W. Walter Menninger, MD

Chairman emeritus, Board of Visitors, The Menninger Clinic; Adjunct Professor, Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine; Chairman Emeritus, Menninger Trustees; Past President and CEO, The Menninger Foundation

In 2004-2005, W. Walter Menninger, MD, chaired the Menninger-Baylor College of Medicine-Methodist Hospital Foundation Board of Visitors whose members support the mission of The Clinic. The retired President and CEO of The Menninger Foundation continues to serve as a clinical resource for The Menninger Clinic's staff, lecture and teach nationally and serve as an adjunct professor on the faculty of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine.

Additionally, he is editor of the Bulletin of The Menninger Clinic, a quarterly peer-reviewed journal founded in 1936 by his uncle, Karl A. Menninger, MD, and father, William C. Menninger, MD.

Known by his peers as Dr. Walt, he is a third generation member of one of America’s leading medical families. His grandfather, C.F. Menninger, MD, father, Will Menninger, MD, and uncle, Karl Menninger, MD, established The Menninger Foundation in 1925 in Topeka, Kansas. He succeeded his older brother, Roy W. Menninger, MD, in 1993 as the leader of Menninger. He retired at the age of 70 in 2001 and became the chairman of Menninger Trustees.

Dr. Walt was instrumental in the Trustees’ decision to continue the institution’s mission of clinical care, psychiatric research and education of mental health professionals by seeking a nationally known medical school as a partner. In 2003, Menninger affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. The organization relocated in June 2003 from Topeka, Kansas, to Houston, Texas. Dr. Walt keeps his home in Topeka but continues his national involvement with The Clinic and its donors and speaks across the country as a visiting professor and consultant.

Since 1965, he has been the psychiatric consultant to the Topeka Police Department, assisting in the selection and training of police officers, and responding to the department’s needs after critical incidents. An accomplished forensic psychiatrist and authority in the application of psychiatry in law enforcement and corrections, Dr. Walt also holds consultative positions with the U.S. Secret Service, Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center, Stormont-Vail Regional Medical CareSystems and others. Following the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968, he was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to a 13-member National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. He became the first psychiatrist to be named to a national investigatory commission by a U.S. President.

In 1972, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He chaired workshops on Behavioral Sciences and the Secret Service in 1980 and 1990, and was a member of the Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention from 1987-1990.

His civic service has also included 26 years as a consultant to the Federal Bureau of Prisons; 14 years as a member of the National Institute of Corrections Advisory Board; eight years on the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse; and five years with the U.S. Public Health Service, including two years as a chief medical officer in a federal reformatory and one year with the Peace Corps’ Washington, DC, office.

Certified in general psychiatry, psychoanalysis, administrative psychiatry and forensic psychiatry, Dr. Walt has taught on the faculties of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry & Mental Health Sciences, Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis, Kansas University School of Medicine and Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas. He is the recipient of honorary degrees from Washburn University, Heidelberg College in Ohio, Middlebury College in Vermont and Ottawa University in Kansas. The Harris County Medical Society and the Houston Academy of Medicine awarded Dr. Walt the John P. McGovern Compleat Physician Award for his multiple contributions to excellence and humaneness in medicine. He has been an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology since 1975.

A long-time participant in local and national advisory council and committee leadership positions with the Boy Scouts of America, he was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and the Silver Buffalo for exemplary national service to youth.

For Kansas, Dr. Walt joined the staff of Topeka State Hospital in 1969 to assist with the training programs for mental health professionals. He became the clinical director in 1972. In 1981, he returned to work and teach full time at Menninger initially as director of the Division of Law and Psychiatry. In 1984, he assumed responsibility as the dean of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry & Mental Health Sciences and later that year was also appointed executive vice president and chief of staff of Menninger. Dr. Walt was named president and CEO of The Menninger Foundation in 1993 by the Menninger Trustees.

He headed the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on the Chronically Mentally Ill and co-chaired the National Conference on the Chronic Mental Patient. While president and CEO of Menninger, he chaired the Kansas Governor’s Criminal Justice Advisory Commission.

Dr. Walt has lectured widely to professional and public audiences. His published works include 10 books, 10 book chapters and more than 100 journal articles. Topics of his professional writings range from violence and crime to human sexuality, reactions to change, hospital psychiatry and chronic mental illness. From 1971 to 1975, he was editor of Psychiatry Digest, a journal of abstracts for more than 20,000 psychiatrists worldwide. In addition, he wrote nearly 1,000 articles for a national newspaper column, “In-Sights,” which was distributed between 1975 and 1983 by Universal Press Syndicate.

He received his undergraduate degree in psychology with great distinction from Stanford University in 1953 and earned his medical degree in 1957 from Cornell University Medical College following election to Alpha Omega Alpha in 1956. After interning with the Harvard Medical Service at Boston City Hospital, he completed his psychiatric residency at Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry & Mental Health Sciences and psychoanalytic training at the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis.