Gale earned a Ph.D. in physics from Kansas State University in 1972, and served as a tenured associate professor of physics at East Texas State University for eight years, during which time his research interests shifted to computer science.

Gale changed careers in 1980 to the management of information technology, serving as the Director of Decentralized Computing at Cornell University until 1984.

In 1986 Gale founded MIDnet, one of the original mid-level networks on the NSFNET and the first to become fully operational.

[4] He later served as the Program Director of NSFNET for the National Science Foundation[5] where he was responsible for adding colleges and universities to the fledgling network[6] and upgrading the backbone to DS-3.

[8] In 1991 he received the “Director’s Award for Program Officer Excellence” at the National Science Foundation for his contributions.