Once a dairy farmer who rarely had time to travel – those cows don’t milk themselves, you know – University of Virginia commerce professor Michael Gallmeyer now sits in an office that’s decorated with mementos from around the world.
Above a whiteboard is a framed painting featuring a pair of kangaroos. “That was from a conference in Australia called ‘Finance Down Under,’” he said.
Next to the whiteboard are drawings from China and a map of Texas. By the door are posters from Brussels, Venice and New York. On his desk sits a cow figurine from Switzerland.
These are representations from a well-traveled career in higher education. Gallmeyer, 53, has taught at UVA for 15 years after earlier stints at Texas A&M University and Carnegie Mellon University, his alma mater.
“My wife jokes about it,” Gallmeyer said. “She’s like, ‘We travel all around the world now because of your job?’ And I go, ‘Yeah!’”
Regularly invited to academic seminars across the globe – Gallmeyer has presented everywhere from the University of Melbourne to the University of Oxford to Hong Kong University – Gallmeyer never forgets his roots in Ossian, Indiana.
It’s there, in this small town south of Fort Wayne – population shy of 3,300 – where Gallmeyer, as a child, worked on the family farm with a relative whom he still considers one of the smartest people he’s ever known.
“My great uncle, Albert,” Gallmeyer said. “He had an eighth-grade education. It’s always taught me to never underestimate anyone.”
Gallmeyer, the director of the McIntire School of Commerce’s Center for Investors and Financial Markets as well as the interim academic director for the White Ruffin Byron Center for Real Estate, has two first-day-of-class traditions. He presents to his students an introductory slide where the first line reveals his unique upbringing – “Grew up on a dairy farm in Indiana where our cows had names” – and the last line establishes a tone for the semester – “Please, call me Mike.”
Among the mementos in Gallmeyer’s office is a cow figurine. Gallmeyer, who grew up on a dairy farm in Indiana, received it as a gift from a colleague. “He thought I needed a cow in here,” Gallmeyer said. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)
In return, Gallmeyer asks his students to fill out a survey about themselves.
“I want the students to feel like there’s not a barrier,” he said. “I want them to feel like I’m accessible and not an intimidating faculty member. I love getting to know my students. It makes everything so approachable. It’s a blast.”
Gallmeyer, last spring, was one of 13 UVA faculty members to receive an All-University Teaching Award – a testament to his popularity with colleagues and students, along with his excellence as a researcher and instructor.
Jerry Lu, a 2022 UVA graduate who is now pursuing a master’s degree in sports analytics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has Gallmeyer on speed dial for whenever he needs life advice – or a gelato recommendation.
“Wherever I go,” said Lu, who often travels internationally as part of his analytics job with the U.S. swim team, “my guess is Mike and his wife, Kim, have gone there at some point. I always send him a quick text and he sends back all kinds of options.”
Posters in Gallmeyer’s office illustrate his well-traveled adult life. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)
In the summer of 2019, Lu took Gallmeyer’s Investing in Europe Global Commerce Immersion program, which featured study and research across London, Zurich and Frankfurt. Lu, an engineering student, enjoyed his time with Gallmeyer so much he took another one of his McIntire School courses later in his UVA career.
Now, any time Lu is back in Charlottesville, he makes it a point to meet Gallmeyer for coffee at The Workshop in The Wool Factory.
“He’s easy to talk to,” Lu said. “He always wants to put you in the best position to succeed.”
Gallmeyer was a first-generation college student who, upon arrival at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, was so intimidated by his new classmates – a mix of private school products and those who came from, in his words, “fancy public high schools” in New York – he felt destined to crash.
“I was scared to death,” he said. “I thought there was no way I could compete with this. I was going to fail out and head back to the farm.”
