Jim MacKay has been drawn to leadership roles all of his life.
MacKay was the first director of the New Hampshire state offices on Alcohol, Mental Health and Aging. He was one of the first social workers in New Hampshire to open a private practice, served 12 years on Concord’s city council – including four years as mayor – and is in is 18th year as a state representative.
Now, at 88, he’s been awarded the Knee/Wittman Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Social Workers Foundation.
“Jim’s commitment to social work and mental health is unsurpassed in New Hampshire,” wrote Ken Norton, executive director for the New Hampshire arm of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and MacKay’s nominator.
MacKay went to school at Tufts University for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and worked with the Massachusetts Youth Service Board before deciding to get his master’s – and later his doctorate – in social work.
It was uncommon for men to pursue social work at the time, MacKay said, but the field “opened my eyes to a much more rigorous training in counseling.”
His background in social work also helped him in the political field, he said. For one, while MacKay served on the Concord City Council, one of his major accomplishments was the creation of a public transportation system, which largely benefits low-income people without other means of transport.
As a state representative, MacKay served as chairman of the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee and the state Suicide Prevention Council.
“Social work training is one of the best trainings for people going into politics,” MacKay said. “That training helps you to deal with all kinds of people.”
Norton said in his nomination letter that MacKay has had a far-reaching impact on the state.
“It is hard to know the impact any social worker has on their clients,” Norton wrote. “Suffice it to say that over the years I have had several upstanding members of the community self identify to me that they had seen Jim professionally and that he had been extremely helpful in assisting them through a difficult period of time and or issues they were facing.”
MacKay traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive the award. He said the presenter told him that he still looked determined.
“I never really retired from anything,” MacKay said. “I just keep on going.”
(Leah Willingham can be reached at 369-3322, lwillingham@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @LeahMWillingham.)