The Gore Tradition at Westminster

How the Gore family shaped Westminster University

by Audrey Maynard (’03)

When describing the Gore family’s legacy at Westminster, one that spans five generations, it’s probably best summed up by the values that have guided the family in their lives and in their work: a commitment to education, innovation, independence, and personal freedom. 

“I think we as a family have influenced Westminster, and Westminster has influenced us tremendously,” says Ginger Gore Giovale (’65), trustee emerita and long-time university benefactor. “Both Westminster and our family share a basic belief that people are good and capable of doing wonderful things—all you have to do is have the confidence and the determination to do it.” 

Dora Clark Gore, Ginger’s grandmother, was the first member of the Gore family to enroll at Westminster. She attended in the early 1900s when Westminster was a Presbyterian-affiliated junior college. Ginger remembers Dora as a “small, hardworking, and serious” person who was committed to ensuring her children had the opportunity to attend college.  

“My grandmother believed in education; in fact, she sent most of her children to Westminster,” Ginger says. “She was a well-read, smart woman who, because of her generation, did not get to use her intellect to its full potential.” 

Ginger’s aunts—Edna, Anna, and Margaret—all graduated from Westminster; her father, the famed inventor and entrepreneur Wilbert “Bill” Gore, earned his associate’s degree in 1933. Family lore has it that Bill caught the eye of Genevieve “Vieve” Walton, a student at East High School in Salt Lake City, while she was visiting a friend who lived in Westminster’s Ferry Hall (where the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business stands today). 

“She looked out the window of the women’s residence hall and saw a young man doing handstands and all kinds of acrobatics out on the lawn,” Ginger laughs. “So, my mother’s friend said, ‘That’s Bill Gore. Let’s go say hello.’ And that’s how their love story began.” 

Bill and Vieve were married in 1935 and raised five children in Delaware, where Bill worked as a head researcher in the experimental station at DuPont. Frustrated by the confines of DuPont’s corporate hierarchy, Bill left DuPont in 1958 to establish his own company, W.L. Gore & Associates, with Vieve. Bill is renowned among organizational researchers for developing a “lattice” management structure, a decentralized system in which employees largely direct themselves and leaders emerge based on their merits and ability to gain followers.  

In 1963, Bill and Vieve’s son, Bob Gore, joined the family business after earning his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. It was Bob who made the discovery of expanded Teflon, a breathable, waterproof material the company branded GORE-TEX. Today, it is used in everything from high-performance outdoor gear and implantable medical devices to telecommunications. 

Scott Gore (’81), Bob’s son and Bill and Vieve’s grandson, remembers this period as an exciting time for the family. Each year, they would embark on an epic road trip from Delaware to Salt Lake to visit family in the city and surrounding area—a trek he affectionately calls the “Great Loop.” Being the outdoor enthusiasts they all were, the Gore family would always stop to camp in the rugged terrain of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. 

Scott recalls one trip in particular when his grandfather decided to test out his company’s nascent GORE-TEX technology. Bill was irritated when condensation would build up on the inside of his tent, so he constructed a prototype structure for Vieve and him to sleep in, using only a thin layer of GORE-TEX fabric. A squall passed through in the middle of the night, destroying the waterproof coating on the tent and sending Bill and Vieve scrambling to get dry. 

“Granddad told the story later after we got off the mountain, and apparently Grandma looked at him with daggers coming out of her eyes and yelled, ‘BILL GORE!,’ Scott chuckles. “But he was a risk taker, and we were all on his adventure.” 

Of Bill and Vieve’s five children, Ginger was the only one to attend Westminster. She had no desire to attend the University of Delaware, and in true middle-child fashion, she was eager to move away and forge her own identity. 

“I wanted to go west, and Westminster was very well known by everybody in my family,” she says. “And I was in heaven when I got there. I was on my own, I didn’t have to share with anybody, and I had the freedom to do my own thing—I just loved it.” 

Ginger made a name for herself on campus—quite literally—as “Bloody Gore,” her moniker on the team roster for the women’s homecoming football game (which she played in shortly after the men’s football program was discontinued). She also served in student government and was voted Homecoming Queen in 1964. Most consequentially, she met a young man named John Giovale, whom she would later marry, at the freshmen Hello Dance. 

“All the boys were on one side of the gym, and the girls were on the other side. So, of course, the boys had to go all the way across the floor to ask a girl to dance,” she explains. “I got asked to dance again and again, and the other girls were just glaring at me. It turns out that my cousin who is one year older than I am was sending boys, including John, over to dance with me, threatening them if they didn’t!” 

