In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders Podcast, host Michael Falato interviews Sam Gallucci, a 65‑year‑old California native who began his career at IBM during the early days of mainframes and Unix. After leaving IBM, Gallucci co‑founded Brock Control Systems, creating one of the first contact‑management applications that would later be recognized as a precursor to modern CRM. He later rose to executive vice‑president and general manager at PeopleSoft, influencing the industry’s adoption of customer relationship management. In his 40s, Gallucci shifted to pastoral work and nonprofit leadership, blending his tech‑driven problem‑solving with community service. The conversation turns to his decision to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 26th District, driven by a desire to bring centrist, common‑sense leadership that leverages his business acumen and pastoral experience. He outlines key district concerns—cost of living, education and parental rights, homelessness, and burdensome small‑business regulations—and stresses the need to rise above partisan division. Gallucci reflects on recent lessons about political polarization and the importance of middle‑ground dialogue. The episode concludes with a call‑to‑action, directing listeners to samgallucci.com for donations, volunteer opportunities, and further information about his campaign.
Chapters
Space, but he's actually running, uh, to be a congressman, right, in Ventura County?
Yes, Michael.
Yeah, so Sam, tell me like your background, um, what kind of got you into the tech space, and then what kind of brought you into politics?
Yeah, absolutely. So 65-year resident of California and grew up here and, you know, just had an incredible childhood. We were a low-income family, but my dad always made a living, you know, taught us hard work as an Italian family. I ended up at San Diego State and in 1980, I married and started my career at IBM. And in those days, that was the very beginning of the tech space as we know it today. Mainframes were around, but it was the Fortune 50, and I happened to be at the right place at the right time. That's how I got into it. I was just very fortunate. And in 1984, with the joint venture of AT&T Bell Labs and IBM, they, they created for the first time ever an independent operating system and an independent programming language. The operating system was Unix. The language was C. Prior to that, everything was proprietary. So the world changed forever. And as a young age at 25, I left IBM, the comfort of IBM, 3.5 years in. And like so many of us, we just were pioneers. We, we literally went in and started to dream, what can software possibly do? And at that time in history, there was no such thing, right? The world, the world lived without software, without technology. So it was a, it was an incredible exciting and challenging time in history.
What company did you go from IBM to?
Well, I started, uh, so from IBM I started with this little software company, um, and we, um, uh, and we— there was a group of us and the guy had this crazy idea to create, uh, to, uh, to use software to automate your Rolodex. Now for some of you that are not as old as I am, the Rolodex was all the business cards were in this, this device called a Rolodex and you would just spin it and all your business cards would be there. And he said, why don't we create software that put all the information on business card on the computer? And we literally created among the first contact management software ever. And this was before there was platforms technology to run it. You know, everything was, was, was kind of like this mid-range computers of the time. So that's what started. And we, we're on the ground floor. I was the sales guy and my other teammates, you know, were, were doing other jobs. And this, you know, the owner was just this brilliant man. His name was Richard and, was just on the ground floor of this, of the company. And literally, out of desperation to make a living, because I had a, I had my first child was born. I was highly motivated. I had a mortgage, just started to sell what had never been sold before. And we basically invented CRM. And so that's how it started, you know.
So what was the company's name?
Brock Control Systems. Brock Control Systems after Richard Brock. It is arguably defined as the, as the, the founders of CRM. In fact, Tom Siebel, I remember years later, he tried to hire me a few times. Great guy. Phenomenal company he had, he would acknowledge that, you know, the founding company as it relates to CRM was Brock Control Systems. And so, yeah, and my career just soared. By the time I was 30, I was a thought leader in the industry traveling all over. The last thing out of our mouth was as much as anybody knew on the topic. And I started to sell it to sales professionals. So very early on in my career, after this thorough training of IBM and what was called the consultative sales approach, now I'm using these skills and I am, I literally talked to, you know, by, by now well over 1,000 sales leaders and you learn a thing or two, right? And then the student becomes the teacher. So every methodology, every strategy and all these different industries, I would learn using this consultative sales method. I would learn their strategy and what was working, what wasn't working. And as I learned the strategy, would adopt our technology to the strategy. And before you knew it, it literally created all these creative ideas on how to advance and help in other ways. And the creativity ended up defining what, what I originally called the business development cycle. And it was in '93 that the Gartner Group redefined it, '93, '94, in that time frame, redefined it customer relationship management, CRM. So I had this illustrious career and, um, ended up, uh, by, you know, by the time I was 40 years old as an executive vice president, general manager at PeopleSoft. So That was my first 20 years, tech pioneer, creating things that didn't exist and convincing people to do things they didn't even think they, you know, that they'd never done before or even had any context or baseline. Because at that time in history, there was no such thing as thinking about technology and computers to solve problems. Now we're very conditioned to that. And, you know, and, and, but back then they weren't. So It was an incredibly extraordinary time. Then from there, I, I was up in the Bay Area in Pleasant View, Pleasanton, and Mountain View. I lived in Marin County. And then at 40 years old, I left that world, came back down to where my family was in Southern California, and then became a pastor and started my creativity to start various nonprofits to help solve various problems and became a you know, philanthropist and, and, and a consultant to CEOs. That's how I made a living. I had, I've had a lot of fun doing that. And a CRM, you know, just a, a, a CMO consulting and just built on all this, all this creativity, experience, and innovation created a, a, a very extraordinary methodology that has, has been transformative to the companies that I've worked with.
