Gianna Geraci

When your parents are both UMass Lowell alumni and you grow up seven minutes from campus, it’s easy to feel like a River Hawk.

Gianna Geraci was determined to go her own way, however.

“I loved everything about UMass Lowell, but I didn’t want to be so close to home,” says Geraci, who instead enrolled at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine.

After one semester, though, Geraci realized she’d made a mistake. She came back home to Dracut, Massachusetts, and transferred to UML’s Manning School of Business the following fall — much to the delight of her parents, accounting alum John and art and design alumna Wendy Geraci, both ’97 graduates.

“As a parent, you want to let your children choose their own destiny. But we knew she was missing an opportunity at UMass Lowell from a value and education standpoint,” says John, managing partner at LGA CPAs and Business Advisors in Woburn, Massachusetts, and a member of the Manning School advisory board.

The same held true when Gianna chose marketing for a business concentration instead of accounting.

“I’ve always been proud of everything my dad has been able to accomplish with LGA, but I swore I’d never do what he does,” says Gianna, who landed a marketing internship with MediaMate in Andover, Massachusetts, during her sophomore year.

But when she took a required accounting course, she realized it was in her blood.

“I added an accounting concentration right away,” she says.

“Like a lot of things in life, you fall in love with things that you’re really good at,” John says.

A commuter student, Geraci juggled her studies with jobs at local restaurants — and as a developmental instructional assistant for UML student-athletes.

“I tried to immerse myself in college life as much as I could,” says Geraci, who enjoyed seeing her dad on campus during alumni events.

Now, she sees him around the office. Geraci became an outsourced management accounting associate at LGA after completing her degree in December 2022.

“I love LGA’s culture. Even without my family connection, I think I would have found it for that reason,” says Geraci, who is glad her parents let her discover that path on her own.

“All roads led back to accounting and UMass Lowell,” she says. “It has been the perfect fit. I love it.”