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Our Lives. Our Stories. Our Voices.
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NOIRE Black Love Showcase: The Chestangs - By Land And By Sea

by NOIRE Online

May 10, 2022 1.2K views
 

Noire Family, meet U.S. Navy Commanders, The Chestangs!!  We can't wait for you to meet Commander Randolph Chestang, Commander Lori Chestang, and The Boys.

What careers do you both have?

We both serve as Officers in the United States Navy as Commanders. Commander is the first senior commissioned officer rank in the U.S. Navy, and is equivalent to the rank of Liutenant Colonel in the other Armed Services.. Commanders often serve as the captain of a small Navy vessel, such as a frigate, destroyer, or submarine.

What schools (college or trade) did you attend?

We both attended HBCUs in our undergrad studies. Lori attended Spelman College in Atlanta, GA and Randolph attended Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, LA.

Where do you all live and where are you from?

We currently reside in Fort Washington, MD, a suburb of the Washington, DC area.  Lori is an Army Brat and has lived all over but claims Evans, GA as her home.  Randolph is from a small town called Bassfield, MS. 

How did you meet?

We met at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Newport, RI.

Do you all own businesses?

We co-founded a business named, LoRan Enterprises which is a small woman, minority, and veterans owned Maryland based company with more than 40 years of combined experience in leadership, management, strategic planning, operations, problem solving, risk management and talent development.  We provide solutions to complex problems, empower clients to build effective teams, improve performance and strengthen organizational management.

How do you balance your work and your busy lives?

Work-life balance is never easy but we ensure we carve out the time needed for ourselves, each other and our kids to fortify our family unit. 

What has been a stressful part of marriage and how did you overcome that difficulty?

Both of us are active duty military and we have both been called to deploy multiple times during our marriage and it was more than stressful to maintain our relationship, home, and vision for our family. 

When our stressors became larger than we could handle between the two of us, we sought out counseling to help us communicate. 

Share some of the blessings you have received. How have they brought you together?

Like most couples starting out, we wanted to have a family and thought that it would be easy. We didn’t understand how difficult it is to conceive a child at minimum but then add in all the deployed time separated from each other, along with normal marriage complexities, these things made conception exponentially more difficult.  Lori’s advanced maternal age and medical issues, such as fibroids, increased our challenges ten-fold. We truly did not believe that we would ever have children and that only exacerbated the stresses in our marriage.

We prayed for peace and asked God why? We trusted in Him and started our own fertility journey and were blessed with two beautiful twin boys who are three years old. It was a difficult pregnancy and Randolph was deployed for the first seven months. It was also a tough delivery in which Lori experienced severe preeclampsia, and severe anemia.  These two conditions ultimately prompted an emergency c-section and two blood transfusions. It was a scary time, but we remained steadfast in our faith.  God blessed us and Lori and the twins are healthy and strong. We are more than thankful.

Our two blessings brought us closer together because through our pregnancy struggles, they brought us closer to God.  That new closer walk with God brought us even closer to each other.

How has your marriage been continually nurtured and allowed to grow?

Before the pandemic, we traveled the world and experienced many things together in new places.  However, we were forced to pivot from our norm and learn to embrace areas together we didn’t fully value from the beginning.  For instance, Lori is an exceptional cook and it was easy for Randolph to take a back seat and enjoy the fine dining from home.  But since the pandemic, Randolph began to insert himself more in the kitchen and has since become a very decent cook for the family. 

We began “movie night” from home and continue to enjoy spending quality time together, once the kids are asleep.  We have now begun to deliberately choose to take a break from our jobs and do lunch somewhere out in town.  We truly enjoy that and look forward to it at every opportunity!


View other installments in the NOIRE Black Love Showcase series.

 
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NOIRE Online
NOIRE is a new online magazine that scopes the Black and multicultural community from a cutting-edge perspective. Our mantra is “Our Lives, Our Stories, Our Voices.” Our vision is to become the leading source of true, high-quality narratives of people of color.
 

 

 

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