Gallup and the world lost a true research professional with the recent death of Dr. Gale D. Muller, vice chairman of Gallup, Inc. and general manager of the Gallup World Poll. Although Gale's byline infrequently appeared on the pages of Gallup.com, he was one of Gallup's longest-serving employees and the driving force behind the development of the Gallup World Poll. The World Poll's role in giving a voice to the people of the world is a constant feature on these pages.
Gale was born in 1944 in rural Nebraska, the son of farmers, and found his way to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he ultimately earned his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees. Gale began to work with Dr. Don Clifton, professor of psychology at UNL, and was there in the early years of the creation of Don's legacy -- his founding of Selection Research, Inc., the company that in 1988 acquired and ultimately became Gallup. Gale thus worked with Don, Selection Research and Gallup for more than 42 years -- becoming one of Gallup's longest-serving associates.
Gale played many roles in these companies. He worked as both a graduate student and an associate with Don Clifton in pioneering Selection Research's initial work in employee selection; he helped develop research techniques used by broadcast television stations across the country in evaluating on-air talent and helping guide local newscasts to be more in tune with their audiences; and he was in charge of recruiting and managing hundreds of Gallup research associates. Ten years ago, following through on the vision of Gallup CEO Jim Clifton, Gale took on what was the most important role of his professional career as the manager and builder of the Gallup World Poll. Here Gale flourished, facing the very real and daunting challenges of initiating research programs using a common questionnaire core in almost all of the significant countries of the world, managing through the tremendous challenges of developing consistent interviewing across languages and cultures and bringing together a world-class staff of world researchers -- truly living out the vision of giving a voice to the people of the world.
As a Gallup researcher with whom he worked for 20 years said: "Gale inspired the World Poll team with his mission to measure and reveal the opinions of the world. He understood that if we knew what the world was thinking, we could work to make it a better place. Gale was concerned about quality of life, personal and community safety, access to clean water, community attitudes toward the intellectually disabled, availability of good jobs and so much more. From the smallest villages in Africa to the war-torn cities in Iraq, the same core questions have been asked in hundreds of languages. Global citizens who often had never been asked to share their opinions have opened their huts and homes because someone wanted to know how they felt about their life."
Gale had a great reverence for the power of science in the study of humans, and was noted for consistently telling researchers and others that the researcher's greatest friend was "randomization," one of Gale's most treasured concepts. Still, Gale was a scientist and not stuck in his ways. In recent years, he envisioned and discussed the inevitable changes in survey research -- how it must be adapted as human beings change how they communicate with one another both domestically and around the world.
Gale was a trusted mentor, friend, associate and a genuine lover of the people he knew and with whom he worked. I first met Gale in 1987, and he remained a trusted friend, associate and valuable problem solver in every one of the 28 years since our first meeting. He touched my life deeply, as he did the lives of many, many Gallup associates in the United States and worldwide.
As one of Gale's Gallup associates wrote shortly after his death: "I think Gale just loved people so much and found them so darn fascinating that he committed his life to learning as much as he could about them. And that's the greatest gift Gale gave me -- he taught me how to see people, how to listen to people well." Gale's commitment to this vision powered his life up until the end.
He was the coauthor of Power of 2, a book that extols the value of what two people can do together when they put their minds to it, a concept that he personally lived as a "power of two" with people too numerous to count both here and abroad.
Gale Muller leaves behind his wife, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. He leaves behind a void in the professional and personal lives of hundreds of research colleagues and associates in the United States and around the world. But Gale would surely be most proud of the fact that he leaves behind a world that he helped make a better place.