So tell me.
Yeah.
So since we got about 5 minutes left, I want to get forward to your, your, your politics and your yearning for Congress.
Yes.
What that means to you and also why you're starting to do this at this point in your life.
Yeah. You know, so I've had two amazing careers. You know, financially, we're in good shape. And, you know, I mean, I had two uncles that were in World War II and the stories that they shared about what it takes to protect this, this republic and the sacrifice was an extremely important motivation for me. And I looked at our political landscape and the politicians have forgotten why they're there, that they're supposed to be there for the people. That's why the House of Representatives is called the People's House. But the vast majority of them, there's some good ones. But here in California particularly, The vast majority, they're there for the extreme wing of their party, for their personal priorities, or the highest bidder. And I'm in this position to give back and to give this seat back to the people and to bring common sense and a balance between, as a tech pioneer and a tech executive, the business prowess and results to solve problems creatively, and as a pastor the, um, the, uh, the, the pastoral skills to bring people together, um, and, uh, and, and rise above differences to what we have in common. So I really feel that that's what's needed in this divided country in this time in history that is so critical that we rise above all these differences. And I believe that the bulk of, of, of Americans feel the same way. There's so much division and rhetoric and on both sides of the aisle and to have somebody that can rise above the colors of our party and focus on what we have in common, which is really common sense to solve some of the most critical problems that we face. The issue of the cost of living here in California is out of control. Parental rights and education is out of control. The quality of education, homelessness. Right. There are so many issues that really are important. The small business regulations— we're crippling our small businesses. There are so many issues. And just simply actually giving the seat back to the people. And this— I'm inspired and called and feel I'm in a position to make a difference and to step into this. And that's why I'm doing it.
What would you say the 1 or 2 biggest things you've learned in the last 6 to 12 months? That go reinforce something that you were doing or something that you, that horribly failed and you lost and you learned?
Wow. That would be a lifetime, you know, of things that I, that I've learned. But I think the most important thing is I started this race in April of last year that I learned is, is how divided we are and how out of touch the politicians that are supposed to be representing us are out of touch with the actual highest priorities of the people. That's the first thing I've learned. And, and I've also learned that there is a large group of people in the middle, and I consider myself the man in the middle. I, I'm, I'm very much fiscally very conservative and socially much more moderate. Hence all the work I've done, the nonprofit work I've done, you know, are the results. But I've learned that if we don't rise above our differences, we can't see or hear the other person. We can't have real, you know, conversations that, you know, that are productive. And we're talking over each other. And we have more in common than we have differences. And we just have to get there. And that's probably the biggest thing I learned. And you know, my own personal failures is falling into the trap of getting sucked into, you know, on the right side of this, too far into the, into the weeds, you know. And so you have the people that watch Fox News or CNN News, you have the, you, you have these, the people that are, are listening to all of this rhetoric. And if we're not careful, in all of the conspiracy theories, and if we're not careful, we'll talk over each other. And, and, and who will ultimately pay the price is our children and our grandchildren. They're the ones that we have a responsibility as a human race to rise above our differences and come together and actually, uh, make a difference as our forefathers did. It's our turn at bat, and this is the beauty of our nation. We have an incredible nation, and it, it's a Constitution republic, and it's our turn to keep it and preserve it and to expand it given where we are in history.
Well, Sam, we're at time, but I just want to say thanks for making time on this podcast. I wish you good luck. Run for Congress. I know you win. I would vote for you, but I'm just not in California anymore. What's the best way to reach out to help your campaign?
I really appreciate that question. And I ask everybody listening to this to give to this kind of an effort if you believe in this. Sam, gallucci.com, G-A-L-L-U-C-C-I, samgallucci.com. Even just give 26 to District 26, because as a congressman, I affect, I can affect, you know, federal law that affects everybody. And you can also there, you can send an email from that website, go to that website and you can hear more about my campaign. You can send me information. And I'd love to hear from you, and I'd love you all to participate. A tech pioneer, a pastor that has the problem solving and the heart to bring people together and the proven track record of both of those. And that's what tends to be lacking in politicians. They talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. But what have they actually done for people? That's the difference.
And I know from experience that this man is a good man, a loving brother, like a father. Like a friend and, um, believe in him because he's probably one of the few people you can ever trust in the politics world. All right, God bless. Thanks.
