Donald Gerdts, a Mankato native, graduated from Mankato State in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in speech education. Soon afterwards, he and his wife, Marilyn, ‘56, headed to the West Coast, where they became involved in public education. Don, however, decided to leave the traditional classroom in favor of breaking ground in another educational arena — public television.
Since 1967 when Gerdts and two associates helped to found station KOCE-TV in Orange County, California, the station has won 21 Emmy awards. The award-winning producer of two of these projects, “The Magic of Oil Painting” and a telecourse on biology, Gerdts also served as production executive on the other programs and has earned listings in “Who’s Who in the West” and ‘Who’s Who in Entertainment”.
KOCE has produced scores of documentaries and personal profiles for PBS in addition to over 20 telecourses on a variety of subjects. The telecourses have been licensed by almost 1000 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
Other MSU alumni from the Gerdts family include a brother, Russell Gerdts, and sisters Shirley and Sharon, who have attended Mankato State; and brothers Merrill Gerdts ‘67, Sunnyvale, California and Kenneth Gerdts ‘76, Mankato.
Donald and Marilyn live in Huntington Beach, California. They have three children, James, Paul and Julie.
