#LT Gene C Beavin USNR 1954-1958 | |||
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 Beavin | Nickname: Gene Branch: USNR Commission: Navcad Commission Year: 1956 Pre-Flight: Navcad 28-54 Wings Year: 1956 Active Years: 1954-1958 Reserves: 1958-1974 Mil Retirement: 1974 Spouse: Sanne Last Location: WA | Assignments: | Highlights: |
— Gene Beavin, May 17, 2007 | |||
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LT Gene C Beavin USNR 1954-1958
I entered the Navy with NAVCAD Class 28-54. After receiving my wings and commission at Hutchinson, KS, in April 1956, I joined VP-9 at the NAS Alameda, flying P2V-5, 6, & 7's. The squadron deployed to Iwakuni, and I had a long TAD on Kwajalein and Wake Islands with their Search & Rescue unit. Mistakenly thinking that the civilian world was less screwed up than the Navy, I took my discharge after only one tour, in April, 1958.
I became a stockbroker with Sutro & Co. in San Francisco for several years, living in Sausalito with Jim Adams, also from VP-9. Having failed to take Wall Street by storm, in late 1960 I signed up as a Watch Captain on the sailing schooner "Wanderer" for an extended cruise in the South Pacific. I then worked 2 years for Douglas Aircraft as an administrator at their wind-tunnel facility in southern California before going off to sea again in 1963. This vessel was another large sailing schooner, the "Te Vega", operated by Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, and we were engaged in oceanographic research throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Then during 1966, I worked with a friend of mine as a travel agent in Vientiane, Laos. After a year in Laos, I returned to work with the aerospace division of McDonnell Douglas, again in southern California.
When the aerospace lull hit in the early '70's, I went off to Indonesia, starting a long involvement with the international engineering/construction industry as an administrator and site-services manager. Java, Borneo, Singapore, New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Africa, Argentina, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar were all assignment locations on a variety of projects, primarily with the Fluor Corporation, continuing with several breaks in between, up until just this past year.
I met my wife, Sanne, while placing a bet at the racetrack in Jakarta in 1972, and we married in Jakarta a year later. My parents from Oklahoma City were able to attend, and were Sanne's siblings and their spouses from the U.S.A., New Zealand, and Australia. Our first daughter was born in Jakarta in 1974 and our other daughter in South Africa in 1977; both are now living in Newport Beach, CA. Sanne and I celebrated our 34th anniversary this past January. After some years in the Newport Beach area, we have been living in Washington state since October of 2005.