Member Profile: Gerron Vartan ’65, ’67 MBA and Judy Jurgensen Vartan ’66

When Gerron Vartan and his wife, Judy, moved to the Bay Area in 1984, he says, “there was very little sense of a Northwestern community.”

What a difference 30 years makes. The Bay Area is now home to more than half of Northwestern’s 27,000 California alumni. In summer 2015, the University opened a West Coast office in San Francisco to serve alumni, current and prospective students and their families, and other Northwestern community members living throughout the region.

Gerron and Judy have helped strengthen the bonds among Bay Area alumni and the University. They live near Palo Alto in Atherton, California, but with frequent trips to the Midwest, he says, “We don’t feel at all like we’re 2,000 miles away.”

The Vartans first met at Evanston Township High School and began dating in college. Now grandparents, they give generously of their time to foster relationships beyond their original circle of Northwestern friends. They’ve held two receptions at their home for newly admitted students and parents from the Bay Area. They also hosted a networking event last year for recent Kellogg School of Management graduates and MBA students doing internships in the Bay Area.

At all the events, Judy says, “The warmth was palpable. Gerron and I felt very good about the quality of people who are becoming part of the alumni community we value so highly.”

With more than 20 consecutive years of giving to Northwestern, the Vartans are platinum members of NU Loyal. They direct their gifts to Kellogg, where Gerron was an alumni council member and chair, and to the School of Education and Social Policy, where both Judy and the couple’s daughter, Courtney Vartan Payne ’95, earned degrees.

Gerron is the founder, president, and CEO of ÆGIS Partners, Inc., a management consulting and marketing strategy firm. Judy is an educator, children's book author, and creator of Do-Dah Doodles, a line of baby clothes. The Vartans make annual gifts to the University not to fulfill an obligation, Judy says, but because “part of who we are is defined by the fact that we graduated from Northwestern.”

Both Gerron and Judy—an alumni regent who is co-chairing her 50th Reunion committee this year—volunteer regularly for their reunions. Gerron marvels that three-quarters of his Phi Delta Theta fraternity brothers from the Class of 1965 returned to campus for their half-century reunion last year. “We show up,” he says. Even in the days before email, contact among the group never lapsed.

The Vartans have visited Northwestern’s new West Coast office for volunteer meetings and events like Tech Talks and believe it meets an important need. “There’s a real hunger among the alumni community to feel more closely connected,” says Gerron. Groups like NU Loyal help to unite alumni around common causes and interests wherever they live. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, “The Northwestern flag has been planted and ground has been claimed.”