From Florence to Forever
Brad Merlino (’93) didn’t arrive at Gonzaga with a carefully mapped plan for his future. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure Gonzaga was in the plan at all.
Growing up in Seattle, Merlino attended Seattle Preparatory School, following his father and uncle into Jesuit education. When it came time to consider college, his academic adviser, Kathy Krueger, was considerably more certain about his next step than he was.
“She said, ‘Brad, you’re going to Gonzaga. It’s a perfect fit for you. Just trust me on this,’” Merlino remembers. On his first visit to Spokane, he understood what she had seen.
“It just felt like the right size,” he said, “and it had that community component that I really needed.”
By his sophomore year, Merlino was happy at Gonzaga. He played lacrosse, had a close circle of friends and saw little reason to leave Spokane for a year abroad. Then, almost by accident, he picked up a photo album from another Zag’s experience at Gonzaga in Florence. He saw the places students had traveled, but what caught his attention most were the people.
Soon, Merlino was headed to Italy. But arriving in Europe, he found himself wondering whether he had made the right choice. He was already missing lacrosse and his friends in Spokane.
Fr. Bruno Segatta, S.J., noticed. When Merlino admitted he was missing the people he had left behind, Fr. Bruno offered a different way to see it: “How lucky for you that you have good people in your life to miss. Not everybody has that.”
“I thought, ‘he’s right,’” Merlino said. “I’ve got to be grateful for what I have, and also grateful for what I have in front of me.”
There was quite a lot in front of him: faculty and staff who became mentors and friends, host families at the pensiones, trips throughout Europe, and friendships that deepened through shared experience. Merlino’s parents visited twice, his brother joined him during spring break, and Florence became woven into his family story.
Then came Erika Brougher. Merlino met Erika during the opening weeks in Florence. Their friendship grew over the course of the year as part of a close circle living, learning and traveling together. They didn’t date in Florence. It wasn’t until they returned to Spokane for senior year that Merlino decided to risk changing a friendship that had become deeply important to both of them.
“By then, the friendship was so strong,” he said. “I had a lot invested, and I didn’t want to screw that up either.”
Fortunately, he didn’t. Brad and Erika eventually married, and many of the relationships formed during their year abroad remain part of their lives decades later. Friends from Florence still visit and travel together, extending a Gonzaga community formed thousands of miles from Spokane across the years that followed.
Today, the Merlino family’s Gonzaga story is entering another generation. Brad and Erika’s son, Wes (’29), is now a Gonzaga student himself. But for Brad, his connection to the University never depended on whether one of his children followed him to Spokane.
“My relationship with Gonzaga is not over,” he said. “It’s something that is going to be around for the rest of my life.”
It has. The Merlinos’ Gonzaga in Florence experiences started what has been a lifelong love of travel—especially international travel. Erika and Brad spent nine months backpacking around the world shortly after graduation and shared this love with their kids by taking them to Paris, Lisbon, Barcelona, skiing in Japan, and sailing in the Mediterranean off the coast of Mallorca.
Gonzaga in Florence’s enduring impact also shaped the way Merlino thinks about giving back. His support of the Gonzaga in Florence Tile Program is one way of expressing gratitude for a place that gave him lifelong friendships, transformative experiences and, ultimately, the person with whom he built his life.
Through the Tile Program, alumni, families and friends can dedicate a personalized tile in Florence while supporting the Gonzaga in Florence experience for generations of Zags to come.
For Merlino, a tile marks one piece of a Gonzaga story still being written decades after graduation. For others whose lives have been shaped by Florence, it offers the opportunity to mark their own.
Honor the people, experiences or memories that made Florence part of your Gonzaga story by dedicating a tile, and help make that experience possible for the Zags who come next.