Carl David Hubbell was born in San Diego, California, on February 17, 1940, to Harry and Lucile Hubbell, and grew up on Mission Bay in San Diego. From the age of about 10, Carl rowed his 12-foot boat around Mission Bay catching corker and bass, which he took home to his mom all filleted and ready to cook for dinner.
Carl and his friends would collect old broken radios, fix them, and then sell them in order to buy amateur (ham) radio equipment. At about 14 years old he and some like-minded friends took their amateur radio test. He and some of these same friends from across the country still meet on their radios every Thursday morning to talk.
Carl and some of his these same friends were in the Bonham Brothers Marching Band in San Diego, where Carl played the flute and the piccolo. They marched in the Rose Bowl Parade four years in a row, until parade officials changed the rules to allow other area bands to perform. (Prior to that, other bands around the city simply could not compete with this group of well-disciplined motivated boys.)
After high school Carl was invited to join the band on The Lawrence Welk Show, but decided to join the US Navy, and became an electronic technician. His first ship was the USS Taylor a DDE (destroyer escort). While in the Western Pacific, he went aboard a submarine and immediately signed up for submarine school. The first submarine he was on was the USS Sabalo (SS 302) where he "Qualified in Submarines" and received his first dolphin insignia of the Submarine Force on November 13, 1961. He served on diesel submarines to nuclear power submarines and is a plank owner of the USS Plunger (SSN-595). He retired from the US Navy in 1977 and moved to El Jebel, where he opened his electronic shop until a representative from the Federal Aviation Administration knocked on his door and asked Carl for a second time to come to work for the FAA. He retired from the FAA in 1997.
Carl was into drag racing, motorcycles and boats. He was at home on the water and loved deep-sea fishing. He had an equal passion for airplanes, and earned his pilot's license, once owning a 182 Cessna. Another one of Carl's hobbies was woodworking. He made almost all the furniture and cabinets in the home he shared with his wife Adele Hubbell, whom he married in 1964.
Carl Hubbell is survived by his wife Adele, two sons and their wives, Prentice & Lori, Robert & Kris and two grandsons, Justin and David.