JACKSONVILLE, FL, April 17, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Gordon Wade Arbogast, PhD, PE, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Arbogast celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Gordon W. Arbogast was born on May 24, 1942 in Charleston, South Carolina to the parents of Lt. Valentine and Teresa Arbogast. Father Valentine was a Naval Officer who had been a submariner in Pearl Harbor in the mid-1930s. Recalled to the Navy from the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) he was teaching radio school in Charleston when Gordon was born. He was deployed to the Pacific Theater as a surface warfare officer for three years and participated in a variety of campaigns to include, Dutch New Guinea, Hollandia, Guam, and Leyte. He left the Navy in 1946 and rejoined RCA in New York City, retiring in 1974 as a Vice President. Gordon grew up in Huntington, New York and attended Chaminade High School. He graduated 5th in his class just behind Lou Gerstner, the future CEO of IBM. He also distinguished himself by leading the Basketball team in scoring and securing first-team All-New York City Catholic Press recognition in 1959. Receiving over 20 college scholarships (including Dartmouth, St. Johns and the Naval Academy), he chose to accept an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point. He was just 17 on entering the Academy and roomed with another basketball recruit- Robert F. Foley, a future winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam. Gordon lettered in basketball, played baseball and graduated 52d out of 504 in 1963. He selected Signal Corps as his branch of service primarily due the guidance of his father who foresaw the great boom coming in electronics, radio, TV, and computers. After graduation he attended the Signal Officer Basic School at Fort Gordon, Georgia and then graduated from the most rigorous training in the Army – Airborne and Ranger Schools.
In 1964 he went to Korea for duty in the 1st Cavalry (1st Cav) Division, just north of Seoul near the DMZ. There he commanded a 90 man Signal platoon and earned a black belt in Karate (Moo Do Kwon Taekwondo) from the local Korean Karate school at Camp Howze. In early 1965 he returned to Fort Bragg NC for his second assignment, commanding a one-hundred fifty man Signal Company of paratroopers in the 50th Signal Battalion, XVIII Airborne Corps. In April 1965 the entire Corps (including the 82d Airborne Division) was ordered by President Lyndon Johnson into combat in the Dominican Republic (Dom Rep). Communist rebels had taken over the Capital city of Santo Domingo and the mission was to quell the rebels and restore order. The US mission was successful and Gordon earned an Army Commendation Medal for his participation in the operation. Upon returning to Fort Bragg in the fall of 1965, he graduated from the 82d Airborne Jumpmaster course and jump-mastered his entire company from the new C-141 transport planes that had just moved to nearby Pope Air Force Base. This was one of 26 total parachute jumps that he made in his career including several in the cane fields of the Dom Rep. He also organized, coached and played on his battalion's basketball team which won the Fort Bragg 1966 post basketball competition defeating several 82d Airborne Division, Special Forces and other post teams. In March 1966 Gordon married Dorothy Sheryl Blackwell at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Greenwich, CT, the same church where Bobby and Ethel Kennedy had been wed.
In June 1966 he was sent to Vietnam. As a new captain he filled two senior major's positions. In the first he served several months in Saigon and authored a Strategic Plan for the newly created 1st Signal Brigade. He then was reassigned up-country to a major combat unit, the 2d Brigade, 1st Air Cavalry Division – as the Brigade Signal Officer. The Brigade engaged in significant combat operations in the Northern Highlands of Vietnam (II Corps) in 1966 and 1967. Initially, it was deployed on the Cambodian Border (near Kontum) and then relocated east to the Bong Son plain north of Quinhon, (Binh Dinh Province). The Brigade's operational units, primarily three infantry and one artillery battalion, suffered heavy casualties, as did the Brigade Headquarters itself i.e. the Brigade Adjutant, Engineer (both West Pointers) and the Assistant Supply Officer were all killed, as was Colonel George Casey, the commander after he left the 2d Brigade in April 1967. The Brigade then jumped north 100 miles into I Corps (Quang Ngai Province). It was the first major Army unit deployed into I Corps, replacing Marine Corps units. This was done under the command of the Assistant Division Commander for Combat (Brigadier General George Blanchard) with the mission to run search and destroy operations to secure the I Corps region for the formation of a new Army Division (the Americal Division). Gordon earned two Bronze Stars and an Air Medal for his Vietnam service.
