Ronica Lea McKinley
1967–2024
Champion of engineers from diverse backgrounds, veteran mentor, yoga teacher
Ronica Lea McKinley, a longtime service volunteer, mechanical engineer, and yoga teacher, died April 19, 2024. Her death was related to a rare type of brain tumor. She is survived by her husband, Thaddeus, and three children.
Known for her intelligence, wit, and caring nature, McKinley helped guide others in their careers and was devoted to recognizing the accomplishments of engineers from a variety of backgrounds.
She earned many degrees, including a B.S. in child psychology and a B.S. in mechanical engineering, both from The University of Iowa, and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Iowa State University.
McKinley’s early career interests varied; she interned as a civil engineer with the Iowa Interstate Railroad, as an application engineer with Siemens, and as a project engineer with Alcoa. But her entire 24-year professional career was spent with John Deere, where she worked in positions ranging from project manager to electronic systems manager to master process professional in advanced manufacturing innovation. Most recently McKinley was a lead electrification application engineer.
While with John Deere, she chaired the communications team within the company’s Women in Operations program and volunteered as a yoga teacher in the company’s wellness program. She coached others in the veteran mentoring program of American Corporate Partners, a nonprofit that helps military veterans return to civilian careers.
McKinley also volunteered frequently with professional societies, including the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. She founded the North Star AISES Alliance and Professional Chapter, a joint chapter involving three universities in Iowa. McKinley was an AISES Sequoyah fellow, or lifetime member, and successfully advocated for adding AISES to John Deere’s list of supported professional organizations in 2014.
She recruited talent at conferences held by SHPE and volunteered in John Deere’s SWE and SHPE professional groups. She served as a member of the SHPE group’s awards committee. For the SWE group, she was a member of the steering, outreach, and membership committees, and she was chair and vice chair of the awards committee.
McKinley joined SWE in 2012 and served in many leadership roles. She became a member of the awards and recognition committee in 2016 and served in that capacity each year thereafter, judging the emerging leader category. She chaired the SWE awards and recognition program in fiscal year 2024.
In 2020, McKinley received the SWE Patent Recognition Award for her patent of a control system for the track component of such work vehicles as agricultural tractors. The invention generates an alert based on a combination of the track’s temperature as perceived by a temperature sensor and the vehicle’s load as perceived by a load sensor.
McKinley was the vice president of the SWE Cedar Valley Section for FY18. For the SWE Quad Cities/Muscatine Section, she served as data officer for FY22 and vice president for FY23. The Quad Cities/Muscatine Section in Iowa has established the Ronica McKinley Memorial Endowment in her name.
Sources
SWE archives, Legacy.com
