His mother died when he was 11, he didn’t see his father for more than three decades and he worked his way through college. Today, he enjoys brewing beer in his campus home and downhill skiing when he gets the chance.

Most people recognize him for the cardinal-colored blazer he wears during sporting events and for steering the direction of Iowa State.

From Hawaii to Kentucky

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy was born in Honolulu in July 1946, while his father was fighting with the U.S. Army during World War II. When he was only 4 years old, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Louisville, Ky., where his grandparents lived. He wouldn’t see his father again for 31 years.

After his mother died when he was 11, he moved in with his grandmother and grandfather, who was a welder for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

“My grandparents were always very supportive of whatever I wanted to do,” Geoffroy said. “They did not have more than a 6th or 8th grade education.”

During high school, Geoffroy said he excelled at math and science, and because of his devoted teachers, he enrolled at the University of Louisville. He said his grandparents supported his decision, although he had to finance his education himself.

“I went to the University of Louisville – only place I could go – I lived at home. It was a commuter school, basically,” he said. “[My grandparents] did not have much of an education themselves and I’m sure they understood what it meant to go to college, but they were very supportive and I financed my whole education from scholarships and loans and working.”

At Louisville, Geoffroy majored in chemistry and was active in the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Much of his time was devoted toward financing his education, he said.

“I was really involved with the fraternity, but it was a small fraternity, only about 20 members,” he said. “I worked as a chemist in a paint company on weekends, so I missed a lot of important extracurricular enrichment that occurs on campus and in a university like Iowa State, but it worked out OK.”

Love nested in math

During his senior year, Geoffroy met a freshman mathematics major pledging at a sorority. That math major would become his wife, Kathy Geoffroy.

“It was my first day of college . I was pledging Kappa Delta sorority and our sorority was invited to his fraternity for a mixer,” Kathy said. “I think he was actually interested in my big sister in the sorority, but the group was walked over [to Greg’s fraternity] and there was a group of fraternity brothers out front and we started talking and eventually everyone else just kind of left, but we ended up talking.”

Kathy said she thinks the fact she was studying mathematics caught his eye.

“He said he had never met a girl who was a math major before and I guess it made an impression,” she said. “It took him a few weeks to ask me out.”

Geoffroy said he needed to ensure the time was right before he dated Kathy.

“I had to get through, you know, my previous engagements first,” he said, chuckling. “We dated through my senior year and then I was gone for two years in the Navy.”

Upon graduation from Louisville at the height of the Vietnam War, Geoffroy faced a pivotal decision.

“I graduated in 1968. Vietnam was really in full swing and it was either be drafted and sent to Vietnam in the Army or join one of the services, so I joined the Navy and joined officer’s school,” he said.

Following officer’s school, Geoffroy served on the USS Furse, a Navy destroyer. During his time in the Navy, Kathy and he were engaged and frequently exchanged letters.

“The end of my sophomore year, we got engaged and then most of the time, he was gone,” Kathy said. “We wrote letters and he called me one time.”

Entering Academia

After two years in the Navy, Geoffroy was offered the chance to discharge early.

“It was originally supposed to be a four-year [term], but after two years, Vietnam was starting to wind down and they were reducing the size of the military,” he said. “I had the opportunity to get out early, and I took it because I knew I wanted to go to graduate school and get my Ph.D.”

He enrolled at the California Institute of Technology and earned his doctoral degree in chemistry in 1974. After graduation, he became an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, where he taught and performed chemical research. By 1982, he was named a professor and in 1988, he was named chairman of Penn State’s Department of Chemistry.

In less than a year as department chair, Geoffroy was named dean of the school’s Eberly College of Science.

“I went from being a professor to being a dean in less than a year,” he said. “I got pulled into administration very quickly, so I’m not sure if it was a conscious decision, but I was still running a big research group and doing teaching.”

At the age of 35, he met his father for the first time in 31 years. He said he rarely heard from his father over the years and was reluctant to meet him in person.

“Well, it was different, you know. I had not really known him,” he said. “I was a bit apprehensive, but it was great, it worked fine. We got along well and had a good relationship.”

In 1997, he left Penn State to become provost at the University of Maryland-College Park, where he created new academic programs.

“It was a great time to be provost. The state was putting a lot of new money into the university and so we really had the opportunity to build some great programs,” he said.

“Initially, I didn’t respond”

After four years at Maryland, Geoffroy said he was contacted by a search firm from Iowa State, although he initially was not considering leaving the East Coast.

“When the search firm contacted me . initially I didn’t respond because it was not a good time for me to move, because my son was a junior in high school and I knew he would not want to leave Maryland for his senior year of high school, so I did not apply,” he said.

Geoffroy said an old friend from Des Moines kept promoting Iowa State, so he decided to apply and became Iowa State’s 14th president in 2001. Kathy said she still didn’t want to move their youngest son before his senior year of high school.

“I said we could work this out if I could stay in Maryland with Michael and allow him to finish,” she said. “I didn’t want to give up our last child, [in his] last year of high school. I was going to finish raising him, so I did end up commuting back and forth for that first year.”

After nearly five years at Iowa State, Geoffroy said serving as president has given him a few sleepless nights, especially following the 2004 Veishea riots and the dismissal of former ISU men’s basketball coach, Larry Eustachy.

“You know, it’s just like everything else in the world, you go through intense periods and those not quite as intense,” he said. “You’re so intense thinking about those things – the course of action to take, what to do next – it is so deep into your mind it is hard to get out of it when you’re trying to sleep.”

He said he is examined more closely by the media and the community at Iowa State than he was out East.

“The media is always watching, particularly here in Iowa, much more so than when I was in Maryland,” he said. “Part of the whole job and everything is public relations, and always being aware of the public relations issues and the media issues, it’s always important to think about that.”

Kathy said she sometimes has to think twice before running errands such as going to the grocery store.

“If I am by myself in the summer and I have to go to the grocery, I will probably wear my shorts and sandals,” she said. “If [Greg] were to go along with me to the grocery, I will probably put on capri pants and a nicer blouse or something.”

“This is my last position”

Today, Geoffroy brews his own beer at the Knoll when he gets the time, although he said he does not get the chance very often.

“We just brewed a batch, I did, just before Christmas, first time [in Ames],” he said. “It’s a Belgian Trappist Ale . It’s fairly strong and so-so.”

He said his family typically gathers in Colorado during the first week of January to downhill ski, celebrate the holidays and get away from Ames, although he said he ran into a few students when he vacationed there in January.

“Invariably, we run into Iowa State students,” he said. “We started talking and then they recognized me. When you’re all in your ski gear, you look a lot different.”

Given the chance, Geoffroy said he would go back to teaching undergraduates.

“I love teaching freshman chemistry – I have always really liked that course,” he said. “I know if you give me two weeks, I can get back into teaching freshman chemistry. I’d have to run pretty fast, but it wouldn’t take me very long to get back into that again.”

Geoffroy, who turns 60 in July, said he would ultimately like to retire as president of Iowa State, although not anytime soon.

“[I’ll stay] as long as the Regents want me to be president, but I could see going another 10 years,” he said. “I want to end my professional career here at Iowa State. I like the university very much, I like Iowa, I like our students and our great faculty.”