Returning to Fort Monmouth in the summer of 1967, he worked initially in the US Army Electronics Command with a number of former World War II German engineers and scientists deploying the first communications lasers into the nearby Highlands. He also worked briefly for the newly created US Army Satellite Agency which was designing the first Army DSCS (Defense System Communications Satellites). After graduating first in his class from his Signal Officer's Career Course (Captain Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan foreign student was in the class ahead of Gordon), he was sent to the Georgia Institute of Technology to study Electrical Engineering (EE). There he earned two Masters Degrees –in EE and Industrial Management. Along with another Signal Captain, he was asked by the Dean of EE to stay for a 3d year to earn a Ph.D. The Army advised that this would then be followed by an assignment to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to work on the ARPA Net- the forerunner of the Internet. He declined and in the Fall of 1970 he reported to West Point as an instructor in the Department of EE. He was promoted to Assistant Professor and designated the Course Director for the Advanced Electronics course elective. He was also in charge of the cadet Radio and Karate Clubs. He ran the latter while earning a 2d black belt from a New York City sensei at New York University. He also organized, managed and played guitar in a folk music group. In 1972, Gordon was awarded a bronze medallion from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge in a best essay competition. Gordon's winning essay was entitled "Freedom Has a Price". Dorothy and Gordon had two children at West Point - Christina and Valentine Scott. Daughter Annette had been born earlier in Atlanta.
Graduating from the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, VA., Gordon was assigned to the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) in Washington DC as a systems engineer. There he was tasked with all Multiplex/Channel Packing Systems which saved the DOD over $2 million dollars. For this he was awarded the Joint Services Commendation Medal. In 1976 he was assigned to the Army General Staff in the Pentagon – the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans. He was promoted early to Lieutenant Colonel and in 1978 took command of the 43d Signal Battalion in Heidelberg, Germany. His unit provided signal support to the major Army command in Europe- United States Army Europe (USAREUR). The Commanding General was General George Blanchard, who as mentioned earlier, Gordon had served briefly under earlier in the 2d Brigade, 1st Cav in Vietnam. The 43d Signal Battalion also had detachments in places like Karlsruhe, Germany and Mons, Belgium. Gordon's tour was recognized with a Meritorious Service Medal and he returned in late 1980 to the U.S. In addition, during the 1974-1982 period Gordon taught part-time as an Instructor of Management, Procurement, and Probability/Statistics for both the Universities of Maryland and Virginia.
After graduating from the Defense Systems Management College's Program Management course at Fort Belvoir, VA., he was assigned as the Deputy Program Manager (PM) for Project VIABLE in the US Army Computer Systems Command. VIABLE's mission was to design and build a new, integrated computer system for all US Army bases, forts and stations. As a DOD A-109 procurement, it was authorized to be more innovative than prior computer buys. During the period 1981-1982 a Request for Proposal was released and fierce competition ensued between Ross Perot's Electronic Data Systems (EDS) Company and IBM for contract award. Gordon served as Acting PM in the summer of 1981 when the PM left and a new Colonel did not arrive until the fall. The contract of over $1billion was awarded in early 1982 to EDS, the largest Army computer contract ever awarded. VIABLE was recognized as the Army's Program of the Year winning accolades over a variety of other contracts being awarded at the time e.g. the Abrams Tank upgrades, Pershing Missile II etc.
While attending Senior Service College in 1983, Gordon was selected to join the National War College (NWC) two week trip to the USSR- the first visit there in well over ten years. While in Moscow at a reception hosted by the U.S. Ambassador, he and his classmates met Georgi Arbatov, the Founder and Director of the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Affairs Studies (the main USSR Think Tank). Dr. Arbatov invited the NWC Director and visiting students to change their itinerary and visit the Kremlin the next day to debate foreign policy. This was unexpected, since it came in the immediate aftermath of President Reagan's famous "Evil Russian Empire Speech". The meeting was the highlight of the trip. The NWC class was seated at a big table surrounded by Russian Generals of all services, with Arbatov's staff and our NWC Director (a 3 star General) at the head of the table with Arbatov. The two hour exchange was frank, highly charged and most memorable.
