Gene bought his first bike in 1953, an olive drab Indian, which had been an Army bike that he had for only two weeks. In 1997 he bought a 1982 750 Verago - a “big” bike to learn to tour on - it’s actually sitting in their garage! He bought his first Gold Wing in 2000, which is a white GL 1500, and has about 140,000 miles.
Their favorite scenic ride was their first long ride up to Big Sur, California coastline to Oregon and Vancouver Island, Lake Louise, Banff and the infamous “Highway to the Sun.” Their longest ride was their Nova Scotia trip of 10,600 miles. Their most exciting ride was down Broadway in New York City on 9/10/2008 on their red, white and blue motorcycle with a flag on the back. It was the day before the 9/11 rememberance parade so they were well photographed as they rode down Broadway photographing the big city!
Jeannie began a government career (15 years) as a secretary with the Park Rangers with Yellowstone National Park. Gene and Jeannie met in June, 1974, when they were both Air Traffic Controllers in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jeannie was a controller for nine years and Gene had a career of 25 years in Salt Lake City. After they were “let go” by President Reagan, Gene opened a detective agency in Salt Lake called The Cheap Detectives. While interesting, it wasn’t exactly the career he was looking for so Gene went to work for Chevron as a Process Engineer and eventually retired after 16 years. Jeannie worked for police departments in both Salt Lake and Los Angeles as a dispatcher. When she retired, it was also from an oil company: Mobil. They retired out of Los Angeles after Gene spent a year as an x-pat working in Kazakhstan and moved to Green Valley in 2003. Now they are both working as tax preparers, part time, for H&R Block…it seems they just can’t seem to find jobs in diverse fields!
Gene joined GWRRA in 2000 when he bought his Wing and attended his first Chapter A meeting as soon as they moved to Arizona in 2003. They were Chapter Educators briefly in California and have previously been active managing the Store for Chapter A and are taking it over again. Jeannie has always been fun with antics as one of the former A’s Good Time Girls!
They have been married 35 years, have two children, three grandchildren and one great grandchild that live in either Salt Lake City, Utah or Fairbanks, Alaska.
They enjoy the 3 R’s: Riding, Reading, Relaxing, as well as traveling, crafts, games, and most especially each other.
