Robert E McKee General Contractor's first office, El Paso, Texas

Humble Beginnings

The Robert E. and Evelyn McKee Foundation was chartered in the State of Texas as a non-profit, charitable corporation in 1952 without capital stock. The purpose of the Foundation is to use its funds exclusively within the United States for the benefit of charitable, educational, religious, medical, community funds and civic institutions. None of its funds shall inure to the benefit of any private individual nor any political entity. An original gift from the founders in the amount of $40,000.00 was received in 1953 and in the same year grants were awarded totaling $8,962.50. Since that modest beginning, the Foundation’s unrestricted net assets have increased through gifts, legacies, and capital improvement. Likewise, the total grants awarded have increased from the above figure to over $19,000,000 in 2025.
Changes in the laws governing foundations as well as economic and sociological changes alter, from time to time, the Foundation's pattern of giving. However, the basic principles and desires of the founders are being adhered to by the officers and trustees. The Trustees feel that they, by their close relationship with Robert E. and Evelyn McKee and with knowledge of their desires, have effectively helped in reaching the charitable goals of the Founders.
Robert & Evelyn - Mundy Ave.

THE FOUNDERS

Robert Eugene McKee, Sr.
MCKEE, ROBERT EUGENE, SR. (1889–1964). Robert Eugene (Gene) McKee, contractor, was born in Lake View (Chicago), Illinois, on June 15, 1889, the youngest son of James David and Alice Elizabeth (Cleve) McKee. His family moved when he was very young to St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended the Manual Training School of Washington University. He left St. Louis as a young man to live on his Uncle "Bud" Cleve's ranch at Elk, New Mexico. After a short stay he moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1910 and began his career in the engineering and construction field. He married Gladys Evelyn Woods on September 20, 1911. They had six sons and two daughters. After working as a draftsman and engineer for the El Paso Milling Company and the engineering department of the city of El Paso, McKee began his own construction company in 1913 and soon became one of America's most important contractors. By 1935 he had built the naval docks and the Marine Hospital at the naval base in San Diego. In Hawaii he built various military facilities, including the power plant at Pearl Harbor and the Air Corps Double Hangars and a 3,200-man barracks at Hickam Field. He was also constructing officers' quarters, warehouses, air corps machine shops, and an engine-test facility at Hickam Field. All were substantially complete when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. During World War II McKee built the largest military center in Texas, Camp Bowie, near Brownwood, in a record time of ten months. He constructed large military installations in the Panama Canal Zone and in the Territory of Hawaii. During one year he had 42,000 workers on his payroll. He was chosen to be responsible for building the facilities for the Los Alamos Atomic Energy Project in New Mexico. Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, officer in charge of the atomic project, awarded McKee the Army-Navy "E" for high achievement in October 1945. In the 1950s McKee constructed the Cadet Quarters Complex, the Air Force Chapel, and several other large facilities at the United States Air Force Academy. In 1959 he was the major contractor for the new Los Angeles International Airport. While building a variety of major projects in thirty-five of the fifty states, he kept his headquarters and home in El Paso, with branch offices in Dallas, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and the Panama Canal Zone.
McKee's company built a large percentage of El Paso's major structures, including offices, hospitals, banks, schools, churches, military installations, and facilities at the University of Texas at El Paso. Two of his pet projects were the Austin High School stadium, named for him, and the Southwestern Children's Home. He was a liberal donor to many projects. His firm was the largest individually owned contracting firm in the World, when in 1950 he incorporated his construction operations. His growth and success were directly related to his philosophy of giving his personal attention to detail, his high regard for employees as individuals, and a demand for work of the highest quality.
The Southwest was always of great interest to McKee, who collected arts and crafts of Southwestern Indian tribes from Taos, Santa Fe, and other art colonies. He became acquainted with many of the artists and their works. He and his wife visited them in their homes and corresponded with them regularly over the years. The McKees acquired an outstanding collection of Southwestern and Indian art, which was established as the McKee Collection of Paintings. The McKees helped develop the El Paso Museum of Art and through a friendship with Rush Kress became instrumental in the acquisition of part of the Samuel H. Kress Collection of paintings for permanent display in El Paso. McKee was appointed city alderman in El Paso in 1928. He was a vestryman at St. Clement's Episcopal Church, a thirty-second-degree Scottish Rite Mason, and active in El Maida Shrine. He was a board member of the El Paso Museum of Art and Southwestern Children's Home. He was appointed colonel and aide-de-camp to the governor of New Mexico in 1947. The city of El Paso honored him as a "conquistador" in 1960, and he was inducted into the El Paso County Historical Society's Hall of Honor in 1967. He was a champion of the underprivileged. In 1952 he established the Robert E. and Evelyn McKee Foundation, a nonprofit, charitable corporation for the continuation of his charitable goals within the United States. About 1961 McKee married a second time. He died on October 21, 1964, in El Paso, still active as chairman of the board of Robert E. McKee, General Contractor, Incorporated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Houston Post, October 22, 1964. Herman Liebreich, “Mr. Robert E. McKee, Sr.,” Password 12 (Winter 1967).

