Frank (Sandy) Ruegg

After graduation, which surprised me as much as my parents I spent a quarter at Marin J. C. Confirming that I had no academic talents so I enlisted in the U.S. Army for a term of three years. After basic training I was shipped off to Korea for a year. On my return, I was assigned to the 2nd Armored Division, in Fort Hood Texas where we made several overseas deployments to Europe.

After my discharge from the service I once again tried my hand at academia. I made it through two years of study but once again “heard the call of the wild”. After four years in the sales profession I found myself taking the test to obtain my real estate license. At about this time I met my lovely wife Sarah to whom I am still married after 33 years. We have one child, Whitney Brooke who was recently married and lives in Seattle.

My real estate career began at The Sea Ranch on the Sonoma Coast. From there I went to work for Coldwell Banker and was with them for fourteen years opening new offices around the Bay Area. In 1983 Sears bought Coldwell Banker and Dean Whittier. I decided that the sale of “pools and tools” and “stocks and socks” were not consistent with my career objectives so I uprooted the family and we moved from Danville to Bend Oregon in 1983.

Bend offered the small town life along with the recreational amenities that appealed to us at the time. The timing of our arrival however was not associated with a strong real estate market since interest rates were in the neighborhood of 15% so I bought a season pass at Mt. Bachelor, got out the fly rod and spent a year enjoying our new home.

In late 1984 I opened a real estate company under my name. When I sold the company in 1992 it had two offices, 48 Sales associates and a property management arm. Once again “ the call of the wild” found us moving north.

We now live in Friday Harbor Washington, which is located in the San Juan’s north of Seattle. I have been retired since our arrival and with the exception of the fact that there might be “too much life at the end of money”, I have no desire to return to the working world. We enjoy boating and this year I am Commodore of our yacht club.

We are just seven miles from the Canadian border and just a short distance by boat or ferry from Victoria B.C. We find that we have access to all the recreational, cultural, and transportation amenities one could want while living in a peaceful island setting. Our daughter Brooke is pregnant with our first grandchild and our new son in law Tom, is in the thick of “the new economy” where he built and sold one “dot com” and is in the process of forming another.

Our door is always open to friends from the class of “61” If you are in the area give us a call at 360-378-5679