May 23, 2019
Mountain Shadows Foundation Welcomes Don King as New Board Member
By Sheryl Wilde
Don King still remembers looking into the eyes of the children and hearing the phrase, “Mr. King is here to help you breathe and have recess outside again”. Smoke from the privately owned Jinkanpo Atsugi Incinerator blew across the town and the Naval Air Facility (NAF) Atsugi in Japan. The incinerators burned up to 90 tons of industrial and medical waste daily, spewing out a deadly dose of dioxin, heavy metals and other toxins so thick that the children couldn’t play outside because the smoke was so bad. He thought to himself, “This is the essence of humanity,” and he began a personal crusade to find a way – to find a solution in an impossible set of circumstances.
From that point on, Don knew he had to do whatever it took to help these children and all the others in the community. And after 3 ½ years, and many trips to Japan, he and a unique cadre of politicians (including Hillary Clinton) and contractors prevailed in the effort to have the plant shut down.
As a self-employed environmental engineer for the past 40 years, Don has been involved in a wide variety of assignments over much of the world – primarily doing things no one has ever done before. “Being the first, biggest, or impossible is always an interesting challenge,” Don notes. “There always seems to be a moment on a project when you realize all the ‘dots’ connected properly or the various puzzle pieces fit in the correct location.”
Being a farm boy from Ohio, Don practiced his unique and sometimes strange craft by constructing a mini hydropower plant in the stream “out” back, designed an automatic snow melting system for the driveway and always asked his patient parents “why”.
During his career, he’s worked on many projects, including the largest Iron and Steel complex in the western hemisphere, located in East Chicago, Indiana, and the first wastewater plant in Paraguay for an orphanage/school.
“When folks say something can’t be done, that’s the bell for me,” says Don. “To me, that’s when it’s time to figure it out. It is amazing looking back over 40-plus years and realizing how often the phrase ‘It can’t be done,’ just needed one more word added – yet.”
As testament to his “figure it out” mentality, numerous of his global environmental solutions, resource management and design concepts in the water and wastewater industry are now considered standards. Over the years, he’s worked on projects including iron and steel, oil, chemical process, water, wastewater, and power production industries.
Pushing himself, and others, beyond perceived limits is nothing new to Don. Known as Pastor Don to our Mountain Shadows community, he is the leader of the Beyond Limits ministry, an adaptive worship service for persons with special needs.
This same passion to reach for the stars has led Don to the summits of some of the world’s highest mountains – Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Fuji, and Mount Whitney. Kilimanjaro was the pinnacle of his experiences.
“At the top of Kilimanjaro-2016, and all the days since, I’ve realized my friends at Mountain Shadows climb that mountain, that path, every day. It’s amazing what we can do when we take one slow step at a time. In climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, we did what we didn’t think we could do. I want to help others, especially my Mountain Shadows friends, do what they don’t think they can do.”
Don is also a musician (trombone), private pilot, and raises service dogs for Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) with his wife of 30 years, Kathleen. They reside in Escondido… an easy walk to the Mountain Shadows family.
We welcome Don to our Mountain Shadows Foundation Board of Directors.