Gary Bergthold (Ethiopia) died on July 20, 2024

Obituary —

Gary Bergthold was born in 1938 in Bakersfield and was proud of it. Although his life and work took him all over the world, he never forgot his roots and the humor and food brought to America by generations of his immigrant family.

The oldest son of Glenn and Viola Bergthold, Gary spent his early years in Bakersfield, before leaving to attend UCLA where he received a BA and MA in Psychology. His brothers always marveled at his ability to absorb books through osmosis as they lay on his chest while he napped.

At UCLA, he met his wife Linda Carlson, by sitting next to the pretty blonde girl in music class and asking if she could tutor him. They married in 1961 and set off on a lifetime of adventure around the world.

In 1962 they joined the Peace Corps, and spent two years teaching secondary school students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as “Ethiopia Ones”.

In 1964 they returned to the U.S., and Gary spent a year working for the Chief Psychiatrist of the Peace Corps agency in Washington D.C., Dr. Joseph T. English. Gary then went on to Harvard where he obtained a Ed.D. in Educational Psychology.

He and Linda returned to Ethiopia in 1968 with their one-month-old daughter, Lara, to conduct a country-wide evaluation of the impact of the Peace Corps on Ethiopian students. That study became the basis of Gary’s Ph.D. dissertation, and was one of the only countrywide evaluations that had ever been conducted on the Peace Corps. Not surprisingly, the hundreds of Peace Corps teachers provided to Ethiopia by the United States had a significant impact.

Gary worked in Boston as a Senior Associate with the Behavioral Science Center of the Sterling Institute and Executive Secretary and Director of Research of the Human Development Foundation, which consisted of Harvard professors who advised the Peace Corps on strategy and development.

A few years later on a snowy day in Boston, Gary received a call about a job in Quito, Ecuador as an Advisor to the Ministry of Education. He called Linda, and she said, “Let’s go!” With their daughter Lara and year-old son Eric, they flew to Ecuador and spent two years in Quito. It was in Ecuador where they adopted their third child, Nicolas Alejandro (Alex).

In 1972 the family moved to Managua, Nicaragua where Gary taught Organizational Development at the Instituto Centroamericano de Administracion de Empresas (INCAE), a business school set up by the Presidents of Central American Countries and Harvard to teach entrepreneurs how to organize and deliver business services. It was there that Gary learned to smoke cigars, drink rum and dance, often all at the same time. Shortly after they arrived, Nicaragua suffered one of the most massive earthquakes in Central American history. INCAE helped train development specialists as they coped with the earthquake, and Gary’s wife Linda helped find homes for children orphaned by the quake.

In 1974, Gary and the family moved to Santa Cruz, California where Linda’s parents lived, and Gary began an independent consulting career conducting program evaluations and training physicians around the world how to teach reproductive surgery (as part of a Family Planning effort). His work took him to over 50 countries, including Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Kenya and Ukraine.

It was in Ukraine that Gary learned of his family roots in that country. At one of his Ukrainian seminars, the words the participants used for the luncheon food were words his grandparents had used — varenike and arabus, words he thought were German, but were actually Ukrainian. Over the next several decades while traveling for his work, Gary traced his ancestry back to Swiss Mennonites in the 1600s, and he visited the same places in Germany and Ukraine they had lived until they came to America.

These travels resulted in a book he wrote with Linda, in 2023 called We Are Wanderers, We are Seekers.

Gary and the family lived in Santa Cruz, California from 1974 to 2014, and Gary used Santa Cruz as a base for his international consulting work. He served as a Trustee for the Soquel School District from 1976-1982.

It was in Santa Cruz that they bought a house with acreage and began to enjoy the Bergthold Family traditions of raising and butchering pigs, making sausage, pickles and sauerkraut, and gardening. He loved his John Deere tractors and mowed just about everything in sight. The three children Lara, Eric and Alex grew up running freely and “helping” with the small farm.

One of the most beloved animals on the farm was a white donkey who was seen annually in Santa Cruz parades carrying the Grand Marshall.

The family raised pigs, chickens, a lamb, a steer called “Dinner”, and various Golden Labs all called “Dusty.”

Gary was also active in philanthropy, donating thousands of golf balls to the gullies of the Pasatiempo Golf Course.

Linda worked at the University of California Santa Cruz, as a Field Work Coordinator for the Department of Psychology, and she ultimately received her own PhD. from UCSC in Sociology.

Those who knew Gary will remember his hearty laugh, his love of bacon, and his devotion to his family and his community. Gary is survived by his wife Linda, his children Lara, Eric (and Ali Kincaid), Alex and his grandchildren Caid, Coby, Charley and Eli.