Beth Burnam

Beth Burnam ’77 was elected to the Vassar College Board of Trustees in 2013. After graduation, with a major in Science, Technology and Society, Beth earned a MBA in 1979 from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Beth’s professional career included being a financial analyst at Hughes Aircraft Company and an information systems consultant at Coopers and Lybrand before she joined her family real estate development company in Los Angeles, CA.

Since 1990, Beth has been a “professional” volunteer. She has been involved at Vassar as a founding member of the President’s Advisory Council, co-chaired the PAC from 2010–2013 and served on the World Changing Campaign Steering Committee. Beth and her mother (Marcia Garbus Burnam ’49) created and endowed the Burnam Fellows Program in 1998, summer internship program focused on “experiences that make a difference” through work in non-profit or other community-based organizations.

Beth served two six-year terms on the Board of Trustees of the Oakwood School, an independent K–12 school in the Los Angeles area that both she and her children attended. While on that Board she chaired the Development Committee and served on the Executive, Finance, Audit, Building and Communications Committees.

Beth is actively involved in her local community serving as co-President and founding member of the North Topanga Canyon Fire Safe Council. This organization writes grants and manages large-scale fire hazardous vegetation removal projects and educates the Topanga community about pre-fire event preparation.