PHOTO
BY
BOB
STEFANKO
Global Roads Lead to San Diego
A Naval career path guides a family to their civilian home
C
APTAIN EUGENE (GENE)
Bailey was the first in his family both
to go to college and to serve in the
military. "My mother waited tables.
My father worked in a steel mill. ey
split up when I was young and I grew
up in Detroit. My mother didn't have
the money to send me to college, so I did ROTC in high
school," says Bailey. "I was already thinking about the
Naval Academy at 14. I got into all the schools I applied
to, but the Academy offered structure, without which I
wasn't sure I'd make it through," he adds with a laugh.
Bailey graduated from the United States Naval Academy
at Annapolis in 1993, and for the past 29 years he has
served as an officer in the U.S. Navy — the first half
driving surface ships and the second half as an information
technology expert. He'll be retiring this September, and if
all goes well, he and his wife, Dita, along with their twin
sons, Carter and Orion, will be staying put right here in
San Diego.
"We joke in the Navy when people are retiring.
Location, pay, job — you have to pick two of three,"
says Bailey, whose goal is to continue working in IT
locally. e only questions that remain are for whom
and exactly how much. "I'm looking for an organization
whose values fit with my own. I'm hoping for the same
kind of fulfillment I have in the Navy, including the
opportunity to give back."
Focus
military
BY BILL ABRAMS
@ranchandcoast ranchandcoast.com
40 MAY 2022 RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE
Dita and Gene Bailey