Gordon was then promoted to full Colonel and selected to complete a Ph.D., with a follow-on assignment to West Point as a Permanent Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering. For his Ph.D. dissertation, he was asked by the Army to study the troubling cost overruns and schedule slippages that were all too frequently occurring in many Army acquisitions. His Ph.D. dissertation was successful in identifying a number of factors that were responsible in creating these problems e.g. many programs were pushing the state-or-the-art in technology and making frequent changes to their baselines in order to secure the most advanced materials and electronics. He completed his Ph.D. at Clemson University in 1986, briefed his findings at the Pentagon and reported to West Point in August. The Chair of the Dept. of Engineering (DOE- the oldest DOE in the nation) retired in the fall of 1986 and Gordon was asked to head the department. In that job he sat on the major governance Academy body– the Academic Board which consisted of three General Officers and the 14 Department Heads. At the time the West Point curriculum only had a few majors, preferring that all cadets take mainly a standard core curriculum. Gordon advocated a new Systems Engineering major and was immediately opposed by many of the older Department Heads. Gordon persisted and eventually won a vote by the Academic Board for the new major. He then advocated and won another Academic Board vote to move Computer Science out of the Dept. of Geography and Computer Science into his old Dept. of EE. Gordon also served as the Officer-in-Charge of the Army Basketball team. In this role, Gordon and his wife Dorothy sponsored a number of the cadets who played on the Army team. Lastly, he saw the old Engineering Dept. as anachronistic and supported breaking it up. A new Systems Engineering Dept. was formed to house the Systems Engineering major; Civil and Mechanical Engineering with Robotics was moved to the Mechanics Dept., becoming a new Civil and Mechanical Engineering Dept.; and Nuclear Engineering was moved to Physics. He was awarded the highly valued Legion of Merit for his West Point service. On departing West Point in 1989, the Engineering Department presented him a plaque signed by all of Gordon's officers that is among his most cherished possessions. A poem in four stanzas here are a few of the words "He shoots … a score! A good metaphor, to talk of the deeds of the Big Guy…. You must feel proud as you walk out the door. Your efforts bear fruit 1 July. The department has risen, and you've been the leaven. So to you, many kudos and cheers. Systems Department and major are tributes to you. You helped move the Academy for'd. …. You've served West Point well indeed."
Gordon's last Army assignment was back to the Defense Communications Agency in Washington DC. He was assigned as the Deputy to the Director of Engineering, Technology and Corporate Planning. The Director was the senior Engineer in the Agency – Mr. John Grimes, a DOD Senior Executive Service career civilian (SES 6). Mr. Grimes' service had previously included five years on the White House National Security Council Staff as a Senior Director, White House Situation Support Staff (working next to Lt Col Oliver North). In the fall of 1989 he was reassigned back to the White House. Gordon was then asked by the DCA Director (a Lt. General) to assume the senior engineering position. At the time DOD wanted to consolidate the new Information Management (IM) mission within one of the DOD Agencies. Several other Defense Agencies (e.g. the Defense Supply Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency) were desirous of the new mission and a vigorous competition ensued. Gordon was tasked to lead the DCA initiative in IM and complete the new DCA ten year strategic plan begun by the former Director. He succeeded in both tasks and the new IM mission was awarded to DCA in April 1990. For this he was decorated with the Defense Superior Service Award. When the final decision was made in the Pentagon by the Assistant Secretary of Command Control Communications and Intelligence (Ass't Sec for C3I), Gordon suggested a new title for the Agency. He recommended it be designated the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The Ass't Sec agreed and DCA was renamed DISA. Mr. Grimes returned to the Pentagon with SECDEF Cheney in 1990 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense-Wide C3 that included OSD oversight of DISA. In 2005, Mr. Grimes was nominated by President Bush to be the DOD Chief Information Officer (CIO), a position he held under two administrations. Almost 30 years later DISA is fully functional with increased missions and has performed invaluable service to DOD and the nation.
Gordon retired from active service in the summer of 1990 and joined the CONTEL Technology Center in Chantilly, Va. as a Principal Scientist and Assistant Laboratory Director. Dr. Alan Salisbury was the President of the Center and later President of Learning Tree International. At CONTEL Gordon worked on several cutting edge technology projects to include the digitization of Hollywood movies (Electronic Theater), Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN) over satellite and Gigabit LANs. CONTEL was acquired by the GTE Corporation in the late fall and Gordon accepted an executive position in early 1991 with a Fortune 50 corporation in San Francisco – Vice President of the Systems Technology (ST) Group for Pacific Bell. In this role, Gordon reported to Pac Bell's CIO and was responsible for all systems development and applications. At the time, Pac Bell had just recovered from the late 1989 earthquake, but was beset by numerous other natural disasters that continued to pose serious challenges to operations e.g. mudslides, fires (Great Oakland fire of 1991 destroyed many homes to include the homes in the Oakland Hills of over 15 Pac Bell employees). Gordon also was the Pacific Bell representative on the Bellcore (formerly Bell Labs) Systems Technology committee and was elected chair of that committee in 1992. He also was sent by Pac Bell to the Harvard Business Graduate School to complete Executive Education in the summer of 1992. When Gordon took charge of the ST Group, he was responsible for almost 2000 systems and software engineers and technicians (including Scott Adams of later Dilbert fame). When Gordon departed in 1994 Pac Bell was experiencing serious financial problems and had been downsized by almost 50%. Gordon's ST Group took its cut and was reduced to 1250 people without any decrease in mission or tasks. In 1996, Southwest Bell Corporation (SBC) merged with Pac Bell. The aggressive SBC CEO (Ed Whitacre) essentially acquired the firm and subsequently integrated it with other acquired firms (Bell South and AT&T), finally renaming it all the new AT&T with him as CEO.
