Commuters Choosing Cheyenne for its Peerless Lifestyle Quality
Barbara Malatesta works at one of the West's leading hospitals John McNiff flies executives on business and leisure trips worldwide and Gerry Harvey is settling down after three decades as a pilot for one of the nation's largest airlines.
That you'll find them all living in Cheyenne is no accident of geography.
Rather it's the fulfillment of an age-old yearning: the cry for home.
Barbara and Greg Malatesta found it more than two decades ago when they left the San Francisco Bay area for Cheyenne where Greg had relatives and where they were amazed by their first trip as a couple to Cheyenne Frontier Days the world's largest outdoor rodeo event.
They decided to stay.
The cost of living is so much different; it's a huge difference from California Barbara Malatesta says. We knew we could afford to buy a house here.
While Barbara Malatesta works at Cheyenne's progressive United Medical Center "one of the Top 25 hospitals for heart valve replacement“ Greg commutes 90 minutes to Denver to work in the commercial sign business. That's not the most convenient career path but they've made the arrangement work while raising Kevin a senior at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and Elizabeth a college junior in South Dakota.
In the end the Malatestas knew Cheyenne was worth it.
"Its a comfortable place," Barbara Malatesta says. "You get away from the congestion of a lot of other places. We like our lifestyle. And down there (in Denver) it's a whole different lifestyle. It's fun to get away and it's close enough. But (Denver's) definitely not where we want to live every day."
Ditto for John McNiff. The 33-year-old pilot for NetJets flies out of Denver on a seven-day-on seven-day-off schedule that allows him to work on his family's 40,000-acre D.R. Whitaker Ranch. Founded more than a century ago by two of his English ancestors Dougald and Robert Whitaker the ranch run by his mother Elizabeth and his aunt Mary Weppner works 2,000 to 3,000 head of cattle at a given time. With all that McNiff still gets to pursue his other favorite activity: flying Citation 10s from Denver for the world leader in private aviation.
"It's a lot of fun," McNiff says of the Citation 10. "It's tremendously quiet and tremendously fast to go coast-to-coast. And that's all the clients are looking for."
While windy winters can be harsh McNiff bristles at suggestions that Cheyenne winters are too severe. Safety advisories are plentiful law enforcement is excellent and the enviable business climate is drawing corporations and professionals to the city he says. A housing boom is being accompanied by pioneering technology in wind-generated power.
"There's been a tremendous influx of people who would rather live here but commute to Colorado," McNiff says. "A lot of people love to live here because it's not crowded. I've been a little bit of everywhere and this is a wonderful place to live."
Agreed says 64-year-old Gerry Harvey. Retired after flying 33 years for Northwest Airlines he grew up on a ranch 80 miles away in Lingle but lived in such disparate places as Anchorage Alaska Honolulu and Seattle during his career. He and his wife Maria originally chose Cheyenne as a great place for their daughter Janell to go to school.
"And it was," says Harvey who now raises about three dozen quarter horses for competition. "I've got horses all over. And my wife says way too many. But what can I tell you? I've raised quarter horses since I was a boy and this is a great place to do that."
