Dan graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, after having decided at age 15 he wanted to become an architect. He offered to be an office boy in a small family owned architect firm where he worked while in high school. Upon graduation, he went to live with his father and started college at UCLA; after a semester, he transferred to Cal Poly, where he graduated with a degree in architectural engineering. As Cal Poly was a land grant school, Dan was required to do ROTC for the first two years and then he continued the final two years for the paycheck. Upon graduation, he went to the Army as a 2nd lieutenant and did his air defense training time at Fort Bliss, Texas, the same as fellow Gyro Tay Daniels. After 13 months at Fort Bliss he was posted to Munich, Germany for a one year stint. It was in Munich that he met Nancy, the love of his life and after spending 2 years in Germany, married her and returned to Long Beach.
After she graduated, her father was sent to Munich as a Group Commander, and Nancy elected to go to the University of Maryland branch in Munich. So now you can guess how and where she and Dan met.
Dan and Nancy will celebrate their 43rd anniversary this coming October. Living in Germany when they married, they honeymooned via VW “bug” through France and Spain.
When they returned from Germany to Long Beach, Dan began his 5 year apprenticeship to become an architect, only to decide at the end of it that he no longer wanted to be an architect. He did take his exam and earned his license but has never practiced. Instead he went into the architectural glass industry, where he spent 14 years working for a major glass manufacturer, responsible for their exports around the world. It was during this time that their two daughters, Lisa and Nicolle were born. They moved to Springfield, Virginia from Long Beach when Lisa was 2 and Nancy was 8 _ months pregnant with Nicolle before relocating to Toledo, Ohio. In 1985, they left Toledo and came back to California settling in Walnut Creek, where Dan went to work for a company that makes equipment for glass, e.g., coatings such a low-E-glass. This job involved a lot of international travel, including running an office in Japan. The last ten years Dan and a partner have had a consulting business for the glass industry.
Both of their daughters went to UCSB where they each received their teaching certificates. It was the many trips down 101 from the Bay area to Santa Barbara that resulted in their discovery of Blacklake, before the Estates were built. They would periodically stop and look at houses when they came through, always thinking it would be a nice place to live, especially after their granddaughter Kaitlyn, now 5, was born. Finally a few years ago, they found their place in the Estates (Nancy had fallen in love with the Vanderbilt model and so they were always looking for one here). Not yet ready to relocate, they leased it for a year and then updated before moving in a couple of years ago.
Lisa, Tobias and Kaitlyn live in Santa Barbara. Lisa is currently involved in founding a private K-2 school which is very similar to the preschool Kaitlyn has been attending. Nicolle, after 10 years of teaching, decided to do some volunteer work. Being bilingual, she went to Costa Rica to teach, and while there fell in love and married a Costa Rican man. Nicolle and Rigo married and are now working on getting his visa approved for immigration to the US, which Dan and Nancy look forward to with happy anticipation.
Dan is still doing a little consulting and is also discovering and loving golf. While in Toledo they co-owned a sailboat. When they lived in the Bay Area, they belonged to a sailing club. They used to do a lot of sailing and still do occasional sailing vacations in the Caribbean with good friends.
Nancy is the creative type and her hobbies include photography, quilting, home decorating, gardening, cooking, and all the myriad of things you can do with the computer. Nancy also continues to do some work in the Bay Area as a chief proctor for State Board exams. She has run the CPA exam twice a year, with as many as 1400 test applicants, and runs the optometry exam 3 times a year. She oversees and hires all of the proctors to do these tests.
The Halls also both love travel. With Dan’s business, they have been a number of places, including England, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, China, Australia & Indonesia. But some of their favorite trips have been strictly for pleasure. Their favorites include a wine and olive oil tasting trip to Northern Italy with German friends; a trip with friends to Thailand and Hong Kong, an independent 3 week trip to New Zealand, where one of the highlights was staying at a B&B owned by an Australian chef, who fixed fabulous meals for them; and a photography safari last year to Kenya.
Nancy enjoyed the safari so much that she and fellow Gyrettes Kay Morrow and Kathy Veder, along with some other gals are doing a repeat girls trip this year, while Dan, Bill Morrow, Darrell Dunbar, son-in-law, Tobias and some other friends are going to Alaska for a fishing trip.
Dan and Nancy will return to Germany in October for an anniversary trip. These two world travelers and their newest addition, a Havanese puppy named Jax, are very much at home here in Blacklake. Nancy’s mom, Ruth also lives here, and enjoys puppy-sitting…a good thing for Jax with all their world adventures!
