When he joined the Army, he was with the 101st Airborne division and later became a green beret, completing his Army career in 1964 as a sergeant. He then began a lifelong career in civil engineering working for the Sierra National Forest, with assignments varying from water and waste- water design to recreation and road design, construction administration, trail bridge inspector and ski lift inspector, which indulged his hobbies of backpacking and skiing, finally retiring in 1999. Along the way he married Sharon and had two children, a daughter Heidi who teaches in Fresno and a son Brian who is still going to school.
Mary retired the first time in 1995 when Pac Bell was bought by SBC and she didn’t want to move to Sacramento. Her grandmother was still living at the ripe old age of 103 and Mary wanted to remain close by. After about ten months, she went back to work at the phone company, finally retiring in 1999. Mary and Duane have one adopted son, Eric, who now lives in Alabama.
Dan and Mary have actually known each other since Mary was 14 and Dan 19. It seems that Dan was a good friend of Mary’s brother. At the time, Mary thought Dan was “disgusting” – to clarify, she said he was a nice friend of her brother’s, but that was about it. But at fourteen, 19 seemed much older and not very interesting. As it turns out, they both married and would have periodic contact as they circulated in the same circles, especially with the friendship between Dan and Mary’s brother. Mary’s husband Duane died in 1985 with leukemia and Dan and his wife Sharon attended his funeral. A year or so later, Dan was at a conference with Mary’s brother and her brother asked Dan to check on his little sister (Dan had been divorced in the interim). As fate would have it, about eighteen months later, Dan and Mary got married and will be celebrating their 19th anniversary in December.
After Dan’s parents passed on, Dan and Mary decided it was time to leave Fresno and so after retiring in 1999, they moved to Nipomo, where they have become very involved in the local community. Mary still wasn’t sure about retirement, so spent about 3 years working part time in the Housewares Dept. at Gottschalks in Santa Maria. She quit when she and Dan took her first flight ever for a holiday trip to Canada (she couldn’t get time off). She has since caught the travel bug and they just recently returned from a trip to Europe, spending a couple of weeks touring London, Paris, and Spain before embarking on a Mediterranean cruise to France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.
They describe their hobbies as travel, eating out, gardening and outdoor activities. They have a lovely home with a beautiful view of the agricultural fields and coastal hills from their home, so it’s easy to understand their time outdoors (even indoors, the expanse of view makes you feel like you are part of the outdoors).
When not indulging their hobbies, you can find them doing for Nipomo. Dan is on the South County Advisory Council, where he serves as Chairman of the Traffic and Circulation Committee. He is also Vice Chair of SLO County Transportation Advisory Commission, is on the South County Air Pollution Advisory Board, the Nipomo Transit Committee, the Land Conservancy, Save the Mesa, the deAnza Trail Amigos, Newcomers, and Gyros.
Mary is Chairwoman of the Election Committee for the South County Advisory Council, writes the Newcomers newsletter, Chairwoman for the Dana Adobe fundraising Committee, a Red Hatter, and a docent for the Elephant Seals. Mary’s true love is her dog Nicholas and Dan and Mary also have two new Calico kittens in the house, Lucy and Trixie.
With all their assorted activities, it’s obvious that retirement is just a word and not an approach to life. They truly understand the meaning of giving back to the community and we are glad to have them both as part of our Gyro group and our greater Nipomo community.
