Zach Ambrose

Biography

Zach Ambrose is the chief of staff and longtime confidant for Gov. Beverly Perdue.

Early Life and Education

John Zachary Ambrose was born in Fairfax, Va., in 1967 to John and Judith Ambrose. His father was a former professor and now an administrator at N.C. State University; his mother, a homemaker.

The family moved to the Raleigh area when Ambrose was in the second grade. He was raised in Garner and Raleigh, graduating from Enloe High School in 1986. 

He then earned bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and Russian from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991.

He underwent Navy ROTC training in the summers before his sophomore, junior and senior years of college. In 1989, he participated in a Russian exchange program in Novosibirisk State University.

Military Service

After graduation, Ambrose spent five years in the U.S. Navy, serving most of that time on the U.S.S. Halyburton, a guided missile frigate. On that ship, he coordinated the evacuation of 900 passengers from the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985.

Family

His wife, Jill, is a pediatrician. They have two young children, Catherine and John. 

Professional Career

During college, he worked for Charles Draper Laboratories in Massachusetts and Memorex Telex in Raleigh. 

After a five-year stint in the military, Ambrose was a stay-at-home father from 1996 to 1999. In 1996, he wrote a letter to the N&O criticizing a columnist who said that children's sports teams should not have to include girls.

Political Career

Ambrose began his political career in North Carolina managing the state Senate campaign of Burlington Democrat Wiley Wooten, who lost to incumbent Republican Hugh Webster in 2000.

In 1999, he studied at the Institute of Political Leadership in Wilmington, and in 2000 he took a course for state legislative managers at the Brown Tulley Institute for Political Action in Baltimore. 

From 2001 to 2005, Ambrose served as director of the N.C. Senate Caucus, directing strategies and hiring campaign managers and consultants to help Democratic candidates win in the 2002 and 2004 elections. 

In that position, he worked closely with Senate president pro tem Marc Basnight. 

From 2005 to 2007, he worked as chief of staff to then-Lt. Gov. Perdue, helping manage her response to a federal round of military base closures and the creation of the N.C. Military Foundation.

In September of 2007, she announced he would head up her campaign for governor after going months without a campaign manager.

Several days after she won in November of 2008, Perdue named Ambrose one of three leaders of her transition team. 

On Nov. 11, she appointed him chief of staff in her new administration, the first post she made public.

Research and reporting by Ryan Teague Beckwith and Ben Niolet. 

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