Eleven members of the Winters family call Northeastern University their alma mater. Since graduating, these alumni have found great success, and have great pride in where it all began.
The Northeastern family tradition started with three sisters, —Karen Winters Pritchard, DMSB'81; Robin Winters Devereux, DMSB'82; and Ginger Winters Hastings, DMSB'85. Each sister met their husband at Northeastern, and four of their sons and daughters are graduates too. Jim Winters, the family patriarch, attended an executive management training program at the university as well.
“I really loved that Northeastern instilled in me—a timid mouse—a sense of independence and self-reliance. Living in the city was a big part of that; you could get anywhere on the T. I had this sense, for the first time, that I was part of the larger world and had to figure out a way through it. I grew in ways I never anticipated,” said Karen.
Karen is now the managing director and vice president of workplace services at Wellington Management LLP, Robin is managing director and chief financial officer at Summit Partners, and Ginger is an independent consultant in the healthcare industry.
“At Northeastern, you learned to be a self-starter. Back then, it was a school for working-class kids where if you worked hard, you could build a career. No one would do things for you; you had to do it yourself, and that lesson was invaluable to me,” said Robin.
Robin and Karen can still be found on campus regularly. Robin is the chair of the advisory board for IDEA, Northeastern's venture accelerator, and Karen is a member of an MBA career-track advisory board. Both are mentors to students at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business.