Robert H. McKinney

An attorney, entrepreneur, banker, public servant, and civic leader, Robert H. McKinney lived by his motto: “Doing well by doing good.” For more than 75 years in an exemplary career, he gave back to the City of Indianapolis, the State of Indiana, the nation, and the world in countless ways.

As notable as his business achievements and philanthropic endeavors have been, nothing surpassed the pride he felt for and the joy he received from his family, as a husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

McKinney passed away peacefully at the age of 98 on September 29, 2024, surrounded by family at home overlooking his beloved Walloon Lake, Michigan.

Born in Indianapolis on November 7, 1925, to E. Kirk and Irene McKinney, McKinney wasted no time forging his path of service and achievement. In just three years, he graduated from Shortridge High School in 1943 and was sworn in as midshipman at the United States Naval Academy later that year, leading to a lifelong affection for and affiliation with the Navy. He graduated from the Academy with a bachelor of science in engineering in 1946 and served until 1949 on a destroyer in the Pacific. For a short time, McKinney was a member of General Douglas MacArthur’s staff, assigned to visit Japanese ports, inventory vessels, and meet with officials. His time in the Navy shaped his world view, confirmed his belief in a universal humanity, and fueled an insatiable curiosity for other cultures, religions, and political systems, all of which he shared with and passed on to his children and family—always looking for ways to make the world a better place.

After the war, McKinney enrolled at the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis where he worked for the family business during the day and attended law school at night. McKinney saw the law as a way to allow him to effect more change for the good in his community and the country. Soon after enrolling, he was called back to active duty in the Korean War. Not wanting to delay or interrupt his legal studies, McKinney transferred to the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington so that he could attend classes full-time and graduate early and marry his first love, Arlene “Skip” McKinney, before returning to his Naval service for an additional two years in the General Advocate Corps.

Returning to Indianapolis after the Korean War, he transitioned to the private practice of law with McHale, Patrick, Cook & Welch, which was renamed McHale, Cook, Welch & McKinney when he was made partner just five years later. During the 1950s, he also assumed leadership roles in his family’s businesses, including First Federal Savings & Loan Association and Jefferson National Life Insurance Company.

In 1963 McKinney joined with three other Indianapolis lawyers to form a new law firm focusing on publicly and privately held businesses, governmental entities and education, and high-growth industries. More than 60 years later, Bose McKinney & Evans has grown to over 100 attorneys guided by McKinney’s ethos of doing well by doing good.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter—a Naval Academy classmate—called McKinney back to service of his country and nominated him as chairman of an independent federal regulatory agency, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, along with the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. McKinney answered the call to service of the country he loved, uprooting his family with a move to Washington, DC and putting his legal and business careers on hold. After a grueling, three-day confirmation hearing before the United States Senate, with the tireless efforts of Senators Birch Bayh and Richard Lugar, US Representative Andy Jacobs, McKinney’s law partners Lewis Bose and Sarah Evans Barker, and future US Representative Julia Carson, McKinney secured his confirmation and began his service in President Carter’s administration.

During his two years in Washington, McKinney won over critics who thought he was too closely connected to the industry he was charged with regulating with his undeniable drive to do good for all in our country and his calling to fight for the little guy. As interest rates soared in the late 1970s, McKinney took decisive action to deregulate the thrift industry and position it for growth and stability. He introduced regulations putting federal savings-and-loans on an even footing with large commercial banks, opening lending and banking opportunities for small towns and rural America. He also established model nondiscrimination regulations, and allowed depositor-owned savings-and-loan institutions to access capital markets for the first time and convert to shareholder-owned institutions. And, utilizing the Community Reinvestment Act, McKinney helped foster lending for inner-city development, increasing home loans in the core of most major cities.

Even after his service in President Carter’s administration, McKinney remained an advocate for home ownership for all. He testified before a joint Senate subcommittee that new solutions were needed to make homes more affordable. He proposed an “All-American Mortgage,” which would exchange the buyer’s mortgage interest deduction for interest-income exemptions for lenders, resulting in lower rates.

After returning to Indianapolis in 1979, McKinney was re-elected chairman of First Federal Savings and Loan Association and applied his Washington expertise as a regulator to prepare First Federal for the future. The following year, he announced plans to reorganize the depositor-owned institution as a shareholder-owned company, one of the first such conversions in the country. During his time at the helm of the bank, McKinney again put his career on hold at the request of the US State Department and moved to Moscow to advise the former Soviet Union in establishing a banking system.

In his 20-plus years as chairman and CEO of First Indiana Bank and First Indiana Corporation, McKinney led the company through unprecedented growth, culminating in First Indiana’s conversion to a national bank in 2001. At the time of its sale to Marshall & Ilsley Corporation (now BMO Harris) in 2008, First Indiana was Indianapolis’s largest locally owned community bank, with assets of $2.1 billion and 32 branches. McKinney also served during this period at the helm of Jefferson Corporation (later The Somerset Group), Ready-Mixed Concrete Corporation, American Precast Concrete, Inc., and other related entities.

Long active in Democratic Party politics, McKinney ran unsuccessfully for the Indiana House in 1956. He chaired the state’s leading fundraising dinner for John F. Kennedy during the 1960 presidential campaign and served as Indiana chairman for the presidential campaigns of Edmund Muskie, Walter F. Mondale, and Jimmy Carter. He was also outside legal counsel to Indiana Governor Roger D. Branigin and chair of Indiana Governor Evan Bayh’s Government Reorganization Committee.

