When Mike McKeever, a senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle’s downtown L.A. office, isn’t busy striking real estate deals in L.A’s concrete jungle, he likes to spend time in a real forest.

McKeever, his wife, Stephanie, and their kids, Nicole, 10, and Carson, 8, go camping in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows and fly-fishing in Montana every year. They recently returned from the Grand Canyon and have a weeklong trip planned to Glacier National Park.

“I think it teaches the kids a great work ethic versus going to Hawaii where they sit in a hotel,” said McKeever, 44. “I try to do it to keep them grounded.”

This month, the family is heading back to Montana’s Ruby River, where the kids will get to “spin rods” for the first time now that they’re older.

McKeever might not spend too much time fishing himself because the kids will likely get their lines stuck the whole time. But he’ll enjoy being in the middle of nowhere without a soul around, where the buffalo literally roam.

“You can unplug from the world more than you can in Cabo (San Lucas). It’s less stressful than being here,” he said of Los Angeles.

Granted, being that embedded in nature with deer, moose and free-range buffalo comes at a price.

One year, the children came upon a sleeping deer that tried to charge them.

“You’ve got to keep the kids somewhat close,” McKeever said.

Quick Trip to Office

Schuyler Moore, partner at Century City law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, loves motorcycles and is often recognized in meetings for an incident that happened more than 30 years ago.

In his early 20s, Moore was an associate at an L.A. law firm and after buying a new bike, he wanted to show it to colleagues.

“I figured out how to get it up the freight elevator and I started to drive it around the hallway,” he said. “I was young and dumb.”

Moore, 59, said a partner at the firm had just decorated the office and began yelling at him while the other associates were cheering him on. He said he was able to back his motorcycle up into the freight elevator to get out of the office.

“Obviously, I no longer worked there after I did this,” he said.

Staff reporters Marni Usheroff and Subrina Hudson contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at ccrumpley@
labusinessjournal.com.