A Newsletter for Friends and Alumni of the University of Washington
Joe McKinstry, UW Libraries campaign chair

Joe McKinstry is known throughout the Puget Sound region as a leader in the construction industry and founder of Joseph McKinstry Construction, Inc., but he is also helping build a stronger future for the UW with his volunteer work at UW Libraries.

As chair of the Libraries Council of Advocates, the volunteer board leading the Libraries’ portion of Campaign UW, McKinstry has been an effective champion of the University’s libraries system, which encompasses 21 separate libraries throughout the UW’s three campuses, Friday Harbor Laboratories and Harborview Medical Center. Under his leadership, the University Libraries recently reached its $9 million Campaign UW goal, doubling its number of endowments, expanding its collections, and increasing its current use funds for special projects.

McKinstry’s involvement with Libraries is a natural fit. His wife, Jill Morrison McKinstry (’69,’73, ’87), is director of the Odegaard Undergraduate Library and Special Assistant to the Dean for Undergraduate Education and Programs at the UW. She also worked in the library while earning her master’s degree in library and information science at the UW. “UW Libraries has meant so much to Jill,” McKinstry says. “She really found her calling there.”

To create opportunities for others, the couple established the McKinstry Libraries Fellowship to provide resources for graduate students in the library science program. The fellowship is awarded with a preference for students from underrepresented groups in academic libraries.

McKinstry remembers meeting the first McKinstry fellow, José Cordova, at a Libraries function. “He came up with his baby in his arms with his wife. He thanked us and said, ‘Without your scholarship, we wouldn’t have been able to start a family.’ ” For McKinstry, that moment brought a powerful realization: “You have this campaign and you have all this work you’re doing, and boy, you get a human face on that and you realize you can really change people’s lives,” he says. “And it’s not that difficult.”

For more on University Libraries, visit www.lib.washington.edu.

Return to Fall 2007 Campaign Newsletter