Nancy McKeague: The Gift of Time

Nancy McKeague did not plan on leaving her hometown of West Bloomfield in the Detroit suburbs for Lansing’s smaller city. But when work brought her in a taste of Lansing’s unique combination of small town charm and big city venues, McKeague never got around to returning home. Instead, she threw herself into her new home, heart and soul, while she raised her family, pursued her career and fostered her adopted community with a gift that keeps on giving all year round — her time.

Pleasant surprises

McKeague came to Lansing expecting to make a quick two-year stop while she boosted her resume as a legislative assistant to newly elected State Rep. Mat Dunaskiss.

“I had no intention of staying here. I had grown up in Oakland County suburbs, and I planned to go back there,” McKeague said. “But once I got here, it was a great place to raise a family.”

McKeague stayed with the House of Representatives for five years, and spent another six as chief of staff for State Sen. Doug Cruce. After that, she took a position as the first executive director for the Michigan Insurance Federation, where she built up an insurance and employment specialty as a lobbyist.

Five years later, McKeague took her experience to the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. She was the first female to lobby for the Chamber. Regardless, McKeague does not recall any struggles resulting from her groundbreaking position.

“That was one of the jobs where I felt right at home from day one,” McKeague said. Her appreciation for the atmosphere the organization offered kept her with the Chamber for 13 years.

Then, about five years ago, McKeague was given the opportunity to join the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) as the senior corporate vice president.

“I wanted the opportunity to focus on one issue,” McKeague said. Plus, MHA’s specialties aligned excellently with her own.

A healthy impact

McKeague’s role puts her at the helm of a multitude of MHA’s facets. In addition to lobbying, the position puts McKeague’s B.A. from Spring Arbor University and M.S. from Central Michigan University — both in administration with a concentration in human resources — to work as supervisor of HR. She also oversees corporate meetings and event planning, and graphics and print for the MHA’s onsite internal printshop.

McKeague embraces the variety that inevitably comes with these diverse responsibilities, and believes it helps keep her fresh.

“I love HR … but some days the last thing you want to do is hear someone complain about how someone is taking up two parking spots,” McKeague said.

McKeague also loves that the work she does at MHA makes a tangible difference, making Michigan healthier and even saving lives. The MHA organizes initiatives that have made all its member hospitals completely smoke-free, battle childhood obesity and, currently, make all member hospital food trans fat free.

Giving of herself

Although McKeague loves that her work makes a difference, her passion for the Lansing area community motivated her to give back even more — something she does in plenitude.

McKeague keeps herself busy with five boards for Lansing and state organizations, and has given her time to a handful more in the past.

“My assistant keeps telling me, ‘Just say no!’” McKeague said. “[But] it’s a great community. I know it sounds trite, but I feel a responsibility to give something back. With the dedicated, talented people I get to work with [on the boards], I feel that I get as much as I give.”

Four of the boards McKeague serves on are closely related to her professional life — she chairs the Sparrow Foundation board and also serves on the board of the Sparrow Health Network, Accident Fund Holdings and Michigan Fitness Fund. For her fifth, McKeague has made an effort to keep a “rounded view” of the community by serving on boards varying from financial and educational organizations to the arts, which has led her to her current position with the Wharton Center board.

McKeague said she balances it all with the support of MHA and careful time management.

“I’m painfully organized. It drives my kids crazy. But it’s not that hard when you’re organized,” McKeague said. “I don’t commit to something I can’t deliver on. One of the things you learn as you get older is that you don’t have to do everything … When I’m in, I’m in 100 percent.”

Home for the holidays

“And, of course, I couldn’t do [so much giving back] if I still had kids at home,” McKeague owned.

While McKeague enjoys the extra time she has now that her six children have left the nest, she lamented that only one remains in the Lansing area and only two in the state. The others are scattered across the country in major cities including Chicago, Indianapolis and San Francisco.

“It troubles me that there are not more opportunities to keep younger adults here,” McKeague said.

But with all six children and six grandchildren — a four-year-old, four two-year-olds, and a newborn — making their way back home for the holidays this season, the light in McKeague’s eyes isn’t dulled for long. She’s too busy preparing for her home to be full of family and holiday cheer.

Each Thanksgiving as her kids head home, they are put to work getting out the Christmas decorations that are too heavy for McKeague and her husband, David, to
lift themselves.

“We have these very large Nutcrackers that are so heavy, I can’t even lift them, or even my side of them!”

But the rest of the decorations don’t come out until later — in the McKeague family, Thanksgiving weekend is for football.

In fact, the McKeagues hold season tickets to Michigan State University football every year. Still, the University of Michigan crest waves proudly from the flagpole in front of their East Lansing home in honor of David’s alma mater.

“I bet it just drives the neighbors crazy,” said McKeague.

But as the season gears up, another important family tradition is the changing of the decorations hung from the house’s solarium. McKeague’s husband carefully keeps seasonal décor floating from its ceiling year round — for the holidays, crystal snowflakes.

“Whenever the grandchildren come to visit, it’s the first place they go,” McKeague said.

New year, new growth

“There’s a lot of change in health care, and a lot of opportunities to make a difference,” McKeague said.

The next year is expected to bring great change for health insurance, with new challenges, and McKeague is ready to meet them head on. But the most exciting things on her horizon are the wedding of her newly engaged son and the birth of a seventh grandchild next spring.

“For me the real reward is watching the kids’ families develop,” she said. “My parents used to say, ‘Parents are only as happy as their unhappiest child,’ and I think that’s true.”