Gordon accepted a tenure track Associate Professorship at Jacksonville University (JU) in 1994 in the Davis College of Business. He taught primarily graduate business courses including Operations Management, Leadership, Business Strategy and Information Technology. Concurrently, as a part-time instructor for Learning Tree International from 1994-2002 he taught Telecommunications and Information Technology (IT) courses in US cities and in some other far flung places. These were all five day (8 hours a day) courses with demonstrations. This included traveling abroad to the Far East several times to teach courses for the Hong Kong Productivity Center, until the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997. In the US he traveled to the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and Arizona and taught technology courses to the Navajo Indians. At JU in 1997 Gordon was tenured and then promoted to Full Professor the following year. He was the JU 1st Adult Degree "Professor of the Year" in 2000 and given the JU Innovative Teaching Excellence Award in 2002. He was also recognized for his intellectual contributions (publishing across a wide business and technology spectrum) and for community service. He was appointed to the University's Tenure and Promotion Committee and chaired this important committee for several years. In 2005 he was selected to be the Associate Dean and Graduate Director of the Davis College of Business. In that role through 2010 he continued to teach Executive and night MBA courses to include the final Capstone course in Global Corporate Strategy and was a leader in gaining a prestigious accreditation for the Davis Business College – from The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Only 5% of the world's business colleges hold accreditation from AACSB. He advanced new graduate programs such as a new Masters in Organizational Leadership and an accelerated Masters in Business Administration. He advocated expanding the graduate programs beyond the University into some of the big corporations in Jacksonville e.g. Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. He significantly increased the graduate enrollment while improving the quality of these programs in anticipation of the first major accreditation visit by the AACSB visiting team in late 2009.
Gordon also engaged in a number of community projects in the Jacksonville area. As a member of the Men-In-Action (Meninak) Club, he assisted in projects such raising scholarships for local high school students and in building homes for Habijax (the largest affiliate of Habitat for Humanity in the United States). He was a member of the Board of Governors for the West Point Society of North Florida (WPSNF) and served as President of the Board from 1998-2001. During that time, he directed a number of society major events and projects such as erecting several State of Florida historical markers for West Pont graduates who had played a major role in north Florida e.g. those engineering graduates that erected the seawall in St. Augustine and others that died fighting in the 2d Seminole Indian War (1835-1842). The WPSNF was recognized as a distinguished society award for all three years of his Presidency. Gordon was also active in consulting and in publishing in books and peer reviewed journal articles. In 2005 he served as a consultant for the Jacksonville Jaguars football team to build a model to improve their upcoming NFL Draft. He also consulted with a number of local businesses in the Jacksonville area in improving their strategic planning. From 2010 to 2014, he served as the Chair of the largest department in the Davis College – the Department of Management, Decision Sciences and Information Management. He also remained active in advancing new graduate programs such as a new Doctorate in Business Administration, the first of its kind in Northeast Florida. This program was initiated with great success in 2014 and had its first DBAs graduated in 2017. New classes have since entered in the fall of each year. In 2015, Gordon stepped back into a full-time Professor role and since is teaching a full slate of business courses at every level – DBA, Masters and Adult Degree Undergraduate.