Gladys Evelyn Woods McKee

Gladys Evelyn McKee, known by her family and friends as "Evie," was born Gladys Evelyn Woods on May 16, 1893, in the city of Quezaltenango, Guatemala. Her father, employed as an electrical power plant operator until the plant was destroyed by a devastating earthquake, became the manager of a coffee plantation in the mountainous country high above the city. So began a hectic sequence of events, a revolution, volcanic eruptions, and more earthquakes which forced the family evacuation from the plantation high in the mountains. "Evie," her mother, sister and two brothers, escorted by pack mule, embarked on a two day trip to the sea coast to be loaded into small boats with their salvaged belongings. The small boats were rowed out to sea to meet a larger ship that took them to San Francisco, California. One year after their arrival in San Francisco, Mother Woods, Evie, and the other children were among the many families devastated by the historical San Francisco earthquake and fire. The Woods family, like so many others, lost all of their worldly possessions and left San Francisco for Chihuahua, Mexico where they lived for a short time before coming to El Paso. There, Evie and Gene met at Mother Woods' boarding house and subsequently were married on September 20, 1911. Eight children were born of this marriage. They were survived by these eight children, twenty-seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. It goes without saying, Evelyn's main objective and purpose in life was the rearing of her children and concern for a strong family relationship. Large family celebrations at Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter were the result of much planning and preparation usually starting before the holidays. She was honored as "Mother of the Year" in 1942 and publicized as the perfect example of motherhood in 1957. She was a member of St. Clement's Episcopal Church and was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Y.W.C.A. Gladys Evelyn McKee's concern for the less fortunate was ever present in her daily life and joined with her husband, Robert E. McKee, in his philanthropies. Gladys Evelyn McKee died on January 26, 1960, in El Paso, Texas, at the age of 67.

Early Years

Upon his father’s death, Robert Eugene McKee, at the age of ten, assumed partial responsibility for support of his family. He picked rags, sold bones and peddled junk metal found in the St. Louis streets and alleys. On one occasion, as he practiced his best sales pitch to a poor Jewish immigrant vendor with a horse-drawn wagon, his mother overheard their discussion from her kitchen. She stepped out into the alley as the man asked, "How old is this boy?" "Ten," she responded. "When he is a little bigger," the peddler quipped, "I want him on the wagon selling for me."
1981

Robert E. and Evelyn McKee Foundation Annual Meeting

Clockwise from lower left: John S. McKee (03/29/17 - 04/6/01), C. David “Dave” McKee (07/18/15 - 04/22/96), Robert “Bob” E. McKee, Jr. (01/26/13 - 10/28/88), Frances “Frankie” McKee Hays (07/30/21 - 05/5/03), Philip S. McKee (10/20/31 - 07/6/96), Margaret “Sis” McKee Lund (05/12/19), Robert “Bob” L. Hazelton (09/25/17 - 04/26/10) and Faye C. Neely (deceased)