Kevin McKibbin was the son of Dorothy McKibbin, known by many as the “Gatekeeper to Los Alamos”.
McKibbin was born in 1930 in St. Paul, Minnesota. After his father’s death in 1931, McKibbin and his mother moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he would grow up and attend Santa Fe High School.
During the war, McKibbin’s mother ran the Santa Fe office at 109 East Palace for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, welcoming new recruits to the Manhattan Project.
After serving in the Korean War, McKibbin received a degree in geology from the University of New Mexico. Before beginning his career in the National Park Service, he briefly returned to Santa Fe and worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a land surveyor.
McKibbin retired in 1988. He returned to Santa Fe in 2004. Just like his mother, McKibbin shared a life-long love for the Southwest and the Los Alamos community that began during the Manhattan Project.
McKibbin died on June 13, 2010 in Santa Fe.