Kearney Gift to Support Law and Economics Program
Daniel Kearney, '65, reports that when he was elected student president of the Law School he had one primary agenda. "I felt we weren't taking advantage of all university's resources," he said. "So we arranged a weekly time when some of the great figures from across the Midway came to the Law School to speak to us." Milton Friedman, William McNeil, and a host of other luminaries accepted Kearney's offer, starting a Law School tradition that continues to this day.
An organizational scholar observing Kearney's actions back then might have made a prediction--that Kearney would be a leader throughout his life. His remarkable career spans his appointment as the first executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority when he was only four years out of Law School, to serving as president of the Government National Mortgage Association ("Ginnie Mae").
Throughout his remarkable career Kearney has shown exceptional generosity to the Law School, which he describes not as generosity but as the repayment of a debt that takes several forms. "I received a full scholarship to the Law School," Kearney said. "I was a kid from a tiny town in northern Michigan, from a school where fewer than one in five graduates of the high school even went to college. My parents were not wealthy. That scholarship was instrumental in my attending the Law School."
With a million-dollar gift, he established the Daniel and Gloria Kearney Fund to provide support for the Law and Economics Program at the Law School. This gift was inspired by the education he received. "I was in school in the beginning days of the Law and Economics Program. Ronald Coase had just joined the faculty, as had Kenneth Dam. The entire learning experience was spectacular, and whatever I have been able to accomplish since then is in large part a direct result of the knowledge and perspectives the Law School provided."
He has accomplished a lot. Following his tenure at the Illinois Housing Development Authority, he assumed a leadership position at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. There he led the invention and implementation of Section 8 housing subsidies, which today make rental housing affordable for millions of individuals and families. In 1974 he took over as president of Ginnie Mae, which has now helped over 32 million households acquire affordable mortgage financing. Following that, he served for a year as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ford. "A year in the White House is an experience and opportunity not to be missed," he said of his time there. Between 1977 and 1988, at Salomon Brothers, he and a handful of others created that firm's mortgage securities division, an activity that included the creation and marketing of entirely new types and classes of securities.
He joined Aetna in the early 1990s as executive vice president and chief investment officer, where he is credited with, among other things, acting forcefully to avert a potential liquidity crisis, steering the company's real estate portfolio successfully through a severe downturn, and merging several major corporate services into a Retirement Services Division that has continued to grow at double-digit levels.
Kearney retired from Aetna in 1998 and now he devotes his time to service on five corporate boards and to enjoying the company of his wife of thirty-eight years, whom he credits with being a big part of his success. Retirement also means spending time with his four children, one of whom, Daniel, just completed a clerkship with Chief Justice John Roberts.