FROM THE GROUND UP THE BOOK

Later, leaders of the New York State Republican Committee – under their “boss,” newly-elected US Senator Alphonse D’Amato – asked Gargano to run for Governor of New York, but again he chose instead to work behind the scenes with D’Amato and others in order to get a Republican elected—which they eventually did with Pataki, for whose campaign Gargano served as chief fundraiser. He served as Director of President Ronald Reagan’s electoral campaign in New York, where Reagan won a second landslide victories in 1984.

In 1981, Reagan appointed Gargano Deputy Administrator of the Federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA), now known as the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), where he fought to improve US mass transportation, which includes buses, subways, light rail, commuter rail, monorail, passenger ferry boats, trolleys, inclined railways, and people movers. This was not an easy feat in the wake of the Air Traffic Controllers debacle. In addition to his political acumen, his prodigious skills as a Republican fundraiser were crucial to the re-elections of Reagan in 1984 and of D’Amato in ’84 and ’86, as well as to the elections of both Presidents Bush and of Governor George Pataki, for whom he raised a record-breaking $14.5 million in 1994.

Gargano became US Ambassador to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, first appointed by Reagan and then again by George H.W. Bush, representing our interests on those wealthy industrial islands for three years ending in political upheaval.

During his 12-year tenure as Chairman and CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation, he brought major business deals to Manhattan, and famously cut inefficiency and waste from government. He also made a name for himself by bringing billions of dollars of private capital into projects that would serve the public.

Gargano was also key to the launch of the Tribeca Film Festival, now one of the largest and most influential film festivals in the nation, if not the world, and counts its co-founder Robert De Niro as a good friend. Gargano has also appeared in five feature-length films, starting with The Devil’s Advocate in 1997, and finishing with World Trade Center in 2006, in both cases playing himself. He’s also played an FBI agent in Witness to the Mob(1998), a golf announcer in Serendipity (2001), and a maître d’ in De Niro’s Analyze That (2002).

He’s received four honorary doctorates (from Pace University, New York City College of Technology, Stony Brook University, and Manhattan College), received awards and honors from countless orders, organizations, and charities, and continues generously donating to causes, from cancer and advanced cardiovascular research to centers for infants, children, and the elderly. As a fundraiser, organizer, and board member for dozens of businesses, foundations, and political associates, as well as in his current post as Executive Director of the US Immigration Fund, Gargano remains a determined and powerful force for the structural and ideological evolution of the nation along Conservative lines.Now at the start of his ninth decade, Charles A. Gargano remains an indefatigable conservative force, cementing a formidable legacy in politics, business, and urban development.