Jim McKee: Another Vanderbilt Success Story

Because Vanderbilt University gave him so much, Jim McKee, BA’60, is returning the favor in the form of generous planned gifts that will benefit generations of scholar-athletes. McKee was able to attend Vanderbilt because of a football scholarship.

“I could’ve gone to other schools to play baseball or football, but all I wanted was to go to Vanderbilt — so I accepted their football scholarship at a time when Vanderbilt didn’t offer baseball scholarships,” said McKee, who was both a quarterback and pitcher during his time on campus. “They recruited me my junior year in high school and I knew that my education was the most important thing, so Vanderbilt was where I wanted to go.”

The math major put his education to good use, teaming up with two other Vanderbilt alumni to create Data Communications and Online Computing Inc. — two computer companies that were on the cutting edge of technology.

“Other companies like IBM made mainframes, but there really wasn’t any software for connecting one computer to another,” he said. “Ours was the first computer system that helped radio and television stations solve their billing and scheduling problems.”

Today McKee credits Vanderbilt with much of his success.

“If I hadn’t gotten that good education at Vanderbilt and met all those people who were so important to me, like my advisor and my math teachers, I don’t think I would have succeeded like I did,” he said. “If there are any alumni out there who are thinking about making a gift, I would just ask them to think about what Vanderbilt did for them.”