Cindy Hensley McCain grew up in Phoenix, the daughter of James Hensley, a businessman who cornered the market on Budweiser in Maricopa County. When her father died in 2000 and left the business to her, Hensley & Co. had become the third largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributor in the country.
In high school, Cindy was named rodeo queen. She was a cheerleader at USC. She met John McCain 29 years ago during a trip to Hawaii with her parents. Eighteen years her senior, he was separated from his wife and was the father of three.
"I couldn't imagine he would be remotely interested in me because I was so young," Cindy McCain said. A year later they married; she was working as a special education teacher.
It was on a scuba diving vacation in Truk Lagoon in Micronesia that McCain got the bug to help people outside of her students. A friend was cut in an accident and had to go to the small island hospital. The McCains were given a tour while they waited.
"They opened the door to the OR, where the supplies were, and there were two cats and a whole bunch of rats climbing out of the sterile supplies," McCain recalled. "They had no X-ray machine . . . no beds. To me, it was devastating because it was a U.S. trust territory."
She went home and arranged for medical supplies and a hyperbaric chamber to be sent back.
Later, the hospital contacted her and said it needed an orthopedist to treat island children. She put together a medical team and returned to Truk, and that's how her relief missions began.
She also created a family trust and began looking for causes to help. "My dad left me the opportunity to do that, and I feel very lucky," said McCain, now chairman of the board of Hensley & Co. "I didn't do this. My dad did this."
According to IRS reports, the McCains give about $200,000 a year to their children's schools and to causes that include research on AIDS, heart disease, Parkinson's disease and Down syndrome.
In addition to Halo, McCain sits on the boards of Operation Smile, which arranges for plastic surgeons to fix cleft palates and other birth defects in children, and CARE, which fights global poverty and works to empower poor women. All three programs get money from the McCain family trust.
"I do what I can, and I'm intent on doing it," she said.
