Matt Gerst

• Lead Communications Specialist 
  WashU IT

Matt Gerst, lead communications specialist, has been with WashU since 2018. In his role with WashU IT, Gerst leads communication campaigns with employees, mentors his peers and collaborates across teams to strengthen processes and procedures. 

Gerst works to ensure that faculty, staff, and students are kept informed with clear, consistent and timely information about service maintenances, outages and unexpected disruptions. It’s work that many only notice when something goes wrong, but for Gerst, the responsibility carries a genuine purpose.

When reflecting on his role within WashU, Gerst shared a well-known story from the Apollo program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). During a visit, President John F. Kennedy saw a janitor and asked about their role at the organization. The janitor responded simply, “helping put a man on the moon.” Gerst shares a similar sentiment at WashU. Every role, no matter how behind-the-scenes, contributes to WashU’s missions of teaching, patient care and research. 

It doesn’t matter what you do from day to day at WashU, so long as you do it to the best of your ability, because everyone is contributing in their unique way to all of the amazing work performed at the university

Matt Gerst, lead communications specialist

While the benefits drew him to WashU, Gerst says it’s the community that keeps him here. He credits his team in WashU IT Organizational Change Management (OCM) for the family environment that is supportive, collaborative and a place where he feels he belongs. 

“It is always a pleasure to be a part of the dynamic teamwork exhibited by our very talented group of people as we work to restore the impacted service,” Gerst said. 

Gerst shares that, in more than two decades working in higher education, he has never felt as heard or supported as he does now. He attributes that, in part, to engaged leadership that invites open conversations. Taking them up on it, he shared how much he felt heard after every conversation. 

When Gerst isn’t working, he is often helping others with home projects, drawing on his background in contracting. He and his wife also foster dogs through Stray Rescue, a role they’ve loved for years.