Candidate for
Member, Democratic Party County Central Committee; County of Sonoma; Supervisorial District 2

Profile: Thomas Gangale, Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 26, 2005

Thomas Gangale holds a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Arts degree in international relations from San Francisco State University.

Upon graduating from USC, Gangale reluctantly turned down an offer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to join the Voyager mission control team due to his prior commitment to the United States Air Force. He was both an airman and an officer in the USAF, serving as an air traffic controller, an F-4 weapon systems officer, and an historian. Also while on active duty, he served on the technical management teams of several satellite projects of the highest national priority involving national technical means of verification of strategic arms control agreements, as well as a Strategic Defense Initiative satellite program and two Space Shuttle payloads (STS-4 and STS-39).

He has published numerous articles in aerospace and social science journals, has presented papers at several aerospace symposia, has written opinion editorials in major metropolitan newspapers, and has appeared as a guest on radio talk shows. He is a leading authority on timekeeping systems for other planets, and is the inventor of a class of orbits that will be essential to communication between Earth and crews in the vicinity of Mars. He was an original member of the Design and Project Management Team for the Mars Arctic Research Station, a NASA-related Mars analog research facility located near the Haughton Meteor Crater on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. His work on property rights and the international law of outer space has been briefed to senior NASA leaders.

Along with space exploration, Gangale has had a lifelong interest in history, politics, and international relations. He is the author of the American Plan for reforming the presidential nomination process, which has the support of the California Democratic Party and has been recommended for consideration within the Democratic National Committee. He is a member of the Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee and the Democratic State Central Committee of California. He serves as executive director for OPS-Alaska, a research firm, where he continues to develop other electoral reform proposals in cooperation with political parties and civic organizations. He also serves on the board of Californians for Electoral Reform and of the People's Lobby Educational Foundation, and is vice president of the Astrosociological Research Institute.