H David Whalen, Author

I cannot envision life without books. Reading affords you the freedom to believe the unimaginable, travel beyond your world, and shroud yourself in knowledge. Laugh, cry, shiver; a story takes you on an emtional journey through your mind. In the end, you are the hero, the lover, the invincible. H David Whalen

Though not without pitfalls, I lived an idyllic childhood, romping the forests surrounding our Vancouver Island family home. Then, at age four, at the corner of our drive, I came face to face with a bear on hind legs, eating apples from our tree. Notwithstanding my decision to throw a rock at the monster, inconceivably missing, my small dog, Stubby, chased the creature back into the brush. After surviving many near-death experiences during my first eleven years, we moved to El Cajon. I spent the last three months of sixth grade at John Ballantyne, after which El Cajon High followed Cajon Valley Junior High. Craving independence the summer after junior high found Doug Baker and me hitchhiking east. A highway patrol caught us on the bridge heading into Arizona, and unfortunately, they transported us to Imperial juvenile hall. My high school days were fraught with misadventures. At age sixteen, a coworker and I took up scuba diving. Unfortunately, neither of us could afford a certified class and had a San Diego State student show up the ropes. Luckily, he explained buddy breathing. So, we ventured out to La Jolla Canyon off La Jolla Shores Beach on our first dive. Floating over the deep abyss, I ran out of air at one-hundred-ten feet underwater. I swam after my friend. When I caught him, I was seconds away from drowning. We figured out buddy-breathing and muddled our way to the surface. After high school graduation, Mike Guthrie and I hitchhiked the west coast from San Diego to Vancouver, Canada. In California, every ride offered us beer and weed; Oregon and Washington, only beer and nothing in Canada. We met many wonderful people, coupled with unsavory characters. I worked part-time for Longs Drug while attending Grossmont College. Immediately following graduation, Longs promoted me to department manager in El Centro. Six years later, I became their youngest store manager. After a short tenure, I left Longs and started SignMaker. Though successful, I wanted a consumer product and entered the holiday window décor market. I got into the New York Toy Fair offering Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Easter designs three years later. We had thirteen rep companies with one-hundred-forty salespeople selling to all major retailers. In the nineteen-nineties recession, I changed the company’s name to Intermarket Manufacturing Service and chased the custom screen-printing market. Within six months, we printed menus for many national fast-food chains and pursued government contracts, acquiring long-term agreements. While a serial entrepreneur, I invented thermo-hemming® and designed and built a continuous vinyl welding machine, which I licensed to a global manufacturer. My second machine was a portable, electric grommet setter coupled with fourteen tools and accessories. Also, I started Super Supply, a wholesale business importing containers of substrates from China. Now retired, I became an author and self-published seven books with more in the works. Two years ago, my wife of thirty-seven years and I moved to the mountains of Northern California along the Trinity River. The forests fondly remind me of my Canadian childhood.