Keith B. McMullin

Keith B. McMullin died on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at the age of 85. The Deseret News reported his death that evening, identifying him as a former member of the Presiding Bishopric and the business leader who spent more than a decade as CEO and president of Deseret Management Corporation. No cause of death was made public in the initial announcement, and funeral or memorial details had not been released at the time of that report.

Tributes arrived quickly from DMC colleagues. Sheri Dew, executive vice president and chief content officer, said McMullin was one of a kind: a boss who always had her back, a leader sensitive to the needs of all involved, and "the consummate gentleman." Gary Porter, a senior vice president who had worked with him for decades in Welfare Services and later at DMC, remembered his kindness, bright mind, power of reasoning, and mentoring. This page will be updated if his family or the church releases further details about services or the circumstances of his passing.

Keith Brigham McMullin was born on August 18, 1941, in St. George, Utah, to Lawrence and Margaret Savage McMullin. He grew up first in the small Washington County town of Leeds, where farm work shaped daily life, and later spent a formative stretch on a rugged ranch between East Helena and Townsend, Montana. There he was the only student in his grade at a remote seven-pupil schoolhouse reachable in winter only by bucking snowdrifts in a jeep. After roughly a year the family returned to Utah. His father preferred Leeds and the family's southern Utah property; his mother pressed for Salt Lake City so the children would have broader opportunities. They settled in Salt Lake City while continuing to work the Leeds land on return trips.

McMullin later said recreation and work were intermingled in those years: trips to the farm felt like vacations and labor at the same time. He developed a lasting love of horses, outdoor work, and gardening that he and his wife carried into their own household. Those early patterns of thrift, family labor, and church participation became the background against which he measured later callings.

After high school McMullin enrolled at the University of Utah to study banking and finance. He paused school to serve as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany. When he returned he finished his degree while working part-time as an early morning seminary teacher and insurance adjuster. At one point, short of tuition money, he borrowed a brother's cattle truck, filled it with peaches from southern Utah, and sold the fruit to cover a quarter's tuition.

Carolyn Jean Gibbs studied elementary education at Brigham Young University, taught for a year in California, and then served a mission in West Germany. After their missions the couple courted and were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on June 22, 1964. McMullin later said his subsequent years managing small businesses functioned as a practical graduate school that taught lessons formal classrooms could not.

McMullin's career moved in three large arcs: corporate finance and small business, church welfare administration, and executive leadership of Deseret Management Corporation.

In 1966, after graduating in banking and finance, he accepted a position as an investment and financial analyst with Ford Motor Company in Michigan. The young family settled in Ypsilanti among other Western Latter-day Saint couples working for Ford. He was soon called as branch president of a struggling congregation that grew into a ward; he became its first bishop and postponed graduate school plans to give the assignment full attention. From 1969 to 1975, back in Salt Lake City, he managed several small-business ventures.

In 1975 he joined the church's Welfare Services Department as director of financial and administrative services. Over twenty years in welfare work he advanced through administrative leadership and spent ten years as managing director of Welfare Services, overseeing programs that expanded into international humanitarian assistance. He also served for a time as managing director of the church's Materials Management Department before returning to welfare leadership. From 1980 to 1983 he interrupted that institutional career to preside over the Germany Frankfurt Mission.

Called as second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric on December 27, 1995, he spent more than sixteen years helping direct the church's temporal affairs until he received emeritus status on March 31, 2012. That April he became president and CEO of Deseret Management Corporation, succeeding Mark Willes. Under his stewardship DMC's media companies, including the Deseret News, KSL and Bonneville partners, Bonneville Communications, Deseret Book, and Deseret Digital Media, pursued digital transformation and a global Faith and Media initiative presented in cities including London, Mexico City, Abu Dhabi, and Rome. He retired effective December 1, 2023, and was succeeded by Jeff Simpson. In 2016 he also chaired the Salt Lake Chamber's board of governors.

