Urban Corps names new CEO, months after report of execs’ personal use of nonprofit staff

Three months after Urban Corps of San Diego County parted ways with chief executive Kyle Kennedy in the wake of revelations that he put his employees to work renovating a house he owned, the job-training nonprofit has named Rhody Soria to the top post.

Soria is a longtime California Conservation Corps manager who will take over as chief executive officer on Nov. 17, according to a news release from Urban Corps.

“Rhody is the corps’ mission personified,” board president Tracey Williams said in the announcement. “He has lived and breathed the corps movement since enrolling as a young man, later serving as a leader at every level.”

Williams said Soria’s record of proven executive leadership and understanding of the challenges confronting Urban Corps participants made him a good fit for the job.

“His passion, knowledge and dedication make him the right person to guide Urban Corps into its next chapter,” she said. “We are fortunate to welcome him into our family.”

Soria, whose annual salary was not disclosed by the nonprofit, most recently worked as a staff services manager with the state of California, according to the Transparent California database of public employees.

He also served as a deputy director of the California Conservation Corps, the statewide agency that Urban Corps is modeled after.

In the same Urban Corps announcement, Soria said he is looking forward to his new responsibilities.

“The impact Urban Corps has made in San Diego County over the past 36 years is both inspiring and profound,” he said. “I’m honored to continue its multifaceted mission of job-training, education and community service to help young adults succeed in life.”

Urban Corps serves thousands of disadvantaged young men and women, providing job skills and other experience to help them toward self-sufficiency. It opened as a tax-exempt organization in 1989 and operates out of a two-story building just west of Old Town San Diego.

Soria, who is 63, succeeds Kennedy, an accountant and former Urban Corps finance official who took over as CEO in 2020.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in June that Kennedy sent up to 26 Urban Corps employees to work renovating an investment property he had bought from a subordinate he later promoted.

The Urban Corps workers spent up to a year upgrading the Shelltown neighborhood home, adding tens of thousands of dollars in value to the property.

In June, Williams said the arrangement was independently investigated and handled appropriately by the board of directors, even though two members of the board resigned over the decision to place Kennedy on a performance-improvement plan rather than fire him.

Soon after the Union-Tribune’s report, Urban Corps announced that Kennedy was leaving the organization. The charity issued a statement just ahead of the Fourth of July holiday saying that it was time for a leadership change.

“We are grateful to Kyle Kennedy for his passion for the Urban Corps mission, both as CEO and previously as CFO,” the statement said.

In an interview with the Union-Tribune later that month, Kennedy defended using Urban Corps workers to work on his home as a win-win for himself and the program participants.

“All the workers are compensated,” he said at the time. “They are in a job-training program. They get paid to do whatever they do. Sometimes when there’s no work, they would do odd jobs at our houses.”

Kennedy said other Urban Corps executives had also used staff to perform improvements at their personal properties — including Anne Bernstein, a longtime official who took over as interim CEO after Kennedy left.

Bernstein acknowledged she had Urban Corps employees paint her home several years ago, with the permission of senior officials.

Experts in nonprofit law told the Union-Tribune that there are serious, and potentially legal, consequences for nonprofit leaders who use charitable assets for personal benefit.

Since its founding in 1989, Urban Corps of San Diego County has grown into a major tax-exempt organization. According to its most recently filed tax return, the nonprofit raised more than $19 million in the year ended June 30, 2024.