Ginger and John married in 1965, ultimately settling in Flagstaff, Arizona, to oversee a new W. L. Gore & Associates manufacturing plant. In 1977, before she realized she was expecting her youngest child, Ginger accepted an invitation to join Westminster’s Board of Trustees. At the time, the college was experiencing a financial crisis, and Bill Gore was too occupied with building his new business to step in and help. He urged his daughter to serve in his stead. 

“I showed up on campus that January, visibly pregnant, with men around the table whispering to each other,” Ginger says. “But I think they figured since I was connected to the Gore company, I might be a good person to have around. I ended up serving on that board for 28 years, 18 of them as chair.” 

Ginger’s decision to serve on the Board of Trustees would prove to be highly impactful for her life and for the course of Westminster’s history. She wasn’t afraid of engaging in conflict or of challenging evolving gender stereotypes as she served on the board through four Westminster presidents and periods of significant challenges for the university. 

Following the passing of her father, Bill Gore, in 1986, Ginger worked with her mother, Vieve, to create the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business and launch the Bill and Vieve Gore Endowment Trust with a founding gift of $7 million in 1990. Ginger was now the chair of the college’s Board of Trustees and shepherded Westminster through a remarkable period of physical, financial, and enrollment growth through the 1990s and early 2000s.  

Along with donating funds for the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business, Ginger has been a major benefactor for multiple Westminster programs and buildings, including the Meldrum Science Center, Giovale Library, and residence halls. She also helped with the design of several campus buildings, aligning their design with her belief that buildings should be beautiful spaces that serve their purposes well and encourage gathering and community-building. Throughout those years, Ginger learned the importance of philanthropy in sustaining the mission and vision of Westminster and other nonprofit organizations that have remained close to her heart. 

“This is a direct result of my experience as a student at Westminster,” she says. “It has become my life’s calling to support the good work of charitable organizations I believe in worldwide.” 

Ginger’s son, Danny Giovale (’94), witnessed his mom’s incredible leadership during her early years on the board. He recalls feeling a sense of community and security when he’d accompany her on visits to campus. 

“Between the physical campus and the smart, capable people I was interacting with, I knew I was in a really special place,” he says. “College honestly felt like a distant thing for me, but I could see myself succeeding at Westminster.” 

It turns out that Westminster was the ideal place for a student like Danny. He “really had no idea” what he wanted to study or what career to pursue after graduation, but Westminster gave him the freedom to follow his intellectual curiosities. He loved every philosophy and science class he took from Michael Popich and Gothard Grey, respectively, but it was the late environmental studies professor Ty Harrison who made the most significant impact on his life and future. 

“I only ever took one class from him, but he sort of struck a chord with me in thinking of the importance of what I was going to do with my life in terms of the environmental challenges we all face as a society,” he says. “And he was solutions-oriented, not a doom-and-gloom kind of guy.” 

Today, Danny is the founder and owner of Kahtoola, an outdoor gear company committed to social, cultural, and environmental responsibility. And, like his mother four decades earlier, Danny was invited to serve on Westminster’s Board of Trustees, a position he’s held since 2019. 

“This has probably been said a thousand times, but I think the world needs Westminster now more than ever,” he says. “I hope Westminster always retains its independence and continues to be that place where transformative experiences happen for people who are willing to do the work.”  

Roughly 115 years after the first Gore stepped foot on Westminster’s campus, Scott Gore’s son Thaddeus became the fifth generation in his family to attend the university. Thaddeus, a first-year student, is studying chemistry and working as a staff photographer for the communication program. 

“He’s definitely throwing himself fully into Westminster life,” Scott says. “He’s running with the cross-country team, taking lots of pictures, and making many trips up into the mountains—he’s having a grand time.” 

In the 1931 edition of Bill Gore’s yearbook, The Etosian, the foreword reads: 

“The Parson spirit of hospitality bids you welcome to these pages because they portray the diversions, the standards, the achievements of the year 1931. They’re joining the traditions of other years and together will strengthen that heritage in memory and living ideals. They wish to inspire you with the zeal for that forward impulse, that spiritual freedom, that opportunity for development of talent, that training for rich experiences, which these halls offer all Parsons.” 

When Danny reads these words, he can’t help but hear echoes of his grandfather and the principles instilled in him during his time at Westminster. 

“These ideals—forward progression, freedom, and opportunity—you hear Bill Gore beating that drum for the rest of his days,” he says. “He was the visionary of our family who set way more ambitious goals and believed people to have way more potential and talent than we ourselves thought we had.” 

Left to right: Gail Meucci, Brian Gore, Scott Gore, Otello Meucci, Bob Gore, Ginger Giovale, Bill Gore. Graduation, 1981

 

 

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