Janice Tripp Eldridge Day
Graduating class: 1937
Inducted into Hall of Fame: 2005
Hall of Fame Category: Lifetime Achievement
Jan co-founded Jafra Cosmetics, a direct sales cosmetics company with her husband, Frank, in August of 1956 with an investment of$10,000. By 1973 and with sales over $5 million the company had expanded nationally and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gillette company.
While at F.H.S. Jan was a cheerleader, a member of the tennis team and secretary of the National Honor Society. She was also the Editor in Chief of the Huttlestonian in her junior year. She received a B.A. in English from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1941. Jan's early career experiences were in publishing and teaching in Boston and New York City.
Jan met her future husband, Frank P. Day, at Ft. Monroe, Virginia, where she was the USO club director. Jan and Frank relocated to California in 1949. She tried her hand as a real estate broker and as a unit manager for Stanley Home Products. Direct sales allowed the Days to make a living while Frank finished his degree at UCLA.
After 5 years selling cosmetics for a small direct sales company, Frank proposed the idea ofJafra (a combination of Jan and Frank) on the kitchen table. It was originally envisioned to be a small company catering to the skincare needs of women in the Los Angeles area. The company would recruit consultants who would sell directly to the customer through clinics in private homes. Jan wore many hats as a co-founder and remained active in the company until her retirement in 1984.
Jan was also known for her generosity. In 1971,she established the Jafra Educational Development Grant Endowment, also known as the EDGE, to raise funds for scholarships for Jafra consultants and their families. She was also a benefactor to Middlebury College and to Santa Barbara City College.
In 1983, she was honored as the first recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award followed by an honorary Doctorate of Letters degree in 1990. At her 55th reunion it was announced that the Middlebury College Student Center would be named in honor of Frank and Jan Eldridge Day.