In 1989 Governor Bayh appointed McKinney to the Indiana University Board of Trustees, where he served as president from 1993-1994 and led the board through the election of a new president and financial challenges. He was chairman of the board of advisors of IUPUI and advising director to the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

In 2011, McKinney set his focus on the IU Indianapolis Law School, where he had begun his legal studies after World War II. The university renamed the school the Robert H. McKinney School of Law in honor of a transformational gift, which included funding for five endowed chairs and an endowment to fund the McKinney Family Scholarships. He served as a member of the law school’s board of visitors and on the board of directors of the Indiana University Foundation. He also served the IU Center on Congress as an advisory board member.

McKinney also established a named professorship at his alma mater in Bloomington, the IU Maurer School of Law. The Bose McKinney & Evans Sherman Minton Moot Court Competition at the IU Maurer School of Law, the V. Sue Shields Scholarship, and the Conservation Law Center have also benefited from his generosity.

Inspired by his parents’ love of nature, McKinney turned his attention in his later years to environmental causes. He was elected to the board of the Sierra Club Foundation, where he served as its chair. In 2010, he and his five children established the McKinney Family Foundation, which is committed to building an environmentally sustainable future for every Hoosier through three focus areas: supporting a just transition to a clean energy economy, equitable climate change solutions, and empowering Indiana communities to live in a healthier, more prosperous, and more sustainable manner. The Foundation has also been instrumental in founding several nonprofit organizations aimed at promoting democracy and civic education and improving environmental policy, including Indiana Conservation Fund and Indiana Energy Independence Fund, the state’s first green bank. In addition, 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, which paid for several of the city’s sustainability projects, including early bike lanes.

McKinney also became an active participant in Naval Academy activities. He established the McKinney Scholars Fund in 2013, which funds semester-abroad programs each year for future Naval and Marine Corps officers in subjects from language immersion to international intelligence. His interest in the program stemmed from his belief that understanding of other cultures is more effectively reached in times of peace than in times of aggression. There have been nearly 200 McKinney Scholars since the program’s inception.

McKinney also supported the annual Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference, which convenes a select group of undergraduates from universities and military academies around the world to discuss a theme from current global affairs and create relationships among these future leaders. He and his family attended the conference each year, enabling them to interact with the attendees, meet the McKinney Scholars, and hear the keynote address, which is named in honor of his financial support.

McKinney’s commitment to doing good in his community led him to serve as a trustee or director of numerous organizations, including the American, Indiana State Bar Associations, the Indianapolis Bar Association (treasurer), the Carter Center at Emory University, the Chief Executives Organization, Clarian Health Partners Inc. (now IU Health), the Credit Standards Advisory Commission (appointed by President Bill Clinton), the advisory board of Cuba Broadcasting (appointed by President George W. Bush), the Hudson Institute, the Indiana Toll Road Commission, the Indianapolis Committee on Foreign Relations, Indianapolis and Indiana Chambers of Commerce, the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Bureau (now Visit Indy), the Indianapolis Economic Club, the Indianapolis Legal Aid Society, the Indianapolis Minority Enterprise Task Force (former chair), the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership (founding member), Lynx Capital Corp., Marian University (former chair), the Service, Efficiency, and Lower Taxes for Indianapolis Commission (SELTIC) (appointed by Mayor Stephen Goldsmith), the Urban Reinvestment Task Force (former chair), the US Naval Academy Foundation, World Presidents’ Organization, Inc., and the Indiana Chapter of Young Presidents’ Organization (founding member and past chairman).

In 1994 McKinney was inducted into the Central Indiana Junior Achievement Hall of Fame, and in 1995 he received the Hoosier Heritage Award. In 1999 he was inducted into the IU Academy of Law Alumni Fellows, and in 2000 he received the Indianapolis Archdiocese Spirit of Service Award. In 2014 he received the Man of Achievement Award from the Anti-Defamation League. In 2017, he was honored with the IU Herman B Wells Visionary Award, and he was presented with an IU Bicentennial Medal in 2019. He received honorary degrees from Indiana University, Butler University, and Marian University and was named a Knight of the Order of Malta.

In 1951 McKinney married Arlene Frances (Skip) Allsopp. After 59 years of marriage and building a family and legacy together, she preceded him in death in 2010. In 2011 McKinney and his children established the Skip McKinney Faculty of the Year Fellowship, given to a faculty member of the Indianapolis Art Center who exhibits excellence in art, teaching, and building community.

In 2013 McKinney found love again and married Shelley Barr, who survives, along with his five children, Rob, Marni, Kevin, Kent, and Lisa, along with Brian (Michele), Alan, and Terrence (Tara) Barr; daughters-in-law Bridget McKinney and Heather McKinney; sons-in-law Richard D. Waterfield and Alex Intermill; and grandchildren Franci, Payton, Aidan, Liza, Tristan, Teagan, Connor, Cameron, Kathryn, Brett, William, Andrew, and great-grandchild Elijah. His brother, E. Kirk McKinney Jr., preceded him in death.

Visitation will be held on Thursday, October 24 from 4:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m. at Leppert Mortuaries–Nora, 740 E. 86th St., Indianapolis.

Funeral services will be held on Friday, October 25 at 10:00 a.m. at St. Luke Catholic Church, 7575 E. Holliday Dr., Indianapolis. A reception will be held afterwards at the Woodstock Club, 1301 W. 38th St., Indianapolis.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that contributions be made to the McKinney Scholars Fund at the United States Naval Academy Association & Foundation, the Walloon Lake Association and Conservancy at walloon.org in memory of Robert H. McKinney or The Sierra Club Foundation, 2101 Webster Street, Suite 1250, Oakland, California 94612 US, https://www.sierraclubfoundation.org/.