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This column pays homage to and mourns the passing of Robert H. McKinney, a giant among Indiana’s legal, civic, and business leaders, and the named benefactor of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
Mr. McKinney’s motto was “doing well by doing good,” and he exemplified this throughout his extraordinary life, serving his community, his state, and his nation with integrity and passion.
Mr. McKinney did not start out wanting to become a lawyer, and his path to success had many turns. Fascinated by nature even at a young age, he hoped to become a national park guide. When World War II broke out while he was in high school, he headed for the U.S. Naval Academy after graduating a year early. He went on to serve in the Pacific theater, including a period on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff.
After receiving his undergraduate degree in engineering, he decided to go back to school to earn a law degree from Indiana University. He attended evening school in Indianapolis and then transferred to the Bloomington campus to finish his degree before he left for war, this time in Korea.
After serving his country honorably twice, he returned to a civilian career that led him to many leadership pinnacles, including chairman and CEO of First Indiana Corporation, parent company of First Indiana Bank (now BMO Bank), at the time the largest bank based in Indianapolis. He became chairman and CEO of The Somerset Group Inc., a diversified manufacturing and investment company. He was also a founding partner of Bose McKinney & Evans LLP, a leading Indianapolis law firm, and was instrumental in the firm’s growth until he retired in 1992.
Mr. McKinney believed in civil service to the nation as well and in 1977 his commitment to community-based banking prompted President Jimmy Carter, his classmate at the U.S. Naval Academy, to appoint him as chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.
Throughout his life, he never forgot his passion for nature and the environment. In 2010, he and his five children established the McKinney Family Foundation, which is committed to building an environmentally sustainable future for every Hoosier. The family created a fund at the Central Indiana Community Foundation that helped launch the City of Indianapolis’s first Office of Sustainability under Mayor Bart Peterson. It was this office that paid for several of the city’s sustainability projects, including early bike lanes.
Mr. McKinney’s influence on higher education is incalculable. In 1989, Gov. Evan Bayh appointed him to the IU Board of Trustees, and he served there with distinction from 1989 to 1998, including as president from 1993 to 1994. In addition, he was chairman of the Board of Advisors of IUPUI (now IU Indianapolis) and served on the Board of Visitors of his eponymous law school until his recent passing.
Arguably, his deepest impact in higher education is in legal education—exemplified by his generosity to each of Indiana University’s two law schools.
In 2011, Mr. McKinney deepened his commitment with his transformational $24 million gift to our law school. Our law school was renamed the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in his honor and will symbolize his legacy in perpetuity.
Our community will long remember the excitement of that banner day, when the audience was filled with alumni, community leaders, and students, many of whom were lining the railings overlooking the event, wanting to share in the historical moment.
The largest gift ever received by the school and one of the largest in legal education at that time, the gift included endowed funding for five chairs and the McKinney Family Scholarships for students at the law school.
Mr. McKinney’s visionary commitment to the future led him to invest in the lawyers and leaders of the state of Indiana, our nation, and our world for generations to come. A crucial factor in his decision making and commitment to the state’s future was his knowledge that our law school has educated and continues to educate so many of the lawyers and leaders of Indiana.
As the law school community mourns the loss of Robert H. McKinney, we celebrate his life, his commitment to his community and to the future.
We are grateful to him for his unparalleled generosity, friendship, and dedication to helping others which impacted the school and the community in countless ways over the years. He truly was a shining example of civic engagement and put his legal education from IU to the best possible use, making the world a better place.
His legacy will live on through his family, his environmental work, and through the students and graduates of our law school and all the members of the IU McKinney community who endeavor to uphold the high standards he set and lived.•
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Karen E. Bravo is the dean and Gerald L. Bepko professor of law at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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