About The Author
John “Skip” McKoy has spent most of his life leading major public, private and non-profit organizations. In 2014, he retired as Director of Programs for Fight For Children, an organization based in Washington, DC which works to improve the quality of education for underserved children and youth. Previously, McKoy was an executive with the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation (a group dedicated to revitalizing riverfront communities), CEO of DC Agenda (a city-wide nonprofit think tank), Director of the District’s City Planning Agency, Planning Director of the Council of Governments in the San Francisco Bay Area, Vice President of Lockheed Martin Corporation, and a private management consultant.
International volunteer work and private travel have provided McKoy with his background in and appreciation of Asia, Africa, Latin America, as well as Europe. While in high school, he was able to travel to England and France as a ‘work camp volunteer,’ and to Britain, France, Belgium and Germany as a choir member. For two years after college, he worked as a community organizer in Guatemala, and has subsequently been a translator on business trips to Mexico and Puerto Rico. He has lectured at Shanghai’s Eastern Normal University and helped his wife establish a scholarship fund for visiting Chinese graduate students during the 1980’s. During that decade, they were active members of the China-American Friendship Association and also participated in “cross-cultural” training at DC’s Meridian House. Most recently, he accompanied his wife on measles prevention campaigns in Ethiopia and Mali, while she was Children’s Health Director for The United Nations Foundation.
McKoy’s other volunteer activity has included board membership with a wide range of causes: Humanities Council of Washington; Leadership Greater Washington, DC; Mentors Inc.; Communities and Schools of the Nation’s Capital; the Corporation of Haverford College; the DC Chamber of Commerce; and Mayor’s appointments to chair a Commission on City Planning, a State Council on Early Childhood Education and the DC Public Charter School Board.
He earned his Master’s of Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and his Master’s Degree in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Hamilton College.