A few basics. My name is Dan and I am a native Chicano (Mexican American), born and raised in Richmond (CA), an East Bay hard-core city with rail and port facilities. I’m a first wave baby boomer and came soon after my father had proven his worth as a welder at the Kaiser Oakland Liberty shipyards and married my mother, screwing in torpedo fuses at a converted American Standard plant.

Richmond was a hard city to grow up in back then and probably still is for the many still there. I spent my college years in and around Berkeley and now live in Whittier with my wife and life partner, Alicia.

I’ve always had a hunger to see the world and have been fortunate in that I’ve traveled a lot over the years.  In terms the career journey, I spent several years as a librarian working the inner city and then pursued a doctorate in information science at UW-Madison. My doctoral research focused on the information seeking behavior of Latinos and the topic required me to travel and gather information from Latinos throughout the Midwest and East Coast. 

I leveraged my degrees to move into the corporate world where my work and travel allowed me to see and taste the bigger world. I met people and managed operations in Japan, Mexico and other nations. It was great to use my business travels (with corporate perks) to check out as many jazz clubs, museums, and historical sites as time allowed.

Then came about a decade working and consulting with energy firms, including a stint doing a turn-around in Kentucky. Then came 9/11 and I decided to leave the hustle and satisfy a long-held desire to teach. I found a refuge close to our home and for the last twenty years I served as a professor of business and sustainability at Whittier College, the sole HSI Title V liberal arts college in the US.

During my time at Whittier College and during three teaching stints with Semester at Sea I managed to take college students on more than a hundred field trips in twenty plus countries. A couple of those field trips stand out and there are a few tales of them in the Teaching Gigs tab.

It was hugely satisfying to teach but the low salary motivated me to start my own consulting firm in the energy efficiency and water arenas. It was good to blend theory, strategy, and practice in the classroom. The students responded well to the mix, and many of them keep me current via their postings and wanderings.

I just retired after a teaching gig in Madrid as a Fulbright Scholar. It was a great time as Alicia and I lived in the Colonia de Letras, a historic and beautiful neighborhood in Madrid. It was the height of the pandemic and we were happily trapped in the Madrileno bubble world with no museum lines or gawking tourists. I’m pushing for another Fulbright gig so Alicia and I can venture back to Madrid, our favorite place to live.

My first solo venture away was in the mid-60s (read about it in Roads Taken) and my best guess is that I’ve been to eighty plus countries plus. Alicia and I will keep venturing as long as health, mind, and spirit are good and in sync. Along the way we’ve met and made friends with other wanderers, including expats, digital nomads, retirees and others who have ventured away from the ordinary.

While we’ve enjoyed many great vacations and escapes in the past our travel goals today are different. We’re both “retired” but not tired and venture forth with a different spirit, one of desire and opportunity. It’s been several years since we started planning our own adventures and going solo when we could. The goal while away is to get familiar with the mercados, meet the local people, and perhaps most of all share a meal and glass or two with new friends.

Alicia and I have had some glorious adventures and just returned from an extended Fall 2023 journey with the Semester at Sea program. It took us across the Mediterranean, down the coast of Africa, into the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia and finally the Pacific.  More on this in the Teaching Gigs. This trek across half of the world ended on the 2023 winter solstice, a poetic ending as the solstice was almost my birthday, a good way to end one cycle and start another. 

I welcome you to take a stroll or longer venture with me as you prepare for your next odyssey.