When Debbie Davis was graduated from Burbank's John Burroughs High School, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. She toyed with a couple of fairly promising choices: going to college or becoming a stewardess. But what she finally did - looking back, she wonders why - was to go to work as an informa
...tion operator for Pacific Telephone. Now, at 20, Debbie says, "I don't know how I lasted there almost two years. We were completely locked up inside all day, and I need to be outdoors." Not surprisingly, Debbie spent nearly every off-the-job moment in the California sun. One day last year, picking herself up from a water-ski splashdown near Long Beach, she spied a boat that looked slightly different from the usual mass-produced models - and two men aboard who looked familiar. The boat was a Spectra Marine custom cruiser made of hand-laid fiberglass reinforced with marine plywood, and the men - designer Bud Bailey and company president Ed DeLong - were the fathers of two girls she'd known in high school. At that time, Spectra Marine was a fledgling firm; but within a few months, business had tripled (thanks to a string of racing victories and wide publicity attending Playboy's gift of a Spectra 20 to Sharon Clark, 1971 Playmate of the Year) and DeLong had to expand his staff. So he offered Debbie a job - first on weekends, giving test rides at his waterfront sales office in Long Beach, then as full-time girl Friday. Predictably, since DeLong is a friend and sometime business associate of photographers Bill and Mel Figge, Debbie soon came to our attention. We now commend her to yours.
