CHAIRMAN MCKEON

CHAIRMAN MCKEON
CHAIRMAN and CEO | email

Chairman McKeon is the face of, and driving force behind, The McKeon Group, Inc. During his
22 years in Congress, Chairman McKeon served on multiple committees and served as Chairman
of both the House Education and Workforce committee, as well as House Armed Services
Committees. Chairman McKeon formed the McKeon Group in 2015 after retiring from
Congress. His in-depth experience and ceaseless work ethic give our clients the kind of
opportunities and audiences that only he can deliver. Chairman McKeon is poised to lead our
clients to the same levels of success he enjoyed during his 22 years in Congress.

Chairman McKeon began his career as an entrepreneur when he joined his mother and father’s
business, Howard and Phil’s Western Wear. He worked to acquire a small business loan and
quickly helped the store expand to a second location. Chairman McKeon worked diligently to
grow these two stores into a thriving business and, along with his four brothers, expanded the
chain to over 50 retail locations across California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Through his
business acumen and the support of his family, Chairman McKeon helped Howard and Phil’s
Western Wear grow from a single store, into the largest western wear retailer in the nation at the
time.

Chairman McKeon’s own business experience showed him the impact a small business loan
could have on the development of other entrepreneurs in his community. As such, he worked to
ensure that emerging small businesses in his home city of Santa Clarita had access to these
crucial loans. Chairman McKeon was instrumental in organizing, Valencia National Bank, a
community bank in the city that provided community members with small business loans. This
allowed local business to flourish and increased jobs in the community. For his work, Chairman
McKeon was named the first Chairman of the Valencia National Bank.

Understanding the important role education plays in a community, Chairman McKeon ran for,
and was elected to, the William S. Hart Union High School District Board. Later, Chairman
McKeon continued to serve his local community as Chairman of the Board of Henry Mayo
Newhall Memorial Hospital. During his time on the board, he was instrumental in expanding the
hospital to better serve the healthcare needs of his fellow community members. Along with his
work to serve the healthcare and education needs of the people of his community, Chairman
McKeon was also a driving force in the effort to have the city of Santa Clarita incorporated from
Los Angeles County. When the new city was formed in 1987, he was elected to the City Council.
The new Council then selected Chairman McKeon to serve as the first Mayor of the city.

Seeking to serve his fellow citizens at the Federal level, Chairman McKeon ran for Congress in
California’s newly created 25 th District. He was elected to the House of Representatives in
November 1992. Upon entering Congress in 1993, Chairman McKeon was elected by his peers
as the Republican Freshman Class President of the 103rd Congress. In 1995, when the
Republicans won the house for the first time in 40 years, he was appointed Chairman of the
Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness. Chairman
McKeon was then appointed Chairman of the full Education and Workforce Committee in 2006,
where his priorities were school choice, teacher quality, and greater access to higher education.
In 2010, he was named Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. During his time as

Chairman, he built on the bi-partisan tradition of the committee and successfully led the
Congress to pass the National Defense Authorization Act each year as Chairman, with the bill
advancing from committee in 2015 with a unanimous 63-0 vote. Chairman McKeon retired from
Congress in 2015. Demonstrating the respect his fellow members of Congress had for him, the
2015 National Defense Authorization Act was renamed the “Carl Levin and Howard P. “Buck”
McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015” in his honor.
Howard P. “Buck” McKeon attended Brigham Young University where he earned his bachelor’s
degree. He is married to Patricia McKeon, and they have six children, thirty-one grandchildren
and eleven great-grandchildren.
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