Moving from Washington State in 1955, Wally Dieckmann’s parents bought an improved lot in a new development overlooking Sunset Cliffs west of downtown San Diego and had a custom home built. Wally was 13 at the time. His father started a new job as Deputy Superintendent of San Diego County Schools, a position he held until retirement in 1976. His mother, a trained medical lab technician, became a homemaker and a self-appointed Neighborhood Watch Captain with neighbor’s phone numbers posted inside a kitchen cabinet. After his father passed in 2002, Wally’s mother continued to live in the family home until her passing in 2012. Wally redeveloped the property in 2016 with ground up construction of a dream home to maximize enjoyment of the ocean view. The new house was permitted with the same house number. Thus, he has lived on the same street and the same address all his life!
Wally visited Pomona College along with other Point Loma High School students accompanied by his Physics Teacher, a Pomona graduate for a “Science Day” in the fall of 1960. The visit was a one-day affair and Wally, along with another student, became bored with the program and decided to go for a walk around campus. They discovered CMC, watched a football game, and picked up some flyers. Returning home, he researched the college and was impressed with the small class size and close association with professors. CMC was one of three colleges he applied to and it was his first choice. He was accepted into the class of 1965.
Wally’s initial introduction to the college was not as he had hoped as he was roomed off campus in temporary housing at “Clark Court.” So much for the promised ‘residential college’ life! Second semester found him rooming with Larry Launer ‘64, a water polo teammate in Green. The sophomore year started in Green with roommate Frank ‘Jeep’ Hardinge who left school at the end of the first semester. Returning to campus after semester break and not knowing that Jeep had left CMC, he entered the dorm room and found Fouad Al Bahar ‘65, a transfer student from Kuwait, sitting on what had been Jeep’s bed smoking a cigarette. Wally says: “It was quite a shock, but I learned a great deal about a country and part of the world that I had no previous knowledge.” The pair coexisted well, and Faoud was absent from campus most weekends. A fellow Arab student at Pomona, Bander Faisal, a Saudi Prince, drove the pair in the Prince’s Ferrari to USC to enjoy some off-campus life, eating traditional meals, and the company of Arabic speaking girls. Wally’s junior year was spent in a single in Benson and senior year with Dave Huntoon ‘65 who was also in ROTC. Joining ROTC in those days was a natural for incoming freshmen. It was right after the Cuban Missile crisis and many of Wally’s friends had joined. He decided it was better to be an officer than to be drafted, and he signed up too.
Wally was scheduled to attend ROTC summer camp at the end of his junior year but a Spring Break trip to Mexico with several friends changed his plans dramatically. On route to Mazatlán, driving at night, the car he was in collided with the rear of a flatbed truck. Wally was in the front passenger seat and had fallen asleep, so he was slumped over. If he had been awake and seated, he would have been killed. The car was demolished, and Wally was the only one injured with a concussion and injuries to two vertebrae in his neck. Returning to the US five days later, in pain after enduring train, bus, and taxi rides to the border, he finally called home, notified his parents of the accident, and asked his mother to pick him up. After extensive x-rays in San Diego, Wally was placed in a full body cast for six weeks followed by a custom brace for another six weeks. Returning to CMC to complete the semester, Wally found that he could not type his term papers with his neck immobilized, and attending ROTC summer camp was out of the question. When he graduated. he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and then proceeded to attend summer camp.
Wally’s original branch assignment was Field Artillery, but a Pomona graduate received a branch assignment to Air Defense Artillery. Working through the ROTC office, the pair could trade assignments, and Wally received orders to attend the ADA Basic Officer Course at Ft. Bliss, Texas in the fall of 1965. After completion he received orders, sending him to Lich, West Germany, an assignment he was most pleased with.
