McKeithan was business, civic leader
Daniel F. “Jack” McKeithan Jr., a gentlemanly, soft-spoken business and civic leader in Milwaukee, has died. He was 82.
Over five decades, McKeithan helped shape the local scene from corporate boardrooms — he led Schlitz Brewing in its final years — to the streets of downtown, where the Great Circus Parade unfolded thanks in large part to his considerable fund-raising skills.
“He was a true gentleman,” said attorney William Fox, who served on boards with McKeithan as far back as the 1970s and co-chaired the Circus Parade with him from the early 1990s on. “I never heard him speak ill of anybody. … It’s a long time to go without ever criticizing your fellow human beings.”
It wasn’t just the Circus Parade. The Zoological Society, the Greater Milwaukee Committee, Junior Achievement, the Miller Park district board — McKeithan had a hand in guiding all of them and more.
He was among a handful of people without whom Miller Park wouldn’t have gotten built, said Michael Duckett, executive director of the stadium district.
“Jack was a very special man,” Duckett said. “Jack was one who pretty much always made you feel better after having spent some time with him. His bright and cheerful outlook on life was contagious.”
Born in North Carolina in 1935, McKeithan found his way to Milwaukee after meeting Gillian Uihlein, daughter of a member of the Schlitz Brewing family, while both were students at Duke University.
They married, and McKeithan heeded his father-in-law’s suggestion to study geology and join his oil exploration and production company, Tamarack Petroleum Company Inc.
McKeithan and his family moved to Milwaukee in 1971 and, in 1973, he became president of Tamarack. That same year, he joined the board of Schlitz Brewing, which was largely owned by the Uihlein family. McKeithan and his wife later divorced.
In late 1976, following the death of Chairman and CEO Robert Uihlein Jr., McKeithan was named chairman of Schlitz, and he resigned from Tamarack. Schlitz at the time was the No. 2 brewer in the U.S., but it was struggling. The recipe of the beer that made Milwaukee famous had been changed, sales were falling and Schlitz was on a course that would see it shut down its brewery amid a strike in 1981 and be absorbed by the Stroh Brewery Co. the following year.
With the transition, McKeithan returned to Tamarack as president and eventually became chairman and CEO.
He also continued his civic involvement, typically operating quietly with organizations such as the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.
“He was not the kind of CEO who would be the first to speak out,” said MMAC President Tim Sheehy, who worked with McKeithan for 25 years. “But more likely to be your ‘uncle’ and grab you by the elbow and talk to you quietly about an insight, a decision that was being made or to give you some really thoughtful feedback — and the consummate gentleman in doing that.”
Sheehy said many Milwaukeeans don’t realize how much of a role McKeithan played in the city.
“I don’t say this lightly when I call him a pillar in this community,” Sheehy said. “He may not have been a shiny pillar in terms of being visible, but clearly a pillar out in the business community, in the philanthropic community and in the civic community, and that is a rare combination.”
Sheehy said McKeithan had “a down-home, folksy way of communicating” that combined elements of “the Southern genteel style and the Milwaukee humble.”
Duckett said he and McKeithan annually raised nearly $2 million for the Circus Parade. McKeithan, Duckett said, was particularly effective, and for a simple reason.
“People give to people,” Fox said. “If you know enough people, they’ll give to you whatever the cause is, because they’re friends, and Jack knew a helluva lot of people.”
McKeithan also was a former director of The Marcus Corp., U.S. Bancorp, Wisconsin Gas Co. and Sta-Rite Industries, and a former trustee of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.
McKeithan died Sept. 21. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Patti Brash McKeithan; daughters Deborah McKeithan-Gebhardt, Catherine M. Higgins and Genevie M. Osborn; sisters Ann M. Davis and Kay M. Thornton; and brother Eric McKeithan.
A memorial gathering will be held Nov. 7, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at Milwaukee Country Club, 8000 N. Range Line Road, River Hills, with a time of remembrance at 5 p.m.