cio profile

Shayan Gaziani

April 16, 2015

Joe Gargiulo Profile

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Joe Gargiulo: Visionary, Leader, Techie

Joe Gargiulo is an ambitious and visionary

leader who serves as chief information officer (CIO) at

Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas.

Gargiulo pulls from his vast yet humble experiences as

a young professional to address pivotal issues on

campus. Throughout his nearly 17-year tenure at the university, Gargiulo has made lasting

impacts by not only revolutionizing SMU’s technology infrastructure, but also by solving critical

communication discrepancies and creating a unified and ubiquitous technology administration.

Gargiulo was raised in Long Island, New Jersey, during the 1960s in a modest yet

disciplined household. His father, a former U.S. Marine, ingrained within him a strong yet

persistent work ethic, a trait he would apply to his later endeavors. Growing up “before the

digital explosion,” Gargiulo explains, “the things kids have available to them at a very young

age, did not exist when I was growing up.” There were no iPads, phones or laptops. In fact, it

would not be until 1970, in high school, when Gargiulo would have his first interaction with

advanced computing in the form of a programming course. There, a seed would be planted that

would germinate many years later during his college years and eventually guide him to the

position he holds currently.

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Gargiulo enrolled in college immediately after receiving his diploma. However, he recalls

not knowing what to do or which path to pursue. This sense of being lost, and his family’s

financial difficulty in paying for his tuition, would force him to drop out and enlist in the U.S.

Navy in May 1975, where he would serve onboard the U.S.S. Plymouth. “I always wanted to

join...but quickly realized this was a bad decision.” Gargiulo recalled having to swab decks and

chip paint, a very disproportionate view of the life he had previously envisioned for himself.

However, his hard work was rewarded with invaluable lessons. Gargiulo recalls learning

leadership, understanding authority and valuing teamwork thanks to his experiences in the U.S.

Navy. After serving for two years and earning his G.I. Bill, he requested discharge in order to go

back to college and earn a degree. “My focus was a lot more intense after dropping out [and]

realizing that if I don’t go back, what kind of career path I would have.”

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Gargiulo then enrolled at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His initial

experiences were much like his first attempt at college. However, he cites dedication and

commitment that eventually led him, after a process of elimination, to the university’s business

school. Realizing his adeptness for technology, Gargiulo concentrated on management

information systems, or MIS. “[I enjoyed] the logic, the decision-making, the programming…it

seemed like a very practical path to employment.” Gargiulo’s focus on MIS allowed him to gain

experience as a business-technical analyst, gaining experience in creating and managing software

solutions to meet the end-users’ needs. “I learned the mechanics of how to work in a business

environment,” he explained, something that would be immensely valuable to his future career.

Gargiulo’s excellence was noted. He graduated in 1979 Magna Cum Laude and was selected

Outstanding MIS Senior. “When you have a passion about something,” he says, “you’re going to

tend to excel at it.”

Gargiulo’s new knowledge and recognition landed him a job at Electronic Data Systems

(EDS) in Virginia. Henry Ross Perot founded the elite now defunct corporation in nearby Plano.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) of Palo Alto, California, bought the company in 2008. Gargiulo

describes his experiences there as very militaristic and uniform. “Their training program…,” he

recalls, “was kind of like a 10-week boot camp.” The program was very explicit and had no

room for creative autonomy. Since the company was small, however, Gargiulo remembers that it

gave individuals much responsibility. “A year at EDS was worth two or three somewhere else.”

His driven attitude and work ethic allowed him to stay more than eight years at the company,

learning essential information technology practices, primarily related to the health care sector.

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In 1987, Gargiulo transferred to his penultimate job before coming to SMU: Fidelity

Investments. He served there as vice president for over a decade, “…managing a team of 80

software developers responsible for marketing, customer, mutual fund and brokerage systems for

[5] million households and [8] million customers,” according to his biography available on

SMU’s website. Gargiulo appreciated the fast-moving and high-pressure environment, and the

reward and recognition system that was in place during his tenure. He also noticed important

business practices, including the necessity to invest in innovative technology yet balance that

with company stability, a truly remarkable feat.

