More than 50 years have passed since Sam ’68 and Janet Gordon ’69 Bain last strode across the University Green or grabbed a cone at the original Dairy Bar as students. But they both look back on the University of Vermont as the place where they found lifelong friends, themselves, and each other—and they’ve never forgotten it.

By the time Sam reached his senior year of high school at Vermont’s St. Johnsbury Academy, he had made no plans for continuing his education. Fortunately for him, an attentive math teacher, Lucille Byrnes, recognized his potential and encouraged him to fill out applications. “She practically grabbed me by the ear,” said Sam. “I was not very interested in going to college. I had some things I wanted to do around automobiles, to be candid.”

He was accepted to every school that he applied to, but only UVM offered him a four-year academic scholarship. “I came from a family of very, very modest means. You know, things were tough. But there’s a lot of places in Vermont where things are tough,” said Sam. “That scholarship really pushed me over the edge to go to college. Looking back on it, it was incredibly instrumental in my life.”

Sam became the first person in his family to pursue a college education, majoring in mathematics with an engineering minor. He supported himself as a student by working 30 hours a week at the IBM facility in nearby Essex Junction, and still found time to be very active on campus as a judicial council officer, a member of a fraternity, finance director for the UVM Winter Carnival, and an ROTC officer candidate. “I never imagined that I would get that involved in anything. My curiosity just ramped up when I got to UVM. It was among the best four years of my life, my time at UVM. Truly remarkable,” said Sam, adding with a wry grin, “Of course some things I did just to get a parking permit.”

Janet came to UVM an aspiring nurse from Brockton, Massachusetts. She says her interest in the medical field was inspired by her father, who had set aside his dreams of becoming a doctor to work in the family insurance business. Apart from joining a sorority, Janet took a studious approach to her time at UVM. “I did not hold any offices on campus, but my sorority offered some community service experiences. The nursing program was very intensive, so I had enough to do with science courses, labs, and work study to support my student loans.”

Things changed a bit during her junior year, when one of her roommates introduced her to Sam. They were both members of Greek Life, she a Tri Delta and he a SigEp. On a whim one fall night, close to midnight, Janet set aside her books and broke the sorority curfew, agreeing to join her roommate and a group downtown, where she first met Sam.

“We went down to Beansie’s for a hot dog,” recalls Sam, referring to the Burlington eatery—a retrofitted yellow school bus—at the northwest corner of Battery Park that has dished out Michigan dogs, burgers, and all manner of fried foods late into the night since 1944.

“That was the start of our lifelong journey of involvement together,” says Janet.

After graduating from UVM, Sam served 2 years in the U.S. Army, earned an MSA, attended law school, and built a career in finance, eventually founding Bainco International Investors, a successful investment and wealth management company, in 1987. He has given a lifetime of service to UVM, acting as a career mentor for students, joining the Alumni Advisory Council, and later serving as a member of the UVM Board of Trustees. He was awarded the Kidder Medal in 1968 as the male graduate distinguished in character, scholarship, and leadership, and in 2016 he was honored with the UVM Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

Sam says UVM gave him a strong foundation to build on. His experiences here fostered a bold willingness to try new things. “It’s had a huge impact on my career—it helped give me the confidence to start Bainco.”

Janet began her career in nursing and went on to earn a master’s degree in community health nursing. After leaving the profession to dedicate her time to the couple’s four children and pursue other interests, she remained a committed community volunteer in the local school system and in programs focused on health education and substance abuse prevention. A trained Reiki Master Teacher, she has logged hundreds of hours treating patients in a Reiki volunteer program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She says this innate call to help others is what draws her to philanthropy.

“Nursing is a helping profession. That’s my personality and probably what led me into the health profession,” she said. “When we were recently at UVM, I was so impressed with the motivation and the enthusiasm of the young students we met. I think it’s a wonderful idea to support students, especially those who struggle to meet the financial needs of going to college.”

The Bains believe that providing increased access to UVM through scholarship supports a rich diversity of perspectives that is at the heart of a UVM education.

“When I was a Trustee during the 2008 recession, we had to make budget cuts everywhere. But I’m proud to tell you that we actually increased scholarship and student aid that year—in a year when we couldn’t afford it,” said Sam. “If you miss out on students because they can’t afford it, you miss out on probably the single most important thing you receive at the University of Vermont: that exchange of ideas, encountering different opinions and different styles and different walks of life. That’s why scholarship is so important to us.”

In 2006, Sam and Janet established the Bain Family Scholarship for students in the Grossman School of Business and the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. The endowed fund, which will benefit students at the University in perpetuity, has already made a UVM education possible for dozens of students. But the Bains’ philanthropic impact at the University doesn’t end there. As devoted alumni, they have generously supported countless initiatives across campus, including the renovation of UVM Alumni House in 2012.

This past October the Bains celebrated both their 52nd wedding anniversary and the arrival of their twelfth grandchild. They say they still feel a strong loyalty to the place where it all began, and they want to keep making a difference here.

As Sam puts it, plainly, “We like to help people.”