Dean A. Gallo (November 23, 1935 - November 6, 1994) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing New Jersey's 11th congressional district for nearly ten years. Gallo was born in Hackensack, New Jersey. After a career as a realtor, he spent the rest of his life in politics as a Republican. He served on the Parsippany-Troy Hills Township Council in 1970. In 1973, he was elected to the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders, becoming the board's chairman and the county's de facto chief executive.
In 1975, he was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly and served there eight years. He was elected to the House from New Jersey's 11th District in 1984, defeating 11-term incumbent Joseph Minish by 11 points amid the landslide by Ronald Reagan that year. Minish's defeat was somewhat astonishing, as he had won reelection in 1982 by almost 30 points despite having almost all of heavily Republican Morris County drawn into his district in the 1980s round of redistricting.
Gallo was reelected four times, never facing serious opposition in a district that turned into one of the most reliably Republican districts in the Northeast. He had been nominated for a sixth term in 1994, but dropped out of the race on August 29 because of untreatable prostate cancer. He died at the age of 58 on November 6 of that year - just two days before the election of his successor, fellow Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen.
The Dean and Betty Gallo Prostate Cancer Center at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey is named in his honor.
