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Dave and one of his favourites - a 1949 Chevy!
Born in Roseway Hospital on May 25, 1958, David Alan Schnittker has been known most of his life as "The Nova Scotia Kid."
Dave's mom Jayne was assisted in the delivery by Dr. Ron Campbell. Dave's dad John was in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Shelburne.
Jayne and John arrived in Shelburne essentially as newly weds having been married in 1956, John having just received his commission as an Ensign in the USN.
After spending a few months in the U.S. at various bases for training, he was sent to the Joint Oceanographic Research Station at Shelburne in late 1956. They were the first American couple to be stationed in Shelburne; eventually there were about thirty officers and men from the USN. They spent the next three years there, John's only active duty assignment.
The Schnittker's were both originally from Illinois, but have lived in California since 1959.
Dave left Nova Scotia with his parents and celebrated his first birthday at his grand parents home in Springfield, Illinois. He spent his next few years in Southern California and began school in Orinda (Northern California), where his parents then lived.
He is very proud of his roots in Nova Scotia and refers to himself often as "The Nova Scotia Kid."
The family moved to Alamo, Ca. and Dave and his two younger brothers completed their elementary and high school education there.
He graduated from San Ramon Valley High School in Danville, Ca. While there, he lettered on the water polo team.
He then enrolled at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, Ca. and received his A.A. in Machine Technology in 1980. He then completed his college work at California State University, Chico California receiving a B.S. degree in Industrial Technology in 1983.
While at Chico, he was a member of Christians on Campus. Dave was always a hard worker while completing his education; worked in a sign shop and as a waiter at a local country club. Dave also was very involved in Boy Scouts, as a member of a local troupe in Danville, Ca. The troupe was noted for their many back pack trips in the Sierras, which Dave thoroughly enjoyed. He was a senior patrol leader and achieved the top rank of Eagle Scout.
Dave is still involved with scouts as a scout master and is helping his son advance in scouting. Casey is well on his way to attaining the Eagle rank.After graduation, Dave joined Texas Instruments in Dallas ,where he was employed as an Industrial Engineer on classified projects which required that he have a top secret security clearance. TI transferred him to a small facility back in the S.F. Bay area as Operations Manager.
After leaving TI, he held several positions with other companies. In the Fall of 2001, he joined Bio-Rad Corporation, located in Hercules, Ca. Bio -Rad is a well known bio-tech company producing a variety of sophisticated analytical instruments. The company received a lot of publicity when they developed a test for "Mad Cow" disease. He works there as a Q.A. Supervisor and as Sr. Manufacturing Engineer.
Dave was blessed with innate mechanical ability. This was first evidenced when in high school he bought a 1949 Chevy, which was a real piece of junk. He began to work on it and much to our amazement he was able to start turning it in to a real car. Today, he still has that car and it is in good enough shape to be entered in the local July 4th parade.
He has several other old cars and enjoys working on them, now often joined by his own son.
He really enjoys going to car shows. Once a year, there is a Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach, Ca. Most of the cars, then drive to near by Carmel and line the main drag, Ocean Ave.
Dave and his family always are in Carmel every year for this event. One year, he met Jay Leno there. Jay has a fabulous collection of cars and motor cycles. Dave and Jay had a good, long conversation about their old cars and shared stories about a mutual friend from the area that Dave had grown up with.
Jay told Dave that the friend even loaned him his private plane and pilot for Jay's family vacations.
Besides the cars, Dave has a great interest in muisic and serves as "DJ Dave" whenever he can, operating a system most pros would be proud of.
In addition to applying his mechanical ability to cars, he can fix just about everything.
"We were sorry to have him leave home," his dad says, "since he was our Mr. Fixit. Fortunately he lives close by in Walnut Creek, and can still help us from time to time."
Dave is married to Lorrie (formally Lorrie Magee) and the couple has two children; a boy 13(Casey) and a girl 11(Bailey). He and his family live in Walnut Creek, Ca.
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