Dawn was born in St. Louis, Missouri and has lived all over the world. She attended high school in Tournai, Belgium and lived with a French speaking family. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a BS in Civil Engineering and worked for the USDA. While living in Long Beach, CA she lived the “beach life”, got her Masters in Linguistics, had four gorgeous children and planned for international development work.
From 2000-2002 she did water and sanitation work in Xieng Kho, Laos. 2003-2005 took her to Maijdee, Bangladesh working on arsenic remediation. 2006-2007 found her in Galle, Sri Lanka doing tsunami response work building homes and back to beach life. She returned to the U.S. and taught elementary school in Austin and Fort Worth for ten years.
2016-2024 took her back to Laos working for TerraClear and their clean water project. During that time she wrote a children’s book about Laos and placed 10,000 filters in homes along with training in health and sanitation – she refers this to her “jungle life”. Finally in 2024 she returned to Austin and still today serves as the Executive Director for the TerraClear Foundation and is a proud member of the South Austin Rotary Club!
