While attending university, McNamara found himself excited to learn philosophy.

“I never heard of Plato and Aristotle before I became a freshman at Berkeley … I couldn’t wait to go to another class!”

A focus on philosophy, logic and ethics stressed values and a responsibility to society — “something beyond one’s self” — and rooted McNamara. He delighted in his marriage and family, and declared the early years of his new family as “some of the happiest days of our lives.”