“Katie Gibbs comes to town” said the Frederick News Post advertisement in 1983.
Katharine Gibbs School acquired the Washington Business School at 11300 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Maryland. President Eleanor P. Vreeland said the transition to Gibbs would be smooth and positive because there was a very good match in standards. Bringing Gibbs to the Washington, DC, area was exciting because of the many job opportunities.
At the time of the Rockville opening, there were seven Gibbs graduates on the staff of the Executive Office of the White House. They were joined in the spring by five other graduates. The Gibbsonian said that “the White House staff has recognized that Gibbs graduates possess a marked excellence in skills as well as extraordinary pride in their profession.”
One Gibbs vice president remembered that there were two things that had to be done immediately when the school opened. One was teaching people how to answer the phone the Gibbs way, and the second was hanging a copy of Katharine Gibbs’s portrait in a prominent place.