At Fire Protection Association, nonprofit doesn’t mean low pay

The Boston Globe reports:

Charity work pays well at the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association in Quincy.

When James M. Shannon retired in 2014 as president and chief executive officer, he left with an eye-popping $4.1 million in earnings. Not bad for a former Democratic congressman and state attorney general whose pay in those jobs was a small fraction of the $10.5 million he earned in 12 years as the nonprofit’s president.

Earnings for the association’s chief financial officer, Bruce H. Mullen, hit $1.2 million in 2014, federal financial filings show. Another executive got nearly $560,000.

The organization defended the compensation packages, which made Shannon and Mullen two of Massachusetts’ highest-paid nonprofit executives in 2014.

The great moments of the rent-seeking society.