Dan's bio

home

As a child, we lived for the most part in the Battle Ground area, which was then a small town about 15 miles Northeast of Vancouver. I attended Battle Ground district schools, starting in a two-room schoolhouse on Salmon Creek for the first and second grades. From 3^rd through 6^th grades I attended Glenwood Heights Elementary school. Junior High and High School was on a campus in Battle Ground. When I graduated from Battle Ground High in June of 1971, the town still had a population of about 1,000. Today, the town has 16,000+ and is growing rapidly.

During my childhood, we lived in a number of places for short periods of time, but our residence for the majority of the period from my birth until I left home, was on a small farm near Battle Ground. Originally, the farm had 11 acres, just large enough for a few head of cattle and horses. My dad worked to support his family and the farm; the farm did not support the family. We primarily had cattle for our own supply of beef and, later, my brother and I both had cattle as 4-H Club members. At other times during my childhood we lived in various places for short periods of time, including a farm at Battle Ground Lake, within the town of Battle Ground and on a dairy on Salmon Creek. My father worked often as a truck driver for road construction companies, and we would join him for weeks or months at a time in the summers. Those temporary summer residences included many places in Oregon. We also spent the first half of the school year when I was in the third grade, on Puget Sound, near the Canadian border.

I suffered from several health problems as a child which prevented me from participating in athletics. So, my interests in school leaned toward music.

My brother and I were both raised in the church. My mother was a Christian and my father, though he had no interest in it himself, allowed us to attend church as often as we cared to.

I was also blessed to have my maternal grandparents actively involved in my life until I was an adult. My grandfather Hershel was a special influence on my life and I credit him with many of the traits that define my work ethic, inventiveness, thought processes, and desire to learn and improve. He had a major role in all aspects of my growth and maturity. I have never missed anyone as much as I miss my grandfather, to this very day.

College
As a young person I had a dream of going into law and politics. However, during my high school years my interests turned more toward serving God in some capacity. Following my graduation from high school in 1971, I attended Simpson College in San Francisco, a four-year Bible college administered by the Christian Missionary Alliance. I went not knowing where it would lead, but I presumed I would become a pastor or missionary.

After 1.5 years at Simpson, I ran out of money and decided to interrupt my education with outside employment to recover financially. I took my last semester finals on the morning of January 29, 1973. On the advice of friends, I dropped in at the employment office for Bank of America in San Francisco. I took a typing test and landed a job as a grade 3 clerk in the bank’s mail room at Market and Van Ness avenues, and was told to report for work the following Monday morning. On my way back to the college dorm, I stopped by an old, run-down apartment house near the college and signed a rental agreement for a studio apartment ($135/month, including utilities). By Noon, I was back at the college eating lunch in the cafeteria. I moved from the college to the apartment that weekend and started work on Monday.

Career
My plan was to work for the bank for six months and return to school full-time in the fall. However, the bank presented me with many opportunities for advancement and the income was nice ($390 per month before taxes). Six months became twelve, then another twelve. I became a supervisor then I was offered an opportunity to work in a library that maintained IBM reference manuals for all of the bank’s software. On my own, I learned basic programming concepts for a database language that was the basis for a system we used in the library. I became proficient enough to qualify for a librarian’s job in a department that supported the bank’s deposit and loan systems. From that I slipped into an entry level programming position and moved up through the ranks.

I spent many years as a software analyst, programmer, team leader and finally manager before I was offered a job as editor of the bank’s technology newsletter. I had survived high school and college with my writing ability and used it often at the bank and outside. The editor’s job was a good fit, as I could leverage my technology background and knowledge, paired with my writing ability. During that assignment, I transformed the newsletter into a magazine format with a print circulation of up to 20,000. I also created an online version of the magazine.

Following the merger of Bank of America and NationsBank, the company terminated print publications in favor of electronic media. I was absorbed into the bank’s Corporate Affairs department, later to be renamed Corporate Marketing & Communications, to write executive speeches, news editorials, press releases, presentations and more. My active employment with Bank of America ended on Feburary 15, 2006, and my legal employment ended one year later, Feb. 15, 2007, completing 34+ years with the company.

Ministry
My involvement with Simpson College did not end when I left to begin my "temporary" job with Bank of America. I had electronics and technical skills the college needed and I was asked to continue to support some of their campus facilities even after I was no longer a student.

One of my student activities was involvement with the campus radio station, a full-power FM station broadcasting Christian programming to the entire San Francisco Bay area. I started writing and reading the evening news in my first semester as a Freshman. In my second semester, I continued the nightly news and took over a program slot on Friday evenings. Also that year, the chief engineer for the station took me under his wing to teach me the engineering aspects of running a radio station. All of that continued into my Sophomore year and I assumed most of the engineering responsibilities.

The station engineer was also a capable recording and round reinforcement engineer, plus he repaired and rebuilt pipe organs on the side. So, I learned a multitude of skills from him upon which I have based the last 30 years of ministry. (I also got to play around with some wonderful pipe organs.)

The college had its own recording studio from the days in which it had produced a nationally aired radio program. That program was discontinued just as I arrived at Simpson in ’71. But, the studio was still there and I was placed in charge of it.

I continued to work at the bank during the day, and the college on nights and weekends for about two years. During that time we sold the radio station and disbanded the recording studio, eliminating their need for me. I had learned a lot and it was time to move to other, but related things.

For the next 20 years, I specialized in the design and installation of church sound systems all around California. I also freelanced as an engineer for Christian concerts in the Bay Area and occasionally did remote recording projects for radio stations. In one church, I built the audio facilities for their television production, and then spent two years with them as an engineer, director, producer and announcer. I spent 16 years in another church in a variety of positions including sound engineering, keyboard player and event producer. Most recently, I continue to play keyboards in church and to have a role in church technical ministries (sound and lighting).

Hobbies/interests
Until 2006, I maintained a small recording studio in my home. I also enjoyed traveling internationally and by RV, woodworking, fishing, photography, camping, computers, electronics and music.

Family
I didn’t intend to remain in California when I went there for college. However, the climate made it impossible to consider returning to wet, cold Washington state. I remained in California from 1971 through 2001.

At age thirty, I met and married a young lady through the church I was ministering in at the time. She had two very young daughters from a previous marriage, which gave me an instant family, at least on the weekends in which we had the girls. I loved being a dad to those girls and, though they have a father they love dearly, they still call me dad, too. My wife concluded our marriage a few years ago for reasons of her own. In 2001. I then moved to Arizona.

On Sept. 25, 2004, I married Aurea Desaville and inherited a daughter, Jennifer. I met Aurea when she was a teacher in Suwon, So. Korea in 2002. I proposed, she accepted and then she returned to the Philippines to await the completion of a visa application so that she and Jennifer could join me in Arizona. They arrived on Sept. 16, 2004 and we were married a week later.

Retirement
The end of my career with Bank of America ushered me into the retirement phase of my life. God called us to full-time ministry in the Philippines and, effective Jan. 8, 2007, we have moved permanently to the island of Mindanao to serve the indigenous tribe my wife was born into. More about this ministry can be found on our Web site:  http://www.datuwalimission.org

All content copyright © 2006 by Dan Evans