Dr. Cici Asplund was born into a Navy family stationed in Hawaii, but she considers herself a Wenatchee native. Her family moved here when she was in middle school, and she graduated from Wenatchee High School. Her parents, Jay and Sue Bean, fell in love with the area and became prominent local business people and civic boosters. In high school, Cici was a “mountain groupie,” actively participating in the school’s Alpine Club, which was advised by her future father-in-law, chemistry teacher Bill Asplund.

Cici and her husband Randy have been married for thirty-three years, and they have two college-age children. Steven is a graduate student in systems engineering, and Karin is a sophomore majoring in bioengineering, both at the University of Washington.

Cici’s parents were focused on education, and they encouraged her to believe that she could do anything she put her mind to. She remembers receiving a “Visible Woman” model for Christmas one year, a somewhat unusual gift for a girl at the time. She wasn’t actually directed into science, but her parents made her believe that it was fun and interesting. That attitude remains with her to this day, and she applies it to her practice.

Cici attended the University of Washington, mostly because it was a major research university in a cosmopolitan area, but not too far away from her Wenatchee home. She wasn’t initially sure about pre-medicine, but microbiology appealed to her. While she was in college, she did volunteer work at Migrant Health (now called Columbia Valley Community Health) and at Family Planning.