NEWMAN - Retired banker and active community volunteer Phillip Mulkey of Newman passed away Feb. 6 at age 82.

In his role as the Crows Landing branch manager for Lloyd’s Bank, Mulkey specialized in agricultural lending and worked closely with West Side farmers. After retiring in the mid-1980s, he started the local Tax-Aide Program which provides income tax filing assistance for low-income residents and seniors and mentored prospective entrepreneurs as a small business counselor through SCORE.

He and his wife Dotty (who passed away in late 2009) came to Newman in 1977 when he was transferred to the Crows Landing bank branch.

The couple had moved frequently through their lives together but settled in Newman, where they became actively involved and developed deep ties to the community.

In Crows Landing, the tiny bank branch was hugely important in serving the West Side ag community.

“At the time he was managing the branch, they were still making loans in the office,” said Eleanor Beach, who worked with Mulkey for several years in Crows Landing. “His interest was with agriculture and the loans. That was his primary function, and he left the running of the office to everybody else.”

Agriculture and finance were common threads throughout a career which took Mulkey to various points on the map - including stays in Central America.

Mulkey had actually majored in animal husbandry in college, his daughter Susan Selke noted, but his career path took him into ag finance.

Mulkey went to work for the Farmers Home Administration. The Mulkeys lived for a time in Paraguay and Guatemala, where he managed ag loans from the U.S. government to those nations.

“His entire career was banking with agriculture,” Mulkey’s son Daniel Mulkey related.

Mulkey joined the Crows Landing Lions Club soon after arriving on the West Side. He was a past president and was involved in virtually every club function, said fellow member Paul Dompe.

Mulkey also worked to help bring F&A Dairy (now Saputo) to Newman in the mid-1980s.

He took great satisfaction in his volunteer role as a business counselor and in helping seniors and low-income residents through the tax filing assistance program - all with his low-key, unassuming approach.

He and Dotty were honored as Fall Festival grand marshals in 2005.

The Newman Chamber of Commerce presented its prestigious John T. Silveira Award to Mulkey in 1989.

A memorial service was held Saturday.