Five Questions with Board Treasurer Ed Gallegos

Ed Gallegos joined the National Wrestling Hall of Fame’s Board of Governors in 2010 and became treasurer for the Board in 2016. He was an NCAA Division II All-American at the Colorado School of Mines and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Gallegos founded Iron Sights Operating, Inc., an oil and gas company, in 1997, and sold it to Chesapeake in 2007. He then founded another oil and gas company, Territory Resources LLC.

How did you get involved with the National Wrestling Hall of Fame?

Initially I met John Smith, a Distinguished member inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1997, and Hall of Fame Executive Director Lee Roy through church. A few years later, Rusty Shaw, who became a board member in 1994 and served as Treasurer from 2000-2015, asked me if I would have an interest in joining the board. At the time we had three kids under the age of four and I didn’t have the extra time. A few years later Lee Roy again asked me to join the board and I accepted.

You are one of two board members that live in Stillwater, Oklahoma. How often do you visit the National Wrestling Hall of Fame?

I visit the Hall of Fame about two times a year for leisure and about every other week in my role as treasurer.

What skill did you learn from wrestling that benefits you the most?

If you can call hard work and perseverance a skill then it is without a doubt hard work and perseverance.

You were a wrestling All-American in 1991 for Colorado School of Mines, a Division II program in Golden, Colorado. How did you end up there?

Mines was the only school in Colorado that offered engineering and wrestling.  I couldn’t afford to go out of state so it made the choice fairly simple.

Who is the most interesting person you have met through the sport of wrestling?

I can’t say that there is a most interesting person, but the quality that has interested me the most is the sense of humility shown by wrestlers. I have met some of the most accomplished people, both inside and outside the sport, and I am always amazed at how down to earth and humble they are relative to their accomplishments.

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