Wally was assigned to the 501st Air Defense Artillery Detachment and assumed responsibility as the Head of Security. His detachment consisted of thirty enlisted and 3 officers with Wally being the junior of the 3. The mission of the unit was to maintain control of the nuclear warheads and train for mating the warheads with Nike Hercules missiles owned by the Germans. On the surface, this sounded like an exciting assignment in the Cold War times. However, Wally’s unit was co-located with a German Nike Hercules Battalion that his detachment supported, and the Germans had not yet qualified to handle nuclear warheads. So, Wally spent his time training his troops and working with the Germans on joint security training. He found the work disappointing not to have been stocked with warheads, but the silver lining was with 3 officers there was no need to maintain 24-hour security. One officer could be “on watch,” while the other two could take sightseeing trips to Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam and beyond.
The best part of his assignment in Germany was becoming friends with his German counterpart, Lt. Manfred Keidel. Keidel was someone out of place in the missile unit. He was a “tough guy, much like a hard-core Marine, and prided himself on physical fitness. He could actually pick up Wally by his ankles and hold him above the ground. Manfred’s father had been captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia and was never heard from again. Wally became friends Manfred’s girlfriend (and future wife), Hannelore Kaiser, and his single mother after several visits to the family’s hometown of Kirchheimbolanden. Although he lost contact for a while, Wally was reunited on a subsequent trip to Europe in 1995 and continued to maintain a close friendship thereafter. Although ‘Freddy” passed away in 2014, the friendship was important to Wally. Manfred was “a soldier’s soldier,” and Wally found his friend to be a staunch defender of NATO and Germany.
Wally’s pleasant time in Germany ended in June 1966 as American forces started to be pulled out of Europe and sent to Vietnam. He received orders transferring him to Ft. Campbell, KY, home of the 101st Airborne Division. Wally was assigned to the Training Company and was the safety officer supervising the rifle range used to test new recruits for their marksmen qualification. After giving the daily safety briefing, he did not have much more to do except inspect rifles when the soldiers left the firing range. In doing so, Wally noted he “received an education in the inequality of opportunity in the United States as most of the draftees being prepared for tours in Vietnam were from southern states and exhibited substandard education and terrible dental care!”
While often terribly boring, the life of a Range Officer can occasionally offer some exciting moments. On one occasion when Wally was on the range conducting a live fire exercise, a long-legged soldier was moving forward from one proscribed position to the next while shooting at popup targets. In the sitting position, the soldier dropped the muzzle of his M1 rifle in line with his left foot and managed to shoot himself. Somehow, good fortune shone on the poor man and while his boot was destroyed, the bullet passed between his big toe and second toe, and he was not injured. An ambulance was called, and the soldier was taken on a stretcher to the hospital. Wally approached the soldier and saw that the man’s boot clearly had a bullet pass through it. He asked how the soldier was feeling and received the reply, “Sir, I still want to go Airborne!”
Wally served for the 18 months as Range Officer training recruits. He was fortunate to work with some excellent NCOs just as he had in Germany, although the ones in Germany had more specialized training. He lived off post in a three-bedroom house with other officers assigned to the training company. After completing his active-duty service, Wally returned to San Diego not entirely sure what he wanted to do. He applied for a civil service position in the Economic and Financial Planning Department of City of San Diego and spent most of his time working on the City’s annual budget. After six months he found the position unfulfilling and felt that he should apply to Graduate School. He missed the deadline for applying to East Coast Graduate Schools but found he could apply to UCLA, which offered late enrollment to the School of Management. He found the studies challenging but applied himself and completed his MBA in 1970.
He then worked in the Public Accounting field for six years in Los Angeles and San Diego becoming a CPA and achieving manager level at a Big 8 firm before transitioning to corporate management. He moved through a progression of companies, gaining experience and advancing to the Chief Financial Officer position, always reported to the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Wally says that he “enjoyed the work and became intimately familiar with the ‘innards’ of different types of companies and businesses.”
