Gary Myers:
CLASS OF 1969
Costa Mesa High SchoolClass of 1969
Costa mesa, CA
Davis Intermediate SchoolClass of 1965
Costa mesa, CA
Wildwood SchoolClass of 1963
Park forest, IL
Killybrooke Elementary SchoolClass of 1963
Costa mesa, CA
Sonora Elementary SchoolClass of 1963
Costa mesa, CA
Gary's Story
Life
I made a lot of stops going down the road of life, but I saw a lot of the world along the way, and I experienced life in many different ways. I developed a love of travel when still a teenager -- now I have been to all 50 states of the USA (resided in 6 of them), and 39 other countries. I also acquired a passion for wilderness hiking, backpacking, and camping from childhood. The combination of those passions has been a major determinant in where I have spent my life. Among the interesting and beautiful places I have lived are a kibbutz in Israel near the ancient ruins of Caesarea (1972-73), the fogbound redwood coast of northern California (1973-76), the magnificent mountains of western Montana (1976-95), and the temperate rain-forest-studded islands of southeast Alaska (1995-99). Now I live in the Salt Lake City area, enjoying the marvelous combination of sun, snow, desert and mountains, and exhilarating in the spectacular wilderness landscape of Utah.
I found my wonderful wife in Montana, and we have had a delightful life together, blessed with five wonderful daughters. Now we have twelve beautiful granddaughters and seven grandsons. Grandchildren are truly the reward for having survived parenthood.
College
Upon my return from a year-long vagabond trip around Europe and the Middle East in 1973 I returned to student life at Santa Rosa Junior College in the Forestry Program, earning an Associate's degree in 1975. A short time later, I transferred to the University of Montana in Missoula. Missoula was a great place to live with wilderness in every direction and I never missed an opportunity to explore those magnificent mountains. I earned a Bachelor's degree in 1980, and in 1984 I earned a Master's degree, both from UM.
Career
My professional career opened in exactly the place I wanted most to live -- the Flathead Valley of Northwestern Montana. There I worked in a CPA firm for several years before taking a position in accounting management at the corporate headquarters of an international company in the semiconductor industry, also located in Kalispell, Montana. Later, I became an adjunct professor of accounting at Flathead Valley Community College, while I kept my day job. It wasn't that I was a workaholic -- it's just that life in Montana was like that -- most people had to supplement their regular pay with additional work of some sort. Before taking my career out of my beloved Montana, I spent a couple of years as the Controller in a construction company.
Leaving Montana was traumatic -- Glacier National Park and the Jewe...Expand for more
l Basin Hiking Area were my all-time favorite wilderness hiking areas. Alaska was our next stop. I was offered a 2-year contract to be the CFO/Controller of an Alaska Native Village Corporation headquartered in a small town of less than 2000 people on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. Living in Craig, Alaska was every bit of the adventure we anticipated -- and there simply isn't enough space to tell all about it here. The saying in Craig was, "Prince of Wales isn't exactly at the edge of the earth, but you can certainly see it from here." We found that to be true in almost every sense of the word. We constituted a tiny toehold of humanity on a vast wilderness -- and I loved it, right down to the 200 inches of annual rainfall. Where else can you see a pod of killer whales in the bay from your living room window?
At the end of the contract, I was recruited by a much larger Alaska Native Village Corporation headquartered in the state capital of Juneau. We loved life in Juneau. Here we enjoyed most of the amenities of civilization while still living in an isolated location. Juneau is located on the mainland, but it is cut off by glaciers and steep mountains from the rest of the mainland. Access is by ferry boat or plane only. Minutes from our house we enjoyed trails in every direction and the awesome Mendenhall Glacier was a mere 2 miles from our house, its blue wall of ice easily visible from our driveway. In my position with the company I traveled often to our subsidiaries all over Alaska, Washington, California and Colorado.
In 1999 we left Alaska and moved to the Salt Lake area. For the next 18 years, I worked as the CFO/Controller of a concrete manufacturing company and discovered the fabulous beauty of the varied landscapes of Utah. Minutes from my suburban home I can be in a desert wilderness to the west, or a mountain forest wilderness to the east. Towering over my house is Mt. Timpanogos -- an 11750' sentinel that is home to moose, elk, deer, mountain goats, and black bears. Three hours to the south is the incomparable Colorado Plateau with its stunning red rock canyons: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Parks to name a few. It is a good place to live and I dearly love exploring this region.
I retired at Thanksgiving 2017 and after we spent a wonderful 15 months in Alaska on a mission for our church, we returned to Utah in the summer of 2019 where we are settling in to the retirement routine. Life has been good. Life without alarm clocks and crowded schedules is even better.
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