I'm sorry but no, the image is not what's causing that gap.

That's not the image he's talking about. It's the background main block image, as shown here (it's a bit hard to see in the forum so just click this link, it's the bottom portion of that image):

Guess I should have taken a longer look at the CSS  ... I assumed the lighter gray was part of the image. The gap is still ugly though :D !

I've been using Google's Developer Tools (wonderful!) - has stats about load times and will find page errors for you. I just right clicked on where the FITES logo was and saw the padding. My mistake is not looking further to realize that image wasn't the whole top.

I may be wrong but doesn't that kind of png resize? The "gap" is much smaller in the source file.

I'll just leave my dignity partially in tact and shut up here :P