McMullin married Carolyn Jean Gibbs on June 22, 1964, in the Salt Lake Temple. They raised eight children: Kirk, Chad, Johanna, Margaret (later Fullmer), Jennifer, David, Nathan, and Nannette. Family life, as they described it in a 1996 Church News interview, was deliberately ordinary and work-centered: paper routes, farm chores, gardening, skiing together, and few expensive vacations. Carolyn learned to ski as a mother of six so the family could share the slopes. Five of their children had served full-time missions by the mid-1990s, three of them in Germany.

When McMullin was called as a mission president in Germany Frankfurt (1980-1983), seven children ages 1 to 15 went with the couple; their eighth child was born soon after arrival. Carolyn later said the presence of young children helped bond the family with missionaries and local members. McMullin often returned to the idea that there was "nothing flashy" about their household, only a shared effort to fulfill what they believed the Lord asked of them.

McMullin's public teaching centered on duty, preparation, Zion, and the practical power of priesthood service. In general conference he argued that duty does not require perfection but does require diligence, and that priesthood authority must be matched by spiritual power. His final conference address, in October 2011, closed with a witness that God is Eternal Father and that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world.

In civic and business settings he linked faith to institutional culture without treating religion as a marketing slogan. At the Salt Lake Chamber he said the strengths of an economy begin "at the kitchen table," where frugality, work ethic, and family stability are learned. Accepting a 2024 Utah business leadership award, he urged companies to study and adopt Utah's cultural heritage of thrift, perseverance, and unity. In a career-focused devotional he testified that the gospel is true and that people are "on the Lord's errand" in whatever honest circumstance they find themselves, treating career itself as a form of calling rather than a secular compartment sealed off from belief.

McMullin's legacy sits at the intersection of Latter-day Saint welfare history and Utah's faith-aligned media industry. Inside the church he is remembered as a Presiding Bishopric counselor who brought twenty years of Welfare Services experience to the temporal leadership of a global faith, and as a general conference voice on duty and the Aaronic Priesthood for a generation of young men. Outside the ecclesiastical structure he is remembered for more than a decade leading Deseret Management Corporation through a period of digital change and international Faith and Media outreach, and for chairing the Salt Lake Chamber's board of governors.

Colleagues consistently described the same personal mark: mentorship without theatrics. Sheri Dew called him one of a kind, a boss who had her back and a gentleman of decency, humility, and dignity. Gary Porter, who worked with him in Welfare Services, the Presiding Bishopric, and DMC, praised his kindness, reasoning, and mentoring. Those remembrances, published the day of his death by the newspaper he once oversaw, framed a public life measured less by celebrity than by sustained institutional trust.

McMullin's formal recognitions clustered late in life around civic and business leadership in Utah. In 2016 he was elected chairman of the board of governors of the Salt Lake Chamber. In 2024, after retiring from Deseret Management Corporation, he received the Utah Business Leader Community Impact Award at the One Utah Summit (formerly the Governor's Economic Summit), where he appeared with state leaders including Gov. Spencer Cox. The same year he received the South Valley Chamber Titan Award. Within the church his principal honor was the trust of successive First Presidencies: callings as mission president, stake president, second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric (1995-2012), emeritus general authority status, and appointment as DMC's president and CEO.

As a general authority McMullin delivered multiple addresses in the church's semiannual general conference between 1996 and 2011, including "Ye May Know," "Behold the Man," "Welcome Home," "An Invitation with Promise," "Come to Zion! Come to Zion!," "Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee," "Be Prepared … Be Ye Strong from Henceforth," "God Loves and Helps All of His Children," "Our Path of Duty," and "The Power of the Aaronic Priesthood." Video and text of those talks remain available through church media channels and BYU Speeches archives for related devotionals.

As DMC chief executive he was a frequent presence in Deseret News coverage of publisher appointments, media strategy, and Faith and Media events, including a 2023 symposium partnership at the Vatican. Church News and Deseret News profiles from 1996 onward remain primary biographical sources. His death on September 30, 2026, was announced the same day by the Deseret News.