A love for Newport life

Ron Winship has had an eventful 62 years, from working on Apollo

rockets to running for the Newport Beach City Council.

During his early years, Winship moved in and out of the

Newport-Mesa area, but he always came back and decided to stay for

good after his tour of duty in the Army ended.

The Pilot’s Luis Pena recently sat down with the longtime Newport

Beach resident, who co-owns Parker-Longbow productions along with his

wife, Anna Winship.

Where did you grow up? What kind of childhood did you have?

I was born in Santa Monica, California, then we moved to Culver

City, then to the San Fernando Valley, and my early years were in

Sunland, until 1952, when we moved to Lido Isle in Newport Beach. We

were in Lido Isle until about ‘55, and then my dad had to move, so we

moved up in Fullerton, and I went to four years of school in

Fullerton for high school. Then my parents moved back down to Corona

del Mar and Cameo Shores in 1959, and I went off to USC.

What kind of childhood did you have?

We had a dog named King. We had a swimming pool, a pool table, a

ping-pong table and a badminton court. We lived on an acre of land

basically in Fullerton. My first car was a ’44 Ford business coupe

with an engine I built myself and customized. It was midnight blue

and it would go from zero to 60 in about four seconds, and that was

the limit on how fast it would go. My childhood was one where I was

lucky enough, although I had gone to so many schools. We moved many

times before high school, but I was able to stay in one school for

all four years in high school and as a result, I became pretty

involved in school activities. I was the campus DJ. I was on the

debate team. I went to all the school dances, did all the stuff that

kids do -- went to all the drive-ins and the movie theaters. Failed

miserably at dating when I was in high school

How did you end up in Newport-Mesa?

That’s a long story. When I went off to USC, I was there about a

year, then I failed miserably, and then I came home. I went off to

Hawaii and surfed for a year, and when I came back I loved Newport

Beach so much that I decided to stay in Newport Beach for while. And

everybody else that I knew was off to Tahoe or Aspen or all those

places in the mid-’60s. So, I stuck out here and then I got involved

in the aerospace industry. I was already involved in the aerospace

industry and I worked at North American in Seal Beach. I lived for a

short period of time at Sunset Beach, but moved back to Newport as

soon as I could. This was just the place to be in the ‘60s. There

wasn’t a better place probably on the planet than Newport Beach

during the ‘60s. There were more girls from all over the country,

there were more fast cars and surfing that I liked doing, so there

wasn’t a better place to go.

What happened is that, in the aerospace industry, I wound up going

on these missions. I wound up going to Mississippi to work on the

second stage of the Apollo rocket, and then I went off to Huntsville,

Ala., to work on the Apollo rocket, then I went to Cape Kennedy and

wound up moving to Cape Kennedy from the late part of ’65 until ’67.

Then I got drafted in the Army.

When I got out of the Army, I had a choice of going back into the

aerospace industry. My two choices were either Houston or in

Cleveland, Ohio. I decided that I would rather stay in Newport Beach,

because even though I enjoyed Florida, I really hated it compared to

California. I really loved California much more. So when I got back

here to California after I had served my time in the Army, there

wasn’t a better place that I thought wanted to go. But as soon as I

got back from the Army, I went on a trip with Don Burns and his

captain on a boat called the Tempest, which was a big 72-foot

motorboat, and he needed to take that from Newport Beach to St. Croix

Virgin Islands. So, I took a boat trip for a year and a half and went

on that. When I came back, I worked on boats here in Newport Beach

for a while. After I did all those boats, I decided that I was tired

of the Navy and I thought I’d try to go back and actually get a real

job. That didn’t work out too well and I wound up in the restaurant

business. There were two things that you could do in California in

Newport Beach, particularly back about 1970. You’d either go into

real estate or you’d go into the restaurant business. So, in 1971, I

went into the restaurant business. All these stories all circle back

to why I live in Newport Beach: because that’s where I wanted to

live; there wasn’t another place that I wanted to live, so I had to

find work that I wanted to work in that was available to me so I

could remain in Newport Beach.

What are your greatest accomplishments?

Marrying my wife would be my first great accomplishment, finding

her would be my second greatest accomplishment. Why, because it’s

very difficult to find someone that you respect and that you care

about to the point where you’re willing to listen to them on all

things, and it’s one of those rare occurrences that happens. It’s

something where the person has to be much smarter than you are. Women

have to be a lot smarter than men are, and then for them to like you

is a difficult situation. It’s one of those things that are very hard

to find -- that perfect combination where you kind of agree on all

the mundane affairs of state where the big issues of life come to

calling that you can work together to solve those.

If you could re-do one moment or incident in your life, what would

it be?

In 1977, my mom passed away. If I had to do it all over again, I

would have done a lot more research into the medical issues that were

involved and I would have gotten much more involved in her treatment

and what happened to her, because she passed away in 1977 of bone

cancer. I always felt guilty about the fact that I didn’t put enough

effort into not listening to anybody, but just going out and finding

out for myself what the issues were and perhaps I could have saved

her.... Who knows.

What profession other than yours would you like to have tried?

FBI agent. That was always a childhood dream of mine, that I

always wanted to become an agent in the FBI. That was always a dream

that I always had. That and becoming an airline pilot, but I

determined that the boredom and the tedium would get to me eventually

and I’d be more inclined to find a lot of investigation.

Investigation has always been what I really enjoy doing -- finding

out things. I think to do something bigger than just work to make

money -- it would be more fun to solve important cases to correct

things that could happen that might have gone wrong.

What are some differences between a typical day in your life now

versus a day in your life 20 years ago?

A lot more freedom now. When you’re in your own business, you have

to set your priorities more functionally so you can see what you want

to do. There’s just a heck of a lot more freedom to go after issues

that you want to go after than when you’re working for somebody else.

So 20 years ago, I had to do what a lot of people told me to do now

-- I’m doing less of that.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in your life?

I think it’s that you don’t have control over everything. I always

thought that I could control just about anything that came into my

eye line, and it’s one of those things where you only attempt. If you

can focus on what you want in life and you focus on how you want to

accomplish it, you still may have to make some in-course corrections

along the way, because it doesn’t always work out like you had

planned. There’s a lot of uncontrollables out there. There’s a lot of

things that you can’t manage and think that are going to happen the

way you want them to happen, so you have to be flexible.

What do you treasure most?

I treasure my wife and our relationship and all of the people that

have helped us along the way. I treasure all the people that are

doing good things for other people in life. I treasure good energy

from people that want to help others, period. Because that’s what

makes your life what it is. I think that if you don’t treasure other

people in your life, it’s an empty existence.