Welcoming David and Vicki Estey!

David and Vicki Estey came to Falcons Landing from Purcellville – that charming town in Virginia’s wine country. Both, however, were California born-and-raised, David in San Diego and Vicki in Modesto.

David graduated from San Diego State University with a bachelor’s in industrial engineering. He then attended OCS in Newport, RI, and in 1960 he was commissioned an ensign in the Navy Reserve. Then he spent two years in San Francisco as chief engineer on a radar picket ship home-ported at Treasure Island followed by a year-and-a-half on a minesweeper in Vietnam training the Vietnamese navy.

Having finished his active duty service, David returned to San Diego and worked with his father in the family insurance business. For the next 18 years he also served in a variety of command and staff billets with Reserve units including duty as the executive officer, then CO of a recruit-training group. He also recruited for the Naval Academy, which he found immensely rewarding. In 1978 David was promoted to commander, USNR, and in 1983 he retired from the Reserves.

Now, about Vicki. After college, she worked at Cal State, Turlock, as administrator for the dean of students. Then she and a girlfriend came to D.C. where for two years she was the personal secretary to a U.S. senator. But California called and Vicki returned, spending the next 11 years at the University of California School of Medicine, La Jolla, as administrator for the pediatric cardiology department. Along the way, Vicki met David, and a year later they were engaged to be married. This is where it gets interesting. In 1976 they decided to be married in Switzerland. Yes, American couples can marry in Switzerland, but it takes lots of patience and paperwork. Vicki and David flew to Switzerland, bringing their papers, birth certificates, and blood work to the consulate in Berne where they were told that before they could be married, the papers had to be properly processed. The consulate then sent them to the city clerk in Zollikofen, a Bern suburb, and they were told to come back in two weeks for the ceremony. Vicki and David saw a lot of Switzerland before returning to Bern. Meanwhile, the obliging consul set up their wedding. He even provided his son and a local housewife to serve as witnesses, and the knot was tied.

Now the rest of the story: In addition to living happily ever after, in the intervening years David sold the family insurance company and worked for the city of San Diego as a real estate manager for city-owned properties that included the San Diego Zoo and general airports. During that time, Vicki returned to San Diego State and earned a degree in healthcare administration; then she returned to work at U.C. San Diego and Scripps Hospital.

After retirement, the couple moved to Purcellville to be closer to their family. They choose Falcons Landing as their home because of the lifestyle and the quality of the residents; they said, “Like-minded people who have served and contributed to our country.”

Welcome, David and Vicki!