In 1988, after nearly two decades working in leadership roles in information technology,

SMU recruited Gargiulo as their CIO. Gargiulo brought everything from discipline, persistence,

teamwork and sagacity, but most important, vision to SMU.

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Immediately, Gargiulo was faced with a predicament that haunted every technology

professional and that threatened to shut down the world: Y2K. Caused by 20th century programs

which only have two spaces for a year (meaning the programs would revert to 1900 instead of

2000), Gargiulo had to upgrade the entire university (which at the time ran on extremely

outdated legacy systems) in less than two years. “The scary thing is that [the programs] wouldn’t

stop working, they would give incorrect information.” The pending catastrophe tested the new

CIO’s leadership as he initiated the move to a new enterprise resource planning software, or

ERP. At the time, PeopleSoft, owned by Oracle Corporation (ORCL) in Redwood, Washington,

had already fixed the error in their systems, making their software the ideal choice for migration.

Unfortunately, the project slipped and by June 1999, when most companies were finalizing

testing their new systems, SMU had yet to complete their transfer. Gargiulo described the next

six months as a “fire drill,” bringing legacy coders out of retirement to remediate millions of

lines of code in their existing software to prevent the university from shutting down. By

December of that year, Gargiulo and his team triumphed. Gargiulo led his team through what

seemed like the impossible, yet stayed calm and supportive of his staff. “If you’re any kind of

leader in a crisis…stay calm, have a plan and execute that plan.”

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Shortly thereafter, Gargiulo began a long, strenuous, yet necessary journey to update the

university’s embattled systems to better meet the needs of students and faculty. Describing

himself as a “transformation agent,” he formalized a line of communication between the Office

of Information Technology (OIT) at SMU and its dependents, surveying constituents for how

their technological demands could be met. At times, though, he was met with sharp criticism and

lack of support. People expected change in an egregiously unreasonable amount of time. “[We

were] constantly having to change the wheels on a car going 60 mph. How do I keep the ship

afloat but do facelifts at the same time?” In addition to this, the university itself was fractured,

with each school having separate technological vision and components. For example, the Lyle

School of Engineering created their own Wi-Fi network, entirely separate from the university’s,

with specialized and private credentials. This was contrary to Gargiulo’s vision of having a

uniform and collaborative system in place to address the university’s needs. “It’s hard to run a

high-touch organization when you’re trying to be as efficient as possible.”

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Despite these hurdles, Gargiulo insisted on a “complement don’t compete” environment

and followed his mantra of “communicate, communicate, communicate” to admirably lead SMU

on a slow yet steady path to modernization and consolidation. Today, OIT has four distinct

branches to serve SMU holistically: academic technology services, application development and

support services, security and technology support services. In addition to this, Gargiulo proved

his visionary mentality when he founded the Information Technology Advisory Council (ITAC).

The ITAC comprises over 20 representatives from the university, including students, and

Gargiulo tasks it with relaying concerns, comments, and suggestions directly to Gargiulo and his

management team to improve campus technology. “What we found [is that] it’s more of a

communications channel…especially in a university setting, it’s important to collaborate with all

of the IT stakeholders.”

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Gargiulo continues to lead SMU’s OIT with his extraordinary commitment, vision and an

admirable charm. He understands the value of teamwork, leadership and communication, thanks

to his experiences as a young professional, both in the armed forces and in the corporate world.

Gargiulo plans to task OIT with even more suggestions for improvement and insists that a two-

way channel of communication must always exist between him and those he serves. Closing the

interview, he had a few words of advice for students and entrepreneurs, still finding their calling

as he was at that age:

“It’s so difficult for [people] to pick something that they’re going to want to do

for the next 50 years of their life, but the sooner you can find out what your

passions are and follow them, I think you’ll see that success will follow you. It

may not be monetary but [then again] how do you measure success? If you’re

happy, I think you’ll be successful.”

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