Gale has been president of the NC Nurses Association, chair of the NC Center for Nursing, chair of the NC Council of Nurse Practitioners, and a member of the NC Board of Nursing. She is adjunct faculty at Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, East Carolina University, Wake Forest University, and Case Western Reserve University. She was Chief Health Officer at software company SAS for 26 years before leaving clinical practice in late 2020 to focus fulltime on legislative and advocacy work.   

 

In the mid-1990s, Gale was a Gov. Jim Hunt appointee to the Legislative Study Commission on Access to Health Insurance and in 2010 was appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue to the Blue-Ribbon Task Force on the State Health Plan for Teachers and State Employees. While in the NC House, she was Gov. Roy Cooper’s 2-term appointee to the State Health Coordinating Council, responsible for writing the annual State Medical Facilities Plan. She is currently a Senate appointee to the NC Council for Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the NC Advisory Committee on Cancer Coordination and Control. 

 

​After serving on the Cary Town Council from 2007-2014, and in the NC House from 2015-2022, Gale was elected to the state Senate, beginning her first term in 2023. She is the first advanced practice registered nurse elected to the NC legislature, and the first nurse to serve in the state Senate. She is known as a commonsense legislator who works effectively across the aisle. 

 

Gale and her husband Kevin live in Cary and have 2 adult sons.