He was seen as the "Prince of Darkness" and a political head kicker. His colourful and chequered history includes scandals involving electoral rorting and foxtail palms while his achievements have taken him to the heights of research and corporate life.
David Barbagallo is a controversial and charismatic figure in the IT world. The former surveyor began his career as a systems analyst for Australia Post before moving to the Labor Party in 1987.
In 1990 he became IT adviser and later chief-of-staff to former premier of Queensland Wayne Goss, before heading up the Distributed Systems Technology Centre in 1994.
It was during his time with the Goss government that Barbagallo became embroiled in a long-running electoral rorting scandal that was investigated by the Shepherdson inquiry.
He was the sole ALP identity to be charged with electoral rorting after the three-month inquiry, which involved hundreds from all political parties. Several Labor MPs resigned.
Barbagallo admits to falsely enrolling one person in an ALP plebiscite some 17 years ago in a factional brawl over a hotly contested seat.
"I was of the view that several people had falsely enrolled from a different faction," he says.
He pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to procure an unauthorised status and was fined $1000 with no conviction in April, just three days before starting a new job at Mincom.
"The whole thing was ludicrous," Barbagallo says now, relieved to have finally shut the door on his political past.
He was once also accused of a conspiracy - of which he was later cleared - over allegations his brother was involved in the smuggling of foxtail palm seeds.
Politics aside, his peers say Barbagallo is an inspiring and intelligent leader who deserves credit for revolutionising one of Australia's best-known research organisations.
"He built it up from nothing to what is a genuinely highly respected body," says Alan McElrea, Mincom's chief executive officer and managing director.
Chairman of the DSTC board Ian Reinecke says Barbagallo "breathed new life" into DSTC with his intelligence, worldly experience and "strong and inspiring" leadership.
His "sheer force of personality" was attractive to DSTC participants which include Mincom, Boeing, Fujitsu, Telstra, Microsoft, SAP and IBM.
Barbagallo is modest about his achievements: "I am not an original thinker but I do recognise good ideas."
Under his tutelage, DSTC has become one of Australia's most successful cooperative research centres, with its security spin-off, Wedgetail Communications, recognised internationally for its Java-based security technology for large server applications and wireless devices.
Barbagallo's time with DSTC highlights the potential of the push to commercialise research offerings. When he first arrived, the researchers saw him as the "Prince of Darkness".
"There was a view that I didn't understand research," he says.
With the help of others, such as the late DSTC research director Melfyn Lloyd - formerly research director with CSIRO and the National Physical Laboratory in the UK - Barbagallo had to do lots of talking.
"All you can do when you get into an organisation is articulate your view and if you cannot provide ample evidence of the benefits of such an approach to the people who execute it, than you ain't going to fly," he says.
"When you are dealing with people who are smarter than you, traditional management techniques don't work."
Now, Barbagallo has taken the position of executive vice-president of solutions development at Mincom in charge of new software, and his timing, given last year's flagging fortunes, couldn't be better.
The mining software specialist has suffered two years of losses with shareholder angst leading to an unsuccessful search for $50 million in capital.
But with a $15.9 million profit turnaround and a new chairman in former IBM Australia managing director Bob Savage, which was announced last week, the company appears to be back on track.
Barbagallo says the company's return to profitability after a tough period is testimony to McElrea and his staff.
"It is one of those trite truisms but Mincom relies on its people."