Looking Back, Moving Forward: Robert “Bob” Kirkbride
Mason Beuhring, Communications & Program Services Director at Marietta Community Foundation, sits down with past Marietta Community Foundation Executive Directors to see how the past has influenced our present, and how it will shape our future.
Mason Beuhring: If you wouldn’t mind, Bob, I’d like to start out by learning about your story. Would you mind sharing a bit about your background?
Bob Kirkbride: Well my hometown is Marietta. I went through high school here but went off to college at a Presbyterian school in Wooster, OH, just below Cleveland. I majored in Economics and Accounting.
I had the “good fortune” of when I graduated from college that if you were a graduate that was single and in good health, then the Draft was a 100 percent probability. People have asked me, in the past, ‘What was your Draft Number,’ but it was before the days of the Draft Lottery and the Nation was building up for the Vietnam War.
So I fiddled around for a few months, waiting for my Draft notice… there was no sense in taking a job at that time. So the first eight years of my career, after college, was in the United States Air Force as an Officer.
Because of the Vietnam War, they wouldn’t let me out after the first four years, which was the intent. Many people don’t realize that the Nation can do what they want with you, and they simply just wouldn’t let me out.
MB: I’m sure that was a time of great anxiety and frustration, but what did you do during the time you served?
BK: I was a missile launch officer and served on laon to the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, TX. That’s where I met my wife, Janeen, we were both working for NASA at the time.
I went on to an Air Force space program called the “Manned Orbiting Laboratory” at the Space & Missile Systems Organization in Los Angeles.
MB: What was that like? I feel like that is every little kids’ dream!
BK: It was a very interesting time. It was the early days of the space programs and we ‘rubbed elbows’ with the early astronauts like John Glenn and Gordon Cooper. It was an exciting time!
But, after the Manned Orbital Laboratory Program was canceled, I thought, “Aha! What a wonderful moment,” so I resigned my commission as I had tried to do several times before. They finally released me on August 31st, 1970 after serving 8 years and 4 months.
Looking back it was full of wonderful training and wonderful experiences. I was impatient back then.
MB: What was life like for you after your military career?
BK: My first civilian job was as the Financial Controller for the University of Houston. I got my CPA license in Texas.
One of my buddies in Houston knew I was from Marietta and saw that Marietta college was advertising for a Financial Vice President. He pointed it out to me because he knew I didn’t like my sons growing up in Houston and that I wanted to find a ‘Marietta-like town,’ possibly in the Texas area.
Turns out the ‘Marietta-like town’ that my friend discovered ended up just being Marietta! So I applied for that job and got it.
MB: So you basically made a full circle around the United States? From Ohio to LA to Houston and back.
BK: That is pretty accurate, in total I lived about 18 years away from Marietta, including the time I spent in Wooster for college. Also, during the years I was in Los Angeles I got my MBA from California State University.
MB: So after transitioning back home, you began to work at Marietta College. How long were your there?
BK: I stayed there seven years. They could tell I was ambitious when they interviewed me, so they asked me to commit to five years, which I agreed to, and then gave them a couple more on top of that!
MB: Where did your career go from there?
BK: My dad’s career was in the Oil & Gas business around here, and I grew up with it. In the late 1970s, early ’80s, one of the many ‘oil booms’ had occurred in that time window, and I just couldn’t stay away from it any longer.
Two business associates and I took an oil company public on the stock exchanges in Denver and Minneapolis, and we were drilling up a storm for a while until the prices began to fall, which always happens eventually.
After that, I partnered with Frank Christy, and I’m proud to say we changed the landscape of Marietta. We built the Lafeyette Center, the cinema, the Hampton Inn, and a few other things.
MB: Obviously you have had an extensive career in the for-profit sector, but how did you get involved with the Foundation in the nonprofit sector?
BK: One of the Trustees at Marietta College, during the time I was there, was a gentleman named Bill Mildren Sr. He loved Marietta and he was a banker in Parkersburg. We were in a lunch meeting one day, and he said, “Marietta should have a community foundation.”
I told him we do, it was formed in 1974 as part of the Restoration ’76 program that Marietta had. It was started as part of that process, but nobody had ever done much with it.
He then suggested, since I had worked assissting the foundation at the University of Houston, that I could take on the challenge of getting the one here going, this was back in ‘91.
I thought about it, and I thought, “Yeah, I could do that.” I knew a lot of good could be done by building up the Foundation.
MB: What were the first steps you took for the Foundation to become active in 1992?
BK: I knew from my time assisting the University of the Houston Foundation about a group called the Council On Foundations, so I reached out to them. I asked if they had a handbook, which they didn’t, but they answered a lot of questions and sent me a lot of other information. I’m glad to see Marietta Community Foundation is still a part of that Council.
