Professor whose lifelong dedication to education inspired scholarship

When Mexican professor Gerardo Ortiz González passed away from COVID-19, his family had no idea that a scholarship would be named after him to honor his passion and dedication to education.

Conrado Campos, a Kellogg’s manager and Gerardo’s former student, noted that their company had decided to give him a posthumous recognition for his 10 years’ work, and after teaching for 18 years at Tec de Monterrey.

That’s why the scholarship funded by this company and provided within the Tec’s Leaders of Tomorrow program goes under the name of Gerardo Ortiz.

This initiative awards 100% scholarships every year equivalent to the total value of an undergraduate degree at the Tec in order to improve the lives of young people through education, something towards which Gerardo worked every day, according to his family.

“This scholarship is a way of keeping his legacy alive through something very dear to him: education,” says Yolanda Ortiz, Gerardo’s daughter.

The scholarship named after Gerardo Ortiz

Gerardo passed away on December 3, 2020, at the age of 58, after suffering from COVID-19.

He spent his final moments virtually accompanied by his family, made up of his wife Martha Yolanda Ugalde and their children Yolanda, José Luis, Gerardo, and Sofía.

He studied his doctorate in Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world, which has even been awarded to Nobel Prize winners.

“A scholarship was what helped him to fulfill his dreams, and now he’s going to help fulfill someone else’s dreams,” says Gerardo, who is named after his father.

“What better way than to leave a legacy like that in his honor,” adds Conrado, who holds a degree in Biochemical Engineering in Food Processing from the Tec.

“This scholarship is a way of keeping his legacy alive through something very dear to him: education.”

Conrado says that when Gerardo passed away, Kellogg’s began to think of a way to honor the life of the “professor”, as he was known by a few of his colleagues.

“They came up with 8 different ideas, but the one that came out on top was something related to helping students at Tec de Monterrey,” he says.

That was when they were joined by KT McCann, Vice President of Research and Development, and Doug Vandevelde, General Manager at Kellogg’s.

“He was a teacher. He invested in educating people, and then he switched to an experience at a company like Kellogg’s, where he was able to make a difference to people. He was as much a teacher here at Kellogg’s as he was in his previous life,” says Vandevelde.

Kellogg’s executives worked together with Tec de Monterrey staff to establish the scholarship program that would bear Gerardo’s name.

Carla Eugenia Pons, director of Relations and Development at the Tec’s Central-South Region, said that they told Kellogg’s what the profile of the student beneficiaries was.

“Conrado fell in love with the program because he says that he was a student who obtained an excellence scholarship. He found a great deal of empathy in what they wanted to do for Gerardo, and that’s how we started to structure this scholarship,” says Pons.

From professor to working in the United States

Gerardo Ortiz began his career after graduating from Tec de Monterrey with a degree in Biochemical Engineering and Administration.

A food industry investigation he carried out there earned him a scholarship to study a master’s degree in Science and Technology in the food sector, also at the Tec.

After graduating, he began his 18-year career as a teacher at the Tec’s Querétaro campus, where he would run into Conrado Campos in one of his classes.

“I studied at Tec de Monterrey in 1987, and Gerardo was one of my teachers. I remember that if you were interested in learning, he was willing to go the extra mile to share his knowledge with people,” says Conrado.

In 2010, Gerardo started working at Kellogg’s Mexico, and in 2016, he moved to Michigan for work, where he shared a workplace with Conrado, the current Director of Research and Development at Kellogg’s North America.

The 4 ice cream machines Gerardo bought

Members of Gerardo’s family remember some of his anecdotes.

“Once, I had to do a school project. We had to make a product and my team chose to make (flavored) ice cream, one banana and one beer.

“The banana ice cream turned black, and I asked my father (why), and he began to investigate,” says Gerardo, adding that his father was interested in his children’s projects.

On that occasion, he gave himself the task of searching for chemical products that wouldn’t alter the product and would keep the color, finding the right formula.

 

The success of the banana ice cream led to the project passing, and there were even people looking to buy the ice cream.

Back then, his father bought an ice cream machine, but then he invested his money in another 2, and ended up buying an extra one to support the project.

The family smile as Yolanda and José Luis tell stories about their father, like when he once used a machine to cut ham to the exact same size as some potatoes for one of José Luis’s projects.

There were also the times that Yolanda told him that she didn’t understand a school assignment and her father stayed up all night revising and learning about the subject to wake his daughter up at 5 in the morning and teach her what he’d learned.

“A scholarship was what helped him to fulfill his dreams, and now he’s going to help fulfill someone else’s dreams.”

“It was really lovely that he was so dedicated to helping with school projects. He was very meticulous. He paid a lot of attention to detail and tried to solve problems in the best way possible,” adds José Luis.

“Now, we have a lot of ice cream machines in the house,” says young Gerardo, amid laughter from his mother and siblings. 

“He always tried to support us in whatever we were interested in. If anything is clear to me, it’s that he always told us to reach for our dreams, and he always supported us in doing so,” adds the young man.

“He’s happy, despite not being here anymore.”

Martha says that Kellogg’s opportunity to give a Leader of Tomorrow scholarship to someone to study their degree course at the Tec is a source of pride to her and her children.

“Gerardo’s goal at work was basically to teach, learn, communicate what he knew to everyone, and help people,” says Martha.

“Helping someone else fulfill this dream fills us with pride, and we can’t say anything other than thank you for this opportunity. We’re certain that he’s happy, despite not being here anymore,” adds Yolanda.

In the same way he stayed up late to teach Yolanda what she didn’t understand, Gerardo is remembered by his family, Conrado, and even other Kellogg’s managers, as a passionate teacher. 

“He was very passionate about learning and sharing with us as students and attempting to spark our curiosity. I enjoyed learning to work with him when I was a student, and later on in the industry together,” says Conrado.

“Gerardo’s goal at work was basically to teach, learn, communicate what he knew to everyone, and help people.”

The legacy that will impact a student’s life

One talented young person will receive the scholarship equivalent to 100% of the total value of a degree course at Tec de Monterrey, which is one of 190 distinctions awarded in the eighth year of this program.

Conrado says that Gerardo’s scholarship also had an impact on his life for an additional reason to the friendship he’d established with his former teacher.

“In 1986, I was awarded a 90% scholarship at Tec de Monterrey. My family couldn’t afford the course and I remember getting that call and I was speechless.

“Gerardo would be very touched. He’d have a very positive reaction if he knew that someone was going to make a difference in the world, and he’d be proud of the things he sowed that someone will benefit from in the future,” says Conrado.

The manager also notes that they’ll follow up on the student who receives the Leader of Tomorrow distinction and will offer mentoring from The Kellogg Company.

“I want to thank Kellogg’s and Tec de Monterrey. Thank you for the opportunity to hear what other people thought of my father,” says José Luis.

When asked how they would describe their father, after reflecting for a moment, he answers,

“People described him as someone who left a place better than when they found it. That would be something I’d say to them: we must leave this world that we share a better place,” he concludes.

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