Gordon's children have been successful citizens in their lives and careers. Son Valentine Scott is a 1995 graduate of the US Air Force Academy (All-American in Rugby) and has had an outstanding Air Force (AF) career. He was a F-16 fighter pilot, becoming a "top gun" after graduating first in his class from the famed U.S.A.F. Weapon's School at Nellis Air Force Base. He flew numerous combat missions in Operation Allied Force (OAF- Bosnia/Kosovo) and in Iraq logged over 327 combat flying hours. He was the only US Air Force pilot credited with multiple Surface-to-Air missile kills during OAF. He helped enforce the no-fly zone over Iraq in 1998 (Operation Northern Watch) and later flew combat missions in the Iraq campaign that ensued from 2003 onward (Operation Iraqi Freedom). He transferred to the USAF District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG) in 2005 which provides air sovereignty alert coverage for the nation's capital. Shortly, thereafter he earned an MBA from near-by Johns Hopkins University. From 2014 to 2016 he commanded the 121st Fighter Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base and then was promoted to Full Colonel. His last Air Force assignment was as a policy advisor for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD Policy) in the Pentagon. He retired in 2018 and is now a pilot for Southwest Air Lines. Scott married Christian (Christy) Hunt in 1998, lives in Crofton, MD and together they have four children - Jake, Dylan, Palmer, and John. Christy recently earned her Masters in Clinical Mental Health.
Daughter Christina graduated from the University of Oregon in 1993 and received a Doctorate of Naturopathy from Bastyr University, Seattle in 1997. She moved to Connecticut and worked as a Doctor of Naturopathy before joining the teaching staff at the University of Bridgeport (UB). In 2003 she married David Woolard. In 2005 Christina became the Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs at UB and made major upgrades in clinical practices over the next five years. The couple moved to Nashville Tennessee in 2010 where Christina treats patients using acupuncture, holistic and natural therapies. In 2014 Christina became the President of the Tennessee Naturopathic Doctors Association and a member of the Council for Naturopathic Medical Education. She often leads accreditation visits to the Naturopathic schools in the US and Canada. David is an active lead jeweler at the Asurion Corporation and a Medical Qigong Therapist. Christina and David have built a house near Nashville and both have also been certified in Qigong Chinese medicine and are active in local affairs.
Annette became a Registered Nurse upon graduating in 2001 from the University of Central Florida. She married Jack Green the same year and together they have two children – Hunter and Carter Green. She has had a career as an R.N. at a variety of hospitals. This occurred initially in Orlando, Florida and then in Lexington Kentucky where she worked in the heart ward of St. Joseph's Hospital. In 2008 they moved back to Florida and where she continued to specialize primarily in cardiac intensive care. She became a charge nurse in 2011 at the Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala. She is currently an I.C.U. nurse at the Ocala Regional Medical Center and is working on a Doctorate in Nurse Practitioner from the University of Central Florida.
Gordon's brother Stephen graduated from Cornell University and has a Master's Degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He had a full career with the Exxon Corporation, rose to be an executive, and retired as the Treasurer of Exxon's Chemical subsidiary. He is currently Professor of the Practice of Finance at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and is Director of the UNC Energy Center. He is married to the former Deborah Richman (University of Michigan Cum Laude) and they have one son Gregory. Gregory is a Notre Dame graduate (Summa Cum Laude) who recently worked for Ernst and Young. He is now studying to complete his M.A. in Counseling Psychology at the University of Denver, Colorado.
Dorothy and Gordon have been married over 50 years and live in a gated community in Jacksonville, Florida. Gordon is a weekly lector at his local church (Blessed Trinity) and enjoys learning new songs on his guitar, collecting music and playing golf in his senior golf association. Dorothy and Gordon enjoy quiet time together with their dog Gus, visiting their children, and spending the hot summers at their townhouse in Boone, NC.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Gordon Wade Arbogast, PhD, PE, has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
"Congratulations to the outstanding gentleman who deserves the very best of everything. Here is a gentleman with an outstanding background as he continues to share his many gifts to others. He is a magnificent combination of the best in the Military and Education. He is a model for others to follow."
-Frances Bartlett Kinne, Ph.D.
Past President and Chancellor Emerita
Jacksonville University
"I have known Gordon Arbogast since we were West Point classmates, roommates and teammates on the Army Basketball Team. As an Army Colonel, he made a magnificent contribution to the US Army in the areas of telecommunications, command and control, computer acquisition, network development, systems engineering and information technology during assignments with the Defense Communication Agency, the Pentagon and the US Military Academy. He is a dedicated professional who radiates command presence and cares deeply for those he serves. He possesses a keen vision of how things ought to be, embraces change and is an inspiration to others. A true professional who has made a signification contribution to every military, corporate and educational organization he has served."
-Robert F. Foley
Lieutenant General (Retired)
US Army
"A fitting honor for a distinguished professional. Gordon excelled as an Army officer and then as a researcher and engineering leader in multiple assignments. Throughout his career he has been an exceptional educator and superb academician."
-Alan B. Salisbury, Ph.D.
Major General, U.S. Army (Retired)
Chairman & CEO, Code of Support Foundation
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