2003 Pan Am Games Team - Sailing
Multihull sailors Paul and Mary Ann Hess

Name:

Paul Hess

Class

Hobie 16

Position

Skipper

Pan Am Games Team:

2003

US Sailing Team:

2003

High School:

Fairfield High School, 1971

College:

Northern Arizona, 1975 BS
U.C. Davis, Veterinary Medicine

Birthdate:

21 November 1953

Birthplace:

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Hometown:

Napa, Calif.

Sailing Since Age:

20

Name:

Mary Ann Hess

Class

Hobie 16

Position

Crew

Pan Am Games Team:

2003

US Sailing Team:

2003

High School:

Cordova High School, 1974

College:

U.C. Davis, 1978 BS Animal Physiology

Birthdate:

21 December 1955

Birthplace:

Cambridge, Mass.

Hometown:

Napa, Calif.

Sailing Since Age:

25
Being a husband-wife team has its advantages. Paul and Mary Ann Hess can easily coordinate sailing their Hobie 16 around their work and family schedules, but on the other hand, those schedules frequently get the best of them. Both work at the Silverado Veterinary Hospital -- Paul as a veterinarian and Mary Ann as a bookkeeper and payroll specialist. Because Paul is always on call, practice sessions are virtually nil and competitions are limited to a dozen or so local regattas in northern California as well as the Hobie 16 Continental Championships every two years.

Having won both the Continentals and the Canadian Nationals in 2000, the team’s fortune is in being naturally good, and they see the Pan Am Games as a unique challenge. "Sailing at the elite level is something very few people get to do," says Mary Ann, who only began sailing when she married Paul. "Sailing is a passion we now share and with our busy lives it’s good for our relationship to do this together."

Paul began sailing with his father in the mid-1960s while living in Charleston, South Carolina, and continued when he moved to California in the mid-1970s. Now with two children -- a son (20) and a daughter (18) -- he looks at sailing as a sport that has provided his family with "the excitement of going to venues we’d have never gone and meeting special people we’d have never met."

"The Pan Am Trials were especially invigorating," said Paul. "We switched off winning races with the defending Pan Am Games representative, Wally Myers, who is a five-time national champion. The last race came down to who beat whom. The Pan Am Games are a big deal to us," he added. "We know tough competition will come from Armando Noriega, Jr., of Mexico and Enrique Figueroa of Puerto Rico. Also, the Brazilians will give us a tough time."