At a Glance
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
One of the things I haven’t done is the Atlantic Crossing on a large cruise ship—having several days out at sea with no cell phone seems extremely appealing to me.
At a Glance
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
One of the things I haven’t done is the Atlantic Crossing on a large cruise ship—having several days out at sea with no cell phone seems extremely appealing to me.
Off the Cuff
olleagues have described him as “the weirdest pilot in the world” because he doesn’t drink coffee and he doesn’t play golf, but when it comes to reviving an airline in the middle of a pandemic, Rob McKinney is just the man for the job.
Having returned to the state after spending some time in Hawaii, Ravn Alaska’s new CEO certainly enjoys a challenge. Take, for example, his stint as a stand-up comic. After picking up a Comedy-for-Dummies guide on a whim, McKinney quickly found himself at the Stardust in Las Vegas, performing for a crowd of 2,000. As for his latest venture, McKinney couldn’t be more optimistic: “I have the best team that I could ever imagine, the customers have welcomed us back with open arms, every day we’re flying more people than we did the previous day, we’re redeveloping our partnerships—I really am thrilled with how it’s going.”
Rob McKinney: I love tennis, I’ve played my whole life. I usually don’t play competitively due to timing, but I love everything outdoors—I really love hiking. I used to spend a lot of time in the ocean, so I’ve been looking for some things to replace that with up here, but tennis and hiking are my two favorite things.
AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?
McKinney: After this becomes public, I’m gonna have some pressure on myself to go make sure I finish it. But I bought myself a ukulele and never learned how to play it—so now I’m gonna get the YouTube videos fired up and get that guy going.
AB: What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?
McKinney: I’d definitely have to say doing stand-up comedy in Las Vegas. My biggest score was to play in front of about 2,000 people in the Stardust when it was still in existence. I was a Learjet pilot at the time and saw a book in a bookstore called Stand-up Comedy for Dummies and thought that went straight down the middle of home plate for me. So I read it from to cover to cover and then started doing open mic night, and then I saw an audition in Denver for the first annual comedy festival so I went and auditioned and won for Denver, even though I didn’t live there. And then I ended up getting to go to Vegas and be part of the comedy festival.
AB: What’s your favorite local restaurant?
McKinney: My Achilles’ heel is pizza. So as I have been sampling all the different pizzas in Anchorage, so far Moose’s Tooth is my favorite.
AB: Other than your current career, if you were a kid today, what would your dream job be?
McKinney: That’s easy. I was just determined up until I was sixteen that I was going to be a veterinarian. I grew up on a farm and I’ve always had this great love for animals, so to ease their suffering or help them live a better life would still be very important to me.
McKinney: Definitely the Beatles back in their heyday.
AB: What’s your greatest extravagance?
McKinney: I’d probably have to admit that it’s cars. I think my entire adult life I’ve had way more cars than a person actually needs. I think at my peak I’ve had six cars and three of them were Corvettes.
AB: What’s your best attribute and worst attribute?
McKinney: I would say my best attribute is that I’m fiercely loyal to my family, my friends, the people I work with, the people that are important in my life. And depending on who you ask, I would say that one of my weaknesses is that I’ve been fairly driven my whole life professionally, and so this has probably caused my work/life balance to be more out of whack than maybe what I would have liked it to have been. 
