Peggy Schmeltz '50, '70

Investment educator and independent investor

Peggy Schmeltz graduated from BGSU with a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree in business education. Her investment career started while she was still an undergraduate business student at BGSU; later, she turned a $75,000 inheritance into a portfolio worth more than 30 times that amount.

Schmeltz is a former chairperson of the board of directors for the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC). She has advised the New York Stock Exchange’s Individual Investor Advisory Committee and helped start more than 100 investment clubs nationwide. Not content with her personal achievements, Schmeltz went on to share her investment knowledge with many others, lecturing throughout the U.S. with her “learn to earn” strategies.

She has been recognized with multiple investment awards, including the Kenneth S. Janke Lifetime Achievement Award, and she has been featured in Money, Fortune, Business and The Wall Street Journal, among many others. She was married to the late Dr. William (Bill) Schmeltz, former dean and professor emeritus of the BGSU Schmidthorst College of Business.