Ernest U. Gambaro

Business Finance and Management Consultant
Member of Board of Directors,
Master of Sacred Theology Wireless, Government Systems, Inc.,
Networks Telephony Corp.
BSAAE '60, MSAAE '61

FOR HIS FORWARD THINKING APPROACH TO ENABLING CLIENT ACCESS TO COMPUTER MAINFRAMES THAT TRANSFORMED A COMPUTER TIME SHARE INTO THE WORLD'S LARGEST PROVIDER OF SECURE DATA NETWORK SERVICES TO LARGE AND MID-SIZE MULTINATIONALS WHICH PROVIDE SALES AND CUSTOMER SUPPORT IN OVER 80 COUNTRIES.

As the primary benefactor for the Purdue aeronautics and astronautics graduate program that now bears his name, Ernest Gambaro speaks with the abundant wisdom gained from a lifetime of exceptional professional achievement and the perspective derived from a life well lived.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to appreciate — now more than ever — that we are standing on the shoulders of someone else,” Gambaro said in 2019 at the announcement of the Gambaro Graduate Program of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

He says he recognized as a Purdue student that “intellect, enhanced by knowledge and combined with hard work, are essential to the realization of opportunities during our lives.” His story bears that out in remarkable fashion.

The son of hard-working Italian immigrants, Gambaro was born in a modest three-room apartment in Niagara Falls, New York. He says he learned that “if you don’t work, you don’t survive.”

A student of Rome University’s Luigi Broglio, the leader of Italy’s fledgling space program, Gambaro created equations carried aboard every Apollo moon mission. He also worked on the San Marco Program that launched Europe’s first satellite into equatorial orbit.

After earning his bachelor’s and master’s with honors at Purdue, Gambaro enjoyed success as an engineer at The Aerospace Corp. Together with fellow engineers, he crafted initial designs for the country’s premier orbital reconnaissance system. His contributions to the aerospace industry earned him Purdue’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics Outstanding Aerospace Engineer Award in 2016.

Reaching for the stars apparently wasn’t enough for Gambaro, so he opted to study law. He completed his Juris Doctor studies in 120 weeks, the minimum permitted in California. He was then granted special dispensation to take the bar exam before he graduated in 1975, by which time he was already admitted to the practice of law in California.

In 1980, as Assistant General Counsel for Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), his first assignment was to recover unpaid money that the Iranian government owed CSC for its work in providing Iran a computer-based logistics system. Gambaro secured the third largest award then granted by the tribunal.

His success as a hi-tech corporate lawyer led to multiple multimillion dollar assignments with CSC. After eight years with CSC, Gambaro and a partner formed Infonet Services Corp., which grew into the world’s largest provider of secure-data network services. The company was listed on the NYSE in the year’s largest telecom Initial Public Offering (IPO) valued at $10 billion.

These outstanding achievements are matched by Gambaro’s extensive philanthropic work in the U.S. and abroad — work that has restored churches in Italy and built a performing arts center in Miami, Florida. He also served on the Argue Committee, which was the primary entity engaged in bringing the 1984 Olympic Games to Los Angeles, and was a leader in the formation of the Los Angeles Opera Company.

Career Highlights

1968-Present	Business Finance and Management Consultant. Member of Board of Directors, Master of Sacred Theology Wireless, Government Systems, Inc., Networks Telephony Corp.
1988-2000	Cofounder, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary, Infonet Services Corp. (retired)
1980-1988	Assistant General Counsel, Computer Sciences Corp.
1975-1980	Attorney, Corporate Law Department, The Aerospace Corp.
1962-1975	Systems Engineer, The Aerospace Corp.