Trouble seeing this email? View as Webpage

Robert A. Kinsley, MFH

By Albert J.A. Young, President Emeritus

Elkridge Harford Hunt Club, Inc.

June 10, 2020

Reprinted with permission

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the very sad news of the death this morning of our beloved Joint Master Bob Kinsley after a courageous battle with cancer. There is no way to do justice to the life of Bob Kinsley in a few words or even pages. It would take books. The success Bob was able to achieve is nothing short of staggering. He told me that when he and Anne came home from their honeymoon, he opened his bank statement and he had a net worth of $19.00. With that he bought a shovel and a wheelbarrow and rented a truck. And then he went to work. And boy did he go to work. Today Kinsley Construction employs more than 3,000 people. They are involved in almost every area of construction from custom homes and historic restoration to highways, bridges, office complexes, materials, utility installation, commercial and industrial parks and mixed-use projects. In addition to the “Mother Ship”, Kinsley family holdings include 17 other companies including a steel fabrication and erection company, a crane company, an electrical contractor, an architectural and engineering firm, an IT firm, mechanical, electrical and plumbing companies. One of those companies, Kinsley properties owns 13 million square feet of office, industrial and retail space as well as apartments and hotels. I provide this information (about which modest Bob would not be happy) simply to convey the tremendous magnitude of the success he was able to achieve.

You would expect that anyone able to achieve that incredible level of success must be a ruthless and selfish businessman who puts himself and his needs above others. Bob didn’t have a ruthless or selfish bone in his body. He was kind, compassionate, huge hearted with a strong social conscience. He and Anne established the Kinsley Family Foundation, a registered charity with over 13 million dollars in assets which supports a wide array of community support organizations through generous annual donations. Bob almost single-handedly saved an American national treasure, the Gettysburg Battlefield. Bob formed The Gettysburg Foundation and became its Chairman, setting about a massive campaign to raise the money needed to restore the famous Cyclorama and to restore and maintain the battlefield. Since inception the Gettysburg foundation has raised over $140 million dollars. In addition to these more public examples of his generosity, I could tell you dozens of stories of more private acts of kindness and generosity. And for professional reasons there are several dozen more that I couldn’t tell you about. A mutual friend and I were telling “Bob stories” yesterday. He mentioned to Bob that on his commute to work, he had driven past the very quaint, very old AME Church on Old York Road, near Bob’s farm and that a recent storm had caused roof damage. Parishioners were on the roof trying to make repairs. Two days later my friend was once again commuting to work and there was an army of red trucks around the church repairing the roof.

Bob had an unparalleled energy level that was exhausting just to watch and left much younger men struggling to keep up. When we would organize crews for the annual Hardly Able trail clearing effort, some of our volunteers would comment – “I only want to do this if I can be on Bob Kinsley’s crew.” Others would say “if you put me anywhere near that crazy man, I will leave immediately. He runs circles around me and no matter what I do I just can’t keep up.” One thing about Bob that I will never understand is how he kept so many balls in the air at the same time, yet never seemed to be bothered by it. No one will ever know the full extent of Bob’s contributions to EHHC in his 30 plus years as a member and 16 years as a Joint Master. As with his charitable giving there is some more public evidence like the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised from his donations to the biannual auctions, and probably a like amount raised from items he purchased at auction. But then there is the far more subtle “red truck brigade.” Hardly a week would go by without seeing red trucks at the hunt club, or mowing, fence building or jump building projects all over the hunt country. Loads of stone and stacks of fence boards and pole jumps mysteriously appeared exactly where needed. We have all crossed the steel fabricated bridges that are scattered throughout the hunt country. Guess where they all came from?

In September of 2014 Bob Kinsley hosted a cubbing meet for the Elkridge-Harford Hounds, from his Hanlon House in Monkton, Md.

But more important than all of that is the life Bob Kinsley led as a man, a husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend. He was a role model. He is, was and will always be my hero. I admired and respected him truly more than anyone I have ever met in my life. His morals. His work ethic. His leadership skills. His generosity. His kindness. His love of animals and children. You rarely saw Bob without his rescued dogs glued to his legs or hanging out of a vintage truck. I was so fortunate to be able to become good friends with Bob Kinsley. It changed my life. Hunt Club politics and all the associated drama can be quite challenging. Through the 20 years I was privileged to serve as President we certainly had our challenges. I could always turn to Bob for help, and frankly, vice versa. The phone would ring. I can hear him now. “Hey, can I stop by, we have a situation”.

I have never met anyone in my life with such an acute sense of his mortality, especially in recent years. He literally did not want to waste a second of time. He understood how precious life is more than anyone I have ever known. I thought he was going to win this battle. If anyone could it would be Bob. And he oozed that sense of invincibility. He kept buying farms, horses and green bananas. I know the Doctor’s told him not to ride, especially after he lost the use of his arm. Fat chance Doc. We all knew better. We worried, but we knew there was nothing anyone could do to stop him from living life to the fullest. Full throttle. We knew he would live until he died. And now he is gone. And the world, our world, my world will never be the same. I am just thankful to have had as much time with him as I did. My heart breaks for Anne and the whole family. Goodnight Master and God’s speed.

Albert J.A. Young, President Emeritus

Elkridge Harford Hunt Club, Inc.

All photos with our thanks to Douglas Lees

Do you have news to share? Tell us about it!