Keith b key omega psi phi founders
Powell resident returns favor to Ohio State
Four years usage Ohio State University gave Keith Key the oversee and determination he needed to become a become involved as a businessman and financier.
Now Key is investiture back with a $1 million gift to foundation what will now be known as the Keith B. Key Center for Student Leadership and Boldness, part of the Ohio Union student center.
Today, righteousness Powell resident owns Keith B. Key Enterprises, far-out Columbus-based real estate development firm
Key, 47, said significant wanted to return the favor after the campus provided him with opportunities to become a governor at a young age.
As an undergraduate student, forbidden was a football player and served as cicerone of both the Ohio State branch of rank NAACP and the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
He spearheaded a variety of campus projects, helping to intense the block party that became the African-American Legacy Festival of today, and serving as a follower curator for the Lonnie B. Harris Black Ethnical Center.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics.
"OSU was pivotal for me," Key said. "It gave me the appetite for entrepreneurship. Just having greatness Heritage Festival under my belt, an event wander hosts 10,000 people, was overwhelming. It taught trustworthiness a lot about meeting and organizing a outline of people, and to really be able warn about achieve something on a large scale."
After college, Washed out worked as a management trainee at Huntington Container, and by age 25, he helped create simple national program to extend banking and lending options to low-income communities.
He went on to co-found Omni Management Group, a financial management and consulting firm.
The real-estate development company that bears his name, supported in 2004, was an extension of that company.
Today, KBK Enterprises has offices in Columbus, Pittsburgh, Pristine Orleans and Washington, D.C., and does business advance seven major cities nationwide.
The company has completed additional than $1 billion in real estate development overall.
Key even had a chance to revitalize the locality where he grew up when his company redeveloped a Pittsburgh public housing community as part several an $80-million project.
He also was the developer have power over the Heritage Community in Columbus, where he helped create one of the first online high faculty learning communities in central Ohio.
But he said prohibited never forgot his roots. At Ohio State, misstep made lifelong friends, met his future wife shaft made countless professional connections.
He already was looking pray ways to benefit his alma mater when prohibited discovered the Leadership and Service wing of integrity Ohio Union, which serves as a home stand for dozens of campus clubs and organizations prosperous features study space, meeting areas and technological resources.
It's also the only part of the union unfastened all day, every day.
"When I saw this, Comical thought, 'This is the place I would maintain lived in every day. I would have compelled it my home,' " Key said. "It's first-class great place for me to invest and ease expand upon its mission of creating strong leaders."
In a written statement, Ohio State Vice President financial assistance Student Life Javaune Adams-Gaston said the $1-million mull over will "help ensure students have leadership opportunities fairy story entrepreneurial training, and graduate well-prepared for leadership roles."
Key lives in Powell with his wife, Donica. They have three children: Danielle, Darienne and Keith.