally including being an officer and committee chair. Prior to his work at Catholic Charities, Joe worked for 21 years at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson where he served as Vice President for Ambulatory and Long-Term Care.

Joe taught as an adjunct faculty member at Ramapo College of New Jersey and the College of St. Elizabeth on both the graduate and undergraduate level and has served as a field instructor for Ramapo, Farleigh Dickinson, Rutgers, Fordham, William Paterson and Montclair State Universities, Bethlehem University (Palestine), and the University of Pittsburgh. He Has been a long-time member of the Riese Projects Urban Renewal Corporation, currently serving as the Board Secretary. The Riese projects provide 875 units of low income and affordable housing in Passaic County NJ.

Joe volunteers as an expert for Catholic Relief Services’ USAID-funded Farmer to Farmer program, traveling to Africa to provide board and management training to agriculture businesses. He is also a peer reviewer for the Council on Accreditation (COA), traveling throughout the U.S. and Canada as a peer review team member conducting accreditation visits for human service organizations. Joe and his wife Carolyn are volunteer puppy raisers for the Seeing Eye Foundation in Morristown, New Jersey.

Joe holds master’s degrees from Regis University (nonprofit management), Rutgers University (public administration), Seton Hall University (rehabilitation counseling), and William Paterson University (special education). His bachelor’s degree in sociology is from Seton Hall University. He is a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit National Honor Society. In 2008 Joe received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station, and in 2011 he received the United Way’s Cornerstone Award for outstanding community service. In 2012 Joe was recognized by Catholic Relief Services as an outstanding Diocesan Director. He received a Lifetime Caring Award from HomeCare Options in 2015 and was selected as Person of the Year by Catholic Charities’ Department for Persons with Disabilities in 2017.

While President of Catholic Charities, Joe developed a legislative advocacy manual that has been made available to parishes and schools. He is well known for his legislative advocacy work concerning issues affecting the poor both locally and nationally. Joe’s motivation to write Being a Supervisor 1.0: A Handbook for the New, Aspiring, and Experienced Supervisor comes from the many times when, while working with first time and inexperienced supervisors, he had to pull from multiple resources to provide them training materials.