i know (was talking at some point about joining, already here in SV), and this is why i wrote only "3 decades" as i don't know precise dates of GemFire only suppose it to be beginning of 200x. My simple arithmetics mistake though - 2002 - 1982 is 2 decades, sorry, i see where confusion comes from :)
The original engineering expertise came from the team that built the Gemstone OODB.
Beaverton isn't so forested anymore, but lots of indigenous object oriented expertise for sure.