Andrew E. Gibson graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, then located in Boston, in 1943 and joined the United States Lines where he was master of the Liberty Ship SS Leonidas Merritt in the Pacific from 1944 to 1946.
When the war ended, Gibson took a job with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Fall River, Massachusetts.
In 1953, he joined the Grace Line where he rose from assistant treasurer to senior vice president in charge of operations.
Naval Institute Proceedings, American Shipper, The Naval War College Review, and a book, written with Arthur Donovan developed from his dissertation entitled Abandoned Ocean: A History of U.S. Maritime Policy published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2000.
He received the Robert M. Thomson Award from the Navy League and the Land Medal from the American Society of Naval Architects, both in 1972.