Ken McGunagle, Jr., Esq.

Even though Ken McGunagle, Jr., serves as the new secretary to The ALS Association’s recently established Board of Representatives (BOR), the Rhode Island-based attorney has had myriad experiences with the organization on both a local and national level.

He first became involved with the organization in 1991 when he attended the Rhode Island Chapter’s monthly patient support group meetings with his father, Ken McGunagle, Sr., who was living with ALS. Following his father’s death that year, members from the chapter’s board of trustees asked McGunagle to serve on that entity, and during his tenure on the board, he helped to expand the chapter in multiple ways. He attained the first legislative grant for any Association chapter from his home state to help finance the Rhode Island Chapter’s work. In addition, McGunagle enhanced the board’s diversity by adding members from different sectors of the community.

McGunagle also served as the board’s president from 1995 to 1998, and under his leadership, he instituted the Rhode Island Chapter’s primary annual fundraiser, the Evening of Hope. This event raises monies that go toward patient services programs for Rhode Island residents and their families living with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The event also provides funding for the Louise Wilcox Multidisciplinary ALS Clinic located at the Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. McGunagle played a key role in establishing this clinic after the success of the second Evening of Hope in 1998.

His interactions with other chapter board presidents and members of the national staff in establishing an innovative program that allowed The Association to give loans to small and new chapters to hire professional staff members helped McGunagle to garner the National Volunteer of the Year Award in 1997 from The Association. He joined The Association’s National Board of Trustees in 2000 and served on that body for two years as a member of the Advocacy Committee and a revenue sharing group.

A graduate of Providence College and the Boston University School of Law, McGunagle resides in Cranston with his wife Joanne, the executive director of a flourishing community action program, and their two daughters, Anne and Madalyn.