The position with greatest visibility was as CFO of Magma Power Company, a public utility that generated electricity from geothermal wells located in the Imperial County, east of San Diego. Magma’s seven generation plants were owned in partnership with Mission Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern California Edison. Incidentally, CMC classmate, Jim Pignatelli ‘65, was the CEO of Mission Energy. Neither Wally nor Jim knew the other worked for a partner company, until Wally attended his first financial closing for a plant that was to be built and met Jim. After signing documents for hours, a group of executives from Mission Energy arrived. After they came in the room, Wally heard someone exclaimed, “What is Dieckmann doing here?” Who knew a financial closing in Orange County would be a reunion of Class of ‘65 classmates? As a public company, Investor Relations became an important aspect of Wally’s position at Magma Power. He spoke to many of the initial investors, who felt personally involved with a clean energy company and were thrilled with the company’s growth. Maintaining amicable relationships with Wall Street money managers on the other hand could be stressful and required a delicate balance of being truthful and not saying too much.
One of Wally’s most satisfying positions was working at Campbell Shipyard on the San Diego waterfront. The company repaired and constructed super seiner tuna boats for local and international clients. At the time Campbell was a principal employer in San Diego with as many as 700 union workers in the shipyard and a professional staff of 40 including naval architects. He enjoyed daily walks through the shipyard to follow progress on construction of the super seiners and to meet with shipyard supervisors.
Wally’s career pivoted in 1997 when he joined Chelsea Investment Corporation, a San Diego based affordable housing developer. While he held the CFO title, he became a developer and principally sought and closed tax-exempt bond financing for partnerships building rent restricted, multi-family housing. Affordable housing finance is challenging since the financed property is the sole source of security to the lenders, a property which is encumbered by covenants proscribing rental rates for 30 to 50 years. The authority to issue tax exempt bonds and low-income tax credits is competitive with all other proposed affordable projects in the State. Most of Wally’s affordable developments over 15 years in San Diego County were in satisfaction of local requirements that low-income housing be built in master planned developments. Over time Chelsea became the largest affordable housing developer in San Diego. Wally’s most impactful project was the 400-unit Terrasina in Chula Vista.
Retired in 2012, Wally has traveled extensively with his wife, Linda, both domestically and internationally. Africa has been a favorite destination having gone on safari four times, hiked the Milford Track in New Zealand, and taken an ‘art trip’ to Iceland and Scandinavia. He has 3 grown children: two girls, Christy Flanagan and Amy Sullivan and a boy, Trevor, and 9 grandchildren. The grandchildren are a source of considerable pride, and the couple travels to Dallas and Chicago frequently to watch over them while parents are on trips of their own. The couple owns three coastal homes in San Diego. Why Three? Wally responds, “They are all great properties, and we can’t seem to bring ourselves to sell them,” a classic case of “buy and hold.” In addition, there is a condominium in Park City, Utah, which is also available for family use.
When Wally first acquired the Park City property, he and his wife were having lunch at a “on- mountain” private club when he overheard the staff mention the name “Mr. Pignatelli.” Wally turned around and was reunited with his Class of ’65 classmate, also a Park City resident he had not seen since his days at the Magma Power. Four years ago, Wally joined an informal group of Class of ’65 classmates consisting of Jim Pignatelli, Keith Nightingale, Richard Lewis, Tony Childs, and Lee Livingston. The group has enjoyed mini reunions in Park City, Yellowstone Club, Aspen, and Puerto Vallarta with another adventure reunion planned for 2026. Wally also tracks events at CMC and has supported the college since graduation.
Wally volunteers the following Life Lessons Learned, gleaned from both his military and business experience:
- Take care of yourself. Stay in good shape. Drink less alcohol and live longer.
- Make and keep friends; high school friends, college friends, and business associates. It is a lot of work (but much easier today with the Internet). Keeping life-long friends can pay dividends important to your career and general well-being. Wally’s finds his CMC friends to be the greatest guys he has ever known.
- Be truthful. There was always pressure as the CFO of a company to fudge the numbers. Do not do it.
- Maintain your integrity. Without it, you will have no respect from subordinates.