Robert E. Gibson was born on a farm in Maitland, Missouri, January 16, 1898. He attended a traditional rural American one-room school from grades one through ten and continued his studies at the village high school, graduating in 1915. Gibson supported his higher education at Valparaiso University in Indiana with summer jobs, such as selling books door to door, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1919.

He went to Ogden, Utah for graduate work, but became, despite his reservations, school principal there at age twenty-one due to a teacher shortage in the state. He taught seventh and eighth grades, even teaching a music class by hiring a teacher in town to prepare for each week's lesson. Here Gibson developed his skills to improvise and to learn from experience. After a year in Utah, Gibson resigned his post and walked through Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1920, finally settling in Shoshone, Idaho, to teach math and science. The following year he again became a high school principal, this time in American Falls, Idaho. In 1922, he moved to California for a job as vice principal of a junior high school in Pittsburgh, (California). At the same time he continued his graduate work at Stanford University, where he received both his master's and doctorate degrees. From 1927 to 1942, Gibson retained the position of superintendent at Walnut Creek, California.

During this period, he traveled widely and, as a liberal Democrat and progressive educator, had his first experience with being labeled a communist by conservatives. In 1933, he toured Russia on a trip arranged by the Bureau ofUniversity Travel, fulfilling a long-standing desire. He met his future wife, Ida Chapman, in Liverpool on the passage over and the following year he was joined by her in Walnut Creek.

In 1942, Gibson was appointed educational adviser to the War Relocation Authority (WRA), the agency responsible for the ten relocation centers where Americans of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated. His protest ofthe relocation of Japanese Americans, particularly in Contra Costa County, California, resulted in the authorities' consideration of him as the right candidate for the post. Headquartered in San Francisco, then Washington, D.C., Gibson and his wife visited each of the relocation centers. He fought for funds and political support of the education program and later used the documentary film ofthe 442nd's World War II heroism, Go For Broke, to win acceptance for the return of Japanese Americans to their original communities.

With the closure of the WRA, Gibson took the post of director of education for the South Korea Interim Government in 1946 and, under the U.S. military, served as educational adviser to a Korean counterpart, which he considered an example of American dominance of Korea. In 1949, Gibson returned to California and was Director of Curriculum and General Supervisor of Education of Schools in Shasta County for 2 years. During this time, he also conducted summer workshop in Teacher Education at the University of California.

When the U.S. Navy turned over the administration of the Trust Territories to the Department of the Interior, Gibson was appointed the first Director of Education ofthe Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under a civilian government and began a new career in the Pacific that would last from 1951 to 1964. He directed the educational program for the inhabitants ofthe islands of Micronesia - the Marshalls, Ponape, Truk, Saipan, Yap and the Palaus. Based on the thinking of the progressive education movement, which achieved prominence in the United States from 1920 to 1950 and urged that the schools should reflect the life of their society, Gibson restructured the education in Micronesia, emphasizing island-related curriculum and core classes. First headquartered at Fort Ruger, Hawaiʻi, the administration moved to Guam in 1955 and later to Truk. He resigned in 1964 and returned to Waimanalo when his policies were rejected by the new administration under Kennedy and a policy of American curriculum was put into place.

In his retirement, Gibson continued to advocate education and was very active in the community. He was the director, and then the treasurer of the Waimanalo Teen Project for dropouts when it started in the 1960s with volunteer support. He headed the Waimanalo Neighborhood Board and the Waimanalo-Kailua Education Coalition, successfully lobbying for the Kokua Council for Senior Citizens Founders' Group. In 1972, he founded the Kokua Council, a focus for action by elder residents of the state and served as board member and president. Through his efforts as president of the Waimanalo Task Force on Education, the Waimanalo Community and School Library was founded in 1978. Gibson was active politically and was involved with many committees, particularly those dealing with Waimanalo and elderly care. He began lobbying in 1974 when he was 75 years old and at 90 he was director of the Hawaii Democratic Movement. He also made weekly radio broadcasts on KHVH's Viewpoint from 1978 to 19??. In 1979, he was among the first Hawaiʻi nominees for the national Thomas Jefferson Award for residents with outstanding community service.

He died on November 7, 1992, in Hawaiʻi at the age of 94.