The first action they recommended I take was to form a Steering Committee. So we started with nine members, including Mildren to make sure he was “awarded” for what he did to me! I also asked Dave Baker, Carl Broughton, Frances Flanders, Elizabeth Hadler, Norman Murray, Emmet Smelser, Teri Ann Zide, and myself… unfortunately there are only four of those original members who are still alive today.
MB: What was your vision for the Foundation? What was your plan?
BK: I never in my wildest dreams thought that it would be what it is today, in terms of its size and what it’s done… it’s fantastic! At that time, we were just trying to get it going.
The Steering Committee met every month at the round table in the back of the Gun Room at the Lafayette Hotel. I felt strongly that people should always have a way to contact us with the latest things happening in our area.
I felt adamant that we shouldn’t charge fees for our services, which we are one of the few foundations in the world that do not charge our donors.
So those were some of the principles that I had in mind, and they seem to have worked!
MB: Were there any obstacles that you ran into when you were first starting out?
BK: In the early 1990s, shortly after the Steering Committee had successfully reactivated the Foundation two of the local bank trust departments approached me and reported that they had several small trusts that were no longer cost-efficient for the banks to administer. They proposed that they donate those trusts to Marietta Community Foundation to administer.
The Foundation's Board agreed, but we needed to obtain the approval of the Washington County Court of Common Pleas in order to do so. A hearing date was set and, to my utter surprise, a sharp young attorney from the State of Ohio's Office of the Attorney General appeared and argued against approval of the transfers.
His primary argument was that the Foundation, although being nearly 20 years old, had really only been active a year or two, had no proven track record, and might not survive very long. He convinced the Judge and the transfers were not approved.
I remember being deeply offended that my own state government would oppose our noble efforts in this way. The current status and the spectacular future of Marietta Community Foundation ensure THAT will never happen to the Foundation again!
MB: I was looking back through old newspapers and you were the Executive Director from ’92 to ’95?
BK: I was sort of a “de-facto” executive director, but I was elected as the Chairman of the Board when we created the Steering Committee. I think I served in that capacity from ’92 to ’96, but we didn’t have enough money to pay anybody, so I became the Executive Director as well.
MB: Obviously, a few years down the line, that changed in a major way. In the Christmas Eve of 1994 edition of the Marietta Times, the Foundation received some news that would change its trajectory forever.
BK: Yes, everything changed with the wonderful event of the Lillian Strecker Smith gift of $2.5 million.
I always stress that three people were key to having that happen, and that was Mrs. Smith’s professional advisors: Jerry Brock, her attorney, the late Karen Osborne, was her accountant, and Beth Worthington, at Peoples Bank managed her money for her.
Those three recommended to her that she give a major gift from her estate to the Foundation. The community owes those three advisors a debt forever, because that gift was unrestricted, and that’s what enabled us to not charge fees for our services and to hire some staff, including a part-time Executive Director named Connie Streubing.
A funny story and I don’t know if this was a factor, but I was the Smith’s lawn boy for several years when I was a kid… so I guess I must have done a decent job on their lawn!
MB: Why was it so important to you to not assess fees to those who utilize the foundation? Out of all the Foundations in existence, we are definitely the minority when it comes to how we operate.
BK: I felt to be a real community foundation, we should offer our services to any bonafide charity that was trying to start up… they didn’t need the burden of owing us a fee.
Without fees, we could really provide a broad service to the area… and that’s what we’ve done.
MB: So now, after almost 30 years since you first activated the Foundation, how does it feel to have built something as effective and impactful as the Foundation is today?
BK: Well, it was a team effort. That Steering Committee was very important in getting us to where we went.
It’s funny looking back on it, because in ’94 we felt financially affluent enough to make our first round of grants, which totaled, I believe, at $3,000.
MB: And, now, almost 30 years later, the Foundation just set a new record for total giving in 2020 at over $300,000.
BK: And that is terrific… we didn’t imagine it would be this successful, but that was the objective to be doing exactly what you are doing.
MB: This will be the last question I have for you, Bob, and then I will get out of your hair. We spoke about where the Foundation has been, where it is currently, but where do you see the Foundation going in the future?
BK: When I envision the future of the Marietta Community Foundation I see the Foundation advancing steadily upward and onward proving that it exists for good for ever. The Foundation has grown to a critical mass that ensures it will survive.
Starting a company or a charitable organization is exactly like building a snowman when we were children. You firmly pack a tiny snowball in your hands and begin rolling it around on the ground. Each revolution of the growing snowball picks up more and more snow because the snowball's larger area has more and more contact with the snow on the ground. This describes the stage that Marietta Community Foundation is in - its current size will enable it to grow faster and faster and to provide increasing benefits to the communities that it serves.
MB: Thank you, Bob. I hope our readers enjoy this as much as I did!
New installments for our Executive Director Series will be published throughout 2021. Follow us on Social Media to make sure you don’t miss the first-hand accounts of the Foundation’s history, told by the people who were there! Click the button below!
