ALUMNI NEWS
alumni profile
Graduate Degree
Kevin and his wife, Vicki, at an annual family picnic.
KEVIN MCGEE '21
I
grew up a Navy brat in the Pacific Northwest with two brothers and a sister. We often relocated from port to port wondering when my submarine officer dad would come through the door. I've seen Bangor, Key West, Pearl Harbor, and San Diego. My parents settled in sunny San Diego when he was discharged. My father went from submarines to teaching Acoustical Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles. Today I am a retired ironworker living a few miles east of San Diego proper. After high school, I served as a missionary in the South Pacific islands of French Polynesia learning the Tahitian and French languages and learning to slow to the beat of island culture. "Haere Maru" means "Go Slow". Today, when I recognize that I am getting ahead of myself, I pause and can reach back to the shores of Bora Bora to slow each moment.
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WALDORF MAGAZINE // SPRING 2022
After my mission, I married and started a family. After our third child, we decided to move back to Seattle to be closer to family roots. While working as an ironworker I began teaching in our apprenticeship program and volunteering in our local deaf community as an interpreter. I was afforded the opportunity to serve as the volunteer Director of a deaf/blind organization in the Seattle area. We still volunteer in the community today. Volunteer work provides deep personal enrichment and nourishment to the soul. While teaching in the Northwest, I was blessed to attend the University of Washington, the University of San Diego, and subsequently taught Labor History at Bates College. Our family grew from three to eight and when the last few kids flew the coop, we moved back to San Diego and snuggled into our home here. My wife and I are blessed with eight children who are now scattered across the planet from San
Diego, Seattle, and Germany to China. Our question to each of our children was always "What school do you want to go to when you graduate from high school?", not "Do you want to go to school after you graduate?" I am happy to say that today, five of our eight children are pursuing advanced degrees. My educational journey accelerated in San Diego with a Master's in Occupational Safety and Health and a Master's in Business Administration/Project Management; both from Columbia Southern University. My second master’s from Columbia Southern was an emotional experience. The emotion came from a required humble admission that I was not very good at business. My father used to say that life is a series of ladders that once we climb one, we will find another waiting. He also warned to beware of plateaus; plateaus mean your growth has stopped.
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