Influencing Change In Our Community with Gary Cain

Orlando Business Podcast with Eric English

As a proud alumnus and veteran employee of Boys & Girls Clubs, Gary Cain is both an executive and an apostle for his organization.

Cain’s involvement with Boys & Girls Clubs began at the impressionable age of 11 at his childhood Club in Panama City, Florida. Cain credits his Club membership as having a profound impact on his personal development, diverting him from the typical path of a child growing up in a broken family of impoverished means. “In many ways, the wheels were coming off in my family,” Cain says. “My Boys & Girls Club treated me as an individual, taught me about values and showed me that I had the power to rise beyond the circumstances I was born into and to determine my own future."

After attending college on scholarship, Cain began his Boys & Girls Clubs career in Bristol, Virginia, where he served as that organization’s first full-time program director. He then served as the assistant regional director of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Pacific Region where he had primary responsibility for providing consultative services to existing Clubs. In that post, Cain established 23 new Boys & Girls Clubs that now serve thousands of children in need.

In 1994, he became President & CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida, where his leadership has been characterized by significant organizational growth. BGCCF operates 40 Clubs in Orange, Brevard, Osceola, Seminole, Lake, Sumter and Nassau Counties, and serves more than 11,000 children each year. Most recently, BGCCF opened the Jacqueline Bradley & Clarence Otis Family Branch, a state-of-the-art, 30,000 square foot facility which serves at-risk children in the West Lakes Community.

Cain holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Tusculum College and a Master of Business Administration degree from Rollins College. He has completed the Leadership Summit at Harvard University. In 2013, Cain was named one of “Orlando’s Top 50 Powerful People” by Orlando Magazine.

Gary and his wife Louise are proud parents to two adult children and five grandchildren.