Life is a highway
UTM alumnus Teo Salgado wants to help more of today’s students see and experience the world
Teo Salgado, HBA’97, has many tales to tell of the life lessons learned from the back seat of a car. Growing up in Nicaragua, South Florida and finally Toronto, the UTM history and political science graduate spent long summer weekends road-tripping with his family across Canada and the United States.
“My mom, her four brothers and sister all studied abroad. It fueled a lifelong desire in her to experience things beyond her immediate community and that got me excited about seeing other places, too,” Teo says.
So much so that years later, while a UTM student on a shoestring budget, Teo and a friend hopped in a car for a graduation road trip to California. It was 1997 and he remembers paying $12 to sleep in a motel near the Mexican border. The two observed tensions rise as dozens of migrants waited along the border fence for a chance to make a run into the United States to work on the area farms.
“That experience, seeing those conflicts, the interest people had in immigrating to the U.S. and the work of the border guards, completely informed how I saw the world,” Teo says.
The moment was still top of mind several years later, when he embarked on a graduate degree studying refugee policymaking in Canada.
Even now, Teo’s choices are influenced by his road trips and his mother’s stories of meeting people, taking risks and experiencing life outside of your comfort zone. Through his business, VerveSmith, he provides support, guidance and advice to aspiring boarding school, college and university students who are looking for the “best fit.” Many of his clients are international students looking to study in North America and Canadian families considering study abroad.
He leverages those insights into his life and his role as the president-elect of UTM Alumni Association, where he has volunteered for the past 4 years and, more recently, as a UTM donor.
In 2024, Teo and his wife, Masha, pledged $10,000 to help more students participate in UTM Abroad, a series of short-term academic experiences that challenge undergraduate students to think critically about topics like environmental sustainability, social justice and global management while immersed in communities in Thailand, Guatemala and Iceland, among others.
“I want to make it possible for students to make connections between what they learned in the classroom and what they experienced abroad in much the same way my time in California impacted me,” Teo says, adding that he understands the difference finances can make in helping to create opportunities for cash-strapped students.
"I didn’t have the chance to participate in a formal study abroad, but I did everything I could to learn and understand what was happening in the world around me.”
Teo and Masha are hoping today’s students will do the same.
