Everyone in the Castilleja community knows Nico Gallo as an engineering teacher, robotics coach, Bourn Lab mentor and a friendly face around campus. But Gallo has many unknown passions outside of his work at Casti. How have these passions shaped him as a person, and how has he shared these lessons with the Castilleja community?
After graduating college with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Gallo began working as a mechanic at Port City Mopeds in New Hampshire. While he intended for this to be only a summer job, he continued working there for the next 10 years as a mechanic and engineer, gaining foundational experiences for his work in engineering and robotics today.
While working at Port City Mopeds, Gallo was mentored by Steve Pamboukes, who taught him many of the strategies and methods that he uses today: “I derive a lot of my teaching philosophy from working with [Pamboukes] as an apprentice in his shop. He’s got such a cool philosophy towards building stuff. It’s just quick and dirty: get stuff done as fast and easy as possible, and then test it until it breaks, and if it doesn’t break, it’s done.”
Gallo brings the mentality he learned from Pamboukes to Gatorbotics and his work at Castilleja through various sayings and quotes. For example, “slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” a piece of advice he shared with Caitlin Hopkins ’26.
While working there, Gallo found a community maker space at Port City Mopeds through which he developed his engineering skills and passions: “It was like [the Bourne Lab], but [it was] really big. [It] had an auto shop and a welding shop, and I started a small business out of that space. I started making things for a whole bunch of people, so I did a lot of CAD (Computer Aided Design), and [I did] a lot of furniture design.”
Another crucial part of Gallo’s life is music. Gallo is an avid vibraphone player, a jazz instrument that has become a crucial part of his life having started playing in the fifth grade: “I practice for about an hour a day, and I play some gigs here and there, and that’s a big part of my life. I play mostly jazz and jazz-related music – I play with a whole bunch of people. Back on the East Coast, I had a couple of bands of my own.”
However, Gallo hasn’t always been able to pursue his passion at such a serious level: “I didn’t have an instrument, I didn’t have anything at home. I just had the vibraphone at school, and they’re big and kind of expensive, and I couldn’t even really afford lessons at that point,” said Gallo. His “band director saw that [he] was practicing a lot, and let [him] take home the vibraphone on Christmas break.”
Even though this bent the rules, without his band director’s recognition, Gallo never would’ve gotten to where he is today, inside and outside of music: “He saw something in me and wanted to foster that. [That’s] one reason I’m still a musician today. ”
This story has stuck with him over the years and turned into a lesson he applies regularly at Castilleja. Anaya Talekar ’27 notes that “Mr. Gallo has an incredible way of seeing the best in each of us,” as “he takes a moment every day to ask each of us how we’re doing, not just with robotics but in our lives, which makes [me] feel so valued.”
Despite having many hobbies, Gallo was extremely shy as a teenager. However, one of his teachers helped him advocate for himself and further his passions. One of his freshman-year teachers told him “he needed to ask for the things that [he] wanted.” Gallo was operating off the premise that if he did a really good job in school, on his team or in music, people would discover his skills and interests and give him opportunities.
Recognizing this, his English teacher told him to “speak up for [him]self.” Even though this was a difficult message to hear, Gallo has shared the same lesson with the Castilleja community, noting that “when [he] sees folks that are talented but don’t advocate for themselves, [he] tries to bring that up.”
Deeksha Venkat ’27 has experienced this firsthand: “I apologize a lot, but Mr. Gallo consistently encourage[s] me to stop saying sorry and stand up for myself,” Venkat said.
In addition to his dedication and motivation of students, Gallo also has a certain appreciation for the energy that people bring to the team. According to Gallo, his ‘Dream FRC Robotics team’ would be made up of his mentor from Port City Mopeds, Steve Pamboukes, Gatorbotics’ current programming mentor, Patricia Beekman, Jazz musician Anderson Paak and finally, Coach K from Duke basketball, noting that “he’s got [a] great vibe and philosophy,” said Gallo.
Through singing along to music in the Bourne Lab, making conversation and even playing frisbee on the Circle during the day, Gallo carries the same positivity and enthusiasm throughout the Castilleja community as Coach K -“The energy he brings to the team is very contagious,” said Anvesha Khatri ’28.
While Gallo has many lessons to share with the Castilleja community, he’s also learned a lot from his time at Casti: “[Castilleja] opened me up to the idea of collaboration,” said Gallo. While he had coached a robotics team before, he “had not coached a 70-person robotics team; my previous team was 12 people. It was very competitive, but it was small, and the environment here [is] way different.”
Working with a large group of people taught Gallo many valuable lessons on collaboration and communication: “When I got here, I started rearranging the shop a little bit. Even though I knew it was for the best, I wasn’t able to articulate why I was doing it, [so] I got some pushback from the students.” This experience helped teach and shape him into a better mentor: “[Castilleja has] made me a much better communicator and a much better collaborator,” Gallo said, reflecting on how he “had to grow a lot to be here, and [he’s] happy that [he’s] here.”
Overall, Gallo has helped shape Castilleja into a special community through his positivity and the many lessons he has shared with students.
