Gary Barth

Honorary Alumnus of the Year

Gary Barth, managing director of The Greenwich Group International, LLC, in New York, says his relationship with Hofstra University has "evolved" over the years. He grew up in nearby Uniondale and in the 1950s knew some close relatives who attended the University. But his interest in Hofstra grew when his wife, Rose, pursued a master's degree at the University. Rose, who graduated from Ithaca College in 1968, the same year she and Gary were wed, earned an M.A. in French at Hofstra in 1973 and became an adjunct assistant professor of French at the University five years later.

Gary, who entered the real estate business in Manhattan in 1971 after three years at Grumman, has spent the last 35 years at three real estate firms - the last eight as a principal at the Greenwich Group, which he describes as a boutique real estate investment bank. Before joining Greenwich, he was a managing director with Jones Lang Wootton USA.

Now a resident of Oyster Bay Cove in a house he and Rose built in 1982, Gary says his interest and involvement in Hofstra accelerated in 1996 when his son John attended Hofstra, graduating from the Frank G. Zarb School of Business in 2000, and when his daughter Nicole was invited to enroll in Hofstra University Honors College (HUHC), from which she graduated magna cum laude in 2005.

Nicole, who recently completed her first year at Parsons The New School of Design, "learned a lot at Honors College, even beyond her major, fine arts," Gary says. "I'm a scientist, an electrical engineer by degree," he adds, "and I was impressed with her other courses as well. She took three geology classes and English, and those were top-notch courses."

The Barth family's Hofstra connection expanded further when son John married Kelle, who earned an M.S. in education in 2004 from Hofstra's School of Education and Allied Human Services.

Given all those family links, Gary says, "I'm now totally tied at the hip to Hofstra, and very active in the Hofstra Pride Club." Gary, who serves as a member of the board of directors and the executive committee of the Hofstra Pride Club, considers himself quite the Hofstra sports fanatic, so much so that he cannot limit his favorite Pride teams to one or two. He reels off his list: "Men's basketball is No. 1, then football - I go to every away game and every home game. There're women's basketball, men's and women's lacrosse, softball and baseball."

Besides being an annual donor to the Hofstra Pride Club, Gary says, "My wife and I also give to general fundraising, as well as to Honors College and the Department of Geology."

He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on a Grumman scholarship and Harvard Business School on a Middle Atlantic States Fellowship; he graduated from the latter in 1968.