Greg McKinley

’80 BS Accounting
Patrick T. Smith Achievement in Service Award

Greg McKinley’s blueprint upon graduating high school in the mid-1970s was to follow in some familial footsteps.

First, the longtime Las Vegas resident would study for two years at UNLV before transferring to UNR for his final two years — just as his older brother had done before him. Then McKinley would parlay an accounting degree into a job with the same organization that employed his father: the FBI.

In the end, though, neither plan materialized. And for that, UNLV and the greater Southern Nevada community can continue to be grateful.

That’s because the 2023 recipient of the Patrick T. Smith Achievement in Service Award has spent his entire professional career in an active state of giving back. McKinley’s service has come in a variety of contexts, from time to ideas to actual dollars (both personal and corporate). And that service has had a far-reaching impact — especially on his alma mater and its past, current, and future students.

It all started in the mid-1980s when McKinley agreed to join the UNLV Alumni Association’s board of directors. 

His early years on the board coincided with the building of the Tam Alumni Center, which opened in 1990. Always deferential, McKinley is quick to note that he had little to do with the Alumni Association’s new home. However, his fingerprints are all over one particular philanthropic program that has been highly impactful: the UNLV Alumni Endowment Fund.

Founded by McKinley to fund student scholarships, the endowment today has total assets of about $1.25 million.

McKinley concluded his tenure with the Alumni Association after serving two terms as board president in 1991 and 1992. Then in 2008, he again heeded the call to help his alma mater, joining the board of trustees for the UNLV Foundation, the university’s primary fundraising organization.

McKinley’s tenure as a trustee includes a two-year term as board chairman from 2019-20, during which time the Foundation raised more than $130 million. As a member of the board’s executive team, he also spearheaded an effort to boost the profile — and, in turn, the success — of the Alumni Association.

All along the way, McKinley’s passion for giving back intensified through his work with Cragin & Pike, Nevada’s oldest privately owned insurance and risk management agency (and second-oldest privately owned business in Las Vegas).

He started with the firm in 1984, became partner in 1991, eventually rose to CEO, and now serves as chairman emeritus after stepping down as CEO at the end of 2021. In addition to handling multiple high-profile clients throughout his career, McKinley maintains the fierce commitment to community service that has been a staple of Cragin & Pike since it opened in 1909.

Case in point: McKinley was instrumental in securing a $2 million donation from Nevada insurance agents and brokers, with the money earmarked for college scholarships for Nevada students. (The gift has since grown to $2.6 million.)

Then in early 2022, the Nevada Surplus Lines Foundation — a philanthropic arm of the state’s insurance and risk management industry — tasked McKinley with researching the feasibility of creating an insurance and risk management academic center (as well as a corresponding major) within UNLV’s Lee Business School.

Thanks to a $5 million gift from the Nevada Surplus Lines Foundation — a gift that McKinley was primarily responsible for securing — the Kerestesi Center for Insurance and Risk Management at the Lee Business School was unveiled in June. Named in honor of the son of Frank Kerestesi, who brought McKinley on board at Cragin & Pike, the Kerestesi Center will serve as a hub for students and faculty conducting insurance- and risk management-related research. 

It also will be a vital resource for students interested in pursuing careers in what is rapidly becoming an underserved industry.

For McKinley, the center is particularly meaningful because it represents a confluence of three important touch points in his life: his alma mater, his profession, and his commitment to lifting others up through the power of education. 

“I’m a gigantic believer in education,” McKinley says. “It turns people’s lives around. Of all the things I’ve ever been involved with, I’m convinced education does make a difference — not only in an individual’s life but the lives of the whole family.”

You graduated with an accounting degree but ended up spending almost your entire career in the insurance and risk management industry. How did that happen?

I majored in accounting because at the time, you needed either an accounting or law degree to be in the FBI. But I never had any desire to be an accountant. 

By the time I finished at UNLV, I knew I wasn’t going the FBI route. So I tried to become a stockbroker for a while and was terrible at it. Then I took a job in the trust department at First Interstate Bank and worked there for a few years.  

At this time, my brother, Mark, was working at Cragin & Pike, whose president was Frank Kerestesi. I got to know Frank through Mark, who one day called me and said, “Frank wants to talk to you.”

By this point, I was in the management training program at First Interstate and liked it. But Frank made me an offer that was too good to pass up.

It didn’t take long to realize that this was a phenomenally good industry in which you can make a great living. I often joke that there are very few other industries where a bunch of people who graduated college with a 2.7 GPA can do as well as we do.

You’ve given so much of your time and energy to community service throughout your career. What inspired your intense desire to give back? 

I’ve always believed in lending a hand to those in need. But really, my time at Cragin & Pike is what instilled the importance of service. Because it’s such a huge part of our company’s culture.

For example, I joined the firm in 1984, and since I’ve been here virtually every one of our local competitors has sold. But we’re not for sale, and we’re not going to sell. So having been a fixture here for more than a century, it’s important that we not only be involved with the community but we also take on leadership roles.

I’ve done that personally, especially with regard to UNLV. But we have members of our company who have done the exact same thing with the Boys & Girls Club, Make a Wish Foundation, Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation — the list goes on and on. 

We all feel so fortunate to have done as well as we’ve done, so we all feel a responsibility to give back to the community wherever we can.

During your time on the Alumni Association’s board, you worked to establish the Alumni Endowment Fund. Why does the moral compass that guides your service always point in the direction of education?

We were just finishing building the Tam Alumni Center, and I was trying to figure out, “What do we do next?” I didn’t know if UNLV had any kind of alumni-supported scholarship fund, so that was the genesis of the endowment fund: Create a financial pipeline that would provide scholarships to kids who don’t have the resources to pay for college.

Many of these kids are first-generation college students, and in recent years, I’ve come to understand what a college degree means to this particular segment of our population. When you talk to these guys and gals, their stories are amazing, and what they had to do to earn their degree is incredible. 
 
These kids are coming from a family situation where their parents have no idea what it’s like to be a college student, nor what it’s like to have to study. They have to walk that path on their own and figure it out. And when they do, it’s so inspiring.

What’s your message to those first-generation students about the importance of giving back?

The one thing I’ve noticed about first-generation college students is that the ones who received scholarships understand the difference it made for them. And I haven’t seen any of them not want to give back themselves.

The great thing about service is you honestly get more out of it than you give.

Why is the Kerestesi Center and the associated degree program, so important to both the Lee Business School and UNLV?

First, a little background for context: A lot of professionals in my industry — myself included — have reached or soon will reach retirement age. In fact, when you look at current vacancies and projected vacancies in the next five years, there are 400,000 jobs in this industry that will need to be filled. That means there’s a huge opportunity for young business students.

When I started researching whether or not UNLV could benefit from a center dedicated to insurance and risk management, I traveled to Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia with Lee Business School Dean Gerry Sanders, Assistant Dean Kimberly Nehls, and professor Chris Utterback. We toured their program and learned that 98 percent of Saint Joseph’s students who earn a degree in insurance and risk management have a job by the time they’re handed their diploma.

The University of Georgia has a similar program, and they have 100 percent job placement for graduates. And from what we understand, the entry pay is 20 percent higher in our industry than for any other type of business degree.

Also, there are very few of these types of university programs in the Western United States. That means we have a chance to do something very special.

Now that the center has been approved, we hope to have the academic program for the major ready to roll out by the fall 2024 semester. Our hope is that by the time the first students complete the program, 95 percent will be employed upon graduation.

So this center has the potential to be a success story that will benefit the entire university.