Gregg Schindel

After going to Iowa State University briefly, Nancy Beaulieu and I were married in December, 1961. I then attended the University of South Dakota at Vermillion where our son, Doug was born in August, 1962 and daughter, Cindy in July, 1964. After graduation from USD in 1966 with a B.A. in math and chemistry, I was employed by Dale Electronics in Columbus, Nebraska and Sperry Univac in Minneapolis in engineering positions. In Columbus I learned to fly and eventually earned my commercial pilot and flight instructor certificates as well as instrument and glider ratings. While in Minneapolis I went to the University of Minnesota evenings studying business administration. In 1974 Nancy and I were divorced. I began a career in the aviation field with Sperry Flight Systems in Phoenix, Arizona and then Aviall, Inc. in Dallas, Texas. Sperry developed and manufactured autopilots and flight control systems for corporate and commercial aircraft while Aviall was in the aviation parts and services business. During those twenty years, I was primarily in marketing and operations management in an industry which I loved. I was married to my second wife, Judy from 1976 to 1979. After having such dismal success with matrimony, I remained single for the next twenty five years. (Somewhere in my earlier years I may have contracted AIDS--Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome!)

In 1995 I retired from Aviall in Dallas and moved back to Arizona. After more than a year of leisure, I became restless and eventually made the decision to go into the financial advisory business affiliating with American Express Financial Advisors (now known as Ameriprise) as an independent contractor. The majority of my clients were folks that I had either worked with or known in Dallas or Phoenix. In December, 1997 I had my first "date" with Sally, who was also a financial advisor with AMEX. (Actually, she picked me up at a company Christmas party as I was hovering over a large bowl of peeled shrimp.) The rest, as they say, is history. Sally was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Western Illinois University with a degree in accounting. We married in one of our favorite places, McDowell Mountain Park near Scottsdale, Arizona in January, 2003. Sally has a grown son and daughter, neither of whom is married, living in the Phoenix area.

In 2007 we both sold our financial advisory practices and retired and began travelling in earnest. We have owned three motorhomes over the past dozen years and thoroughly love roaming the country, visiting friends and family and making new friends. We've been as far northeast as Newfoundland, south to Key West, and north to Canada, usually travelling about eight months a year. We've also taken a number of international trips but not in the motorhome!

My son who lives in Columbus, Nebraska has four boys, the oldest of whom has a twenty-month daughter (making us great grandparents). My daughter lives in Omaha and has two daughters. The motorhome affords us lots of opportunity to visit the kids and grandkids without "moving in".

Sally does an outstanding job of chronicling our adventures on www.SGSchindel.blogspot.com which we invite you to visit. We love having company (when we are at home in Prescott) so if your travels should bring you to northern Arizona (we do get snow here) be sure to include us in a visit.