A Tale of Trust and Hard Knocks

F. Donald Caswell was born on a blazing hot summer day in Phoenix, Arizona. He grew up on the ranches surrounding Santa Barbara, California, working with horses and dreaming of a life in ranching. He completed a double major at California Polytechnic State University in Animal Husbandry and Grassland Management. He went on to graduate work at International School of Foreign Trade, then known as AIFT. After obtaining a degree, he worked in the cotton mills while searching for a job in Latin America. His work on the jungle station, known as Macuma, included managing crops and animals while maintaining the facilities on the station against an ever-invasive jungle. When he returned from Latin America, he was unable to find a job in agriculture as his experience in Ecuador was not seen as competitive. He went to work as a shop welder for the Ford Tractor Agency for several years before moving on to Message of Life in the Sierras of southern California. Here he would gain training in the dark room of a print shop. In time, he returned to Santa Barbara to care for his son and aging parents. Over the next 25 years he worked in several print shops, all in Santa Barbara before retiring to live quietly in a mobile home park. Today, he lives near family in Flagstaff, Arizona.