Robert M. Coard

Robert M. Coard, president and CEO of Action for Boston Community Development Inc. (ABCD), recently received the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus’ “Good Guy” Award at a ceremony held at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel.

The Good Guy Award is given to men who have “demonstrated an ongoing commitment to achieving parity for women,” according to the caucus.

Also among this year’s awardees were former Gov. Paul Cellucci; Peter Meade, executive vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts; and Louis M. Ciavarra, managing partner of Bowditch & Dewey LLP.

Coard has served as president and CEO of ABCD — Boston’s official antipoverty agency and the largest human services agency in New England, with a budget of $125 million and almost 1,000 staff members — since 1968. As the agency’s Community Action Program Director from 1965 to 1968, he created ABCD’s decentralized neighborhood network system, which provides programs, services and opportunities that meet specific needs in every city neighborhood effectively with major programs administered from ABCD’s downtown offices.

Prior to joining ABCD, he held managerial positions with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Urban League and in the private sector.

In the late 1960s, Coard was appointed by Judge W. Arthur Garrity to the 15-member Citywide Coordinating Council to advise on school desegregation during Boston’s school busing crisis. He also initiated action that resulted in a successful federal lawsuit against President Richard Nixon over the president’s efforts to destroy the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, which funded all antipoverty programs at the time.

During his tenure at ABCD, Coard has built many significant institutions, including the National Community Action Foundation, which provides leadership to impact legislation affecting the nation’s poor; CAPLAW, a national program to provide legal support to the nation’s 1,000-plus community action programs and their low-income constituents; and Urban College of Boston, a fully accredited two-year college that provides higher education opportunities to low-income Boston-area residents.

Coard holds degrees from Boston University and completed course work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the Ph.D. program in city and regional planning. He also attended Harvard University’s Littauer School of Public Administration and has received honorary degrees from Simmons College and Lesley University.