If you worked for an airline and had the opportunity to fly, and live, anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, where would you choose to live?  Bill McGarry, and his wife, Sharon, chose Gulf Shores.

Bill was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 20th 1943.  Bill has one sister, Kathy, worked as a flight attendant for United, married to Lou who retired from Price Waterhouse Coopers. He has a brother Mike who lives in Seattle, and is retired from United Airlines. Bill’s dad worked for United Airlines, and retired as Regional Vice President. Bill went to school at Grove City College majoring in Economics.

He was proud of his accomplishments both in academics as well as in the sports arena. He loved the water and took an active part in water competition. He was an All-American swimmer and was named to both the Swimmer’s Hall of Fame and the Sports Hall of Fame at the college. While in school Bill married and had two beautiful children. The marriage ended up in divorce, but he still has a wonderful relationship with his children, now grown. His son is living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is working with Home Depot. His daughter, who has two children, is in Long Creek, South Carolina practicing as a psychologist.

Graduating college, Bill tried to enlist. The Vietnam War was going on, and he wanted to help. Even though an athlete, he flunked the physical due to an asthmatic condition. At that time Atlantic Richfield was looking to hire and he went to work for them in sales. He stayed with them for about a year and a half.

From there he took a job with Allegheny Airlines starting in Philadelphia, and working as a District Sales Manager. After a brief stay he moved to St. Louis, then on to Nashville — still working for Allegheny. His job was to call on big commercial accounts, travel agents, groups, and charters. He also handled PR and Civic Affairs pertaining to the airlines.

While in Nashville, the company changed it’s name from Allegheny to U.S. AIR in 1979, and in 1996 it was changed to U.S. Airways. Bill traveled constantly.  He had a large territory, and was in charge of several stations.  He opened several stations handling the marketing.  When opening a station, there was a big “splash”, and Bill saw that it was done right.                                                                                                                                      

His territory included Birmingham, Huntsville, Tri-Cities (TN), Knoxville, and Memphis. Bill also earned the business title of CTC: Certified Travel Consultant.

While living in Nashville, he met Sharon, a school teacher living in his apartment complex, and they eventually married.  They’ve now been married for 35 years.

Bill retired after working for U. S. Airways for 30+ years. Sharon was still working, and after a short time of not working, he got a job at the airport in Nashville with Southwest Airlines. He worked for them for another ten years. In 2010 he called it quits, professionally, and took a second retirement which was offered by Southwest. 

Bill’s sister-in-law had bought a condo in the 1980s in Phoenix 3 and Bill, his wife and children, all came to visit often. They loved the area and when an opportunity presented itself, he bought a condo at Phoenix 7 even before the construction started. 

Bill bought with the intention of eventually retiring here, and his dream started heading in that direction about four years ago. They were spending so much time down here that about 2 years ago, he sold his Nashville home, and came south to be part of the local establishment. At that time he bought two more condos for investment purposes. When not rented, his extended family comes to visit, and has a nice place to stay. 

They absolutely love it here. Bill and Sharon volunteer at the Christian Service Center in Gulf Shores. Sharon is active with the DAR, and the Gulf Shores Women’s Club. They feel good about helping others. When the snowbirds are here, Bill teaches/leads a water aerobics class at the pool in his condo. He’s a natural born motivational leader that people seek out and want to follow.

Bill and Sharon love to sail and own a 35-foot Catalina sailboat. They’re members  of the Point Yacht Club at Pirates Cove. Sailing is one of his passions, but then again he has so many. Bill loves to cook, and claims to have a gumbo that will rival any cajun-made variety. (He challenges anyone from Louisiana to make it any better.)

When possible he plays golf, and though not a scratch golfer, he says he can keep up with a better than average challenger. 

Bill also enjoys reading and has read every Tom Clancy book published except the one he’s presently reading. He also enjoys WLB Griffin’s books.

They also love to travel, and thanks to one of the hard earned perks of working and retiring from the airlines is to be afforded the opportunity to fly anywhere in the world at discounted fares. A wonderful way for the Airlines to say thank you, and a great reason to work hard to reach retirement. They’ve been all over Europe, to Alaska, Canada and Mexico.  It also makes it affordable to live here and fly back and forth to visit children and other family members.

Bill belongs to a World Wide organization called Skal which is an organization on Travel Management and Tourism. It’s people in the Industry that get together to share ideas about the travel tourism business. It has about 18,000 members worldwide in about 86 different countries.  In the travel/tourism business and living in Nashville, Bill met many celebrities. One who stands out is Dolly Parton. He says she is “one of the nicest down to earth people you’d ever want to meet. She’s down to earth, great people. She is by far, the best person you’d ever want to work with."

Bill is a wonderful gentleman, and it was a pleasure to meet him and his family. I feel like I’ve made a new friend, and I feel that we all are fortunate to have the McGarrys ON THE ISLAND.