Daniel Eddy's '73 adventures brought him from skiing the slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, to living in one of Italy’s most beautiful regions, to building homes in Uganda to help orphaned children. All these experiences started in one place: Mohawk College.

“In the physical education [course I took] one project was ‘pick some adventures, complete them, and bring in the receipts,’” Daniel said. “One adventure I chose was downhill skiing, though I’d never done a downhill ski in my life. How could I have known I would one day move to Alberta and ski the most beautiful Canadian Rockies?”

Daniel found himself jumping around between a few jobs after graduation, but it didn’t take long for him to find work that would bring him out of Ontario once again.

“I was a company service representative and did the assembly of large power machinery for the pulp and paper industry,” Daniel said. “I accompanied the equipment to the final locations in eastern Canada, and I worked extensively in Quebec. I am far from fluent in French, but I could get around with a lot of patience and forgiveness from the local French speakers.”

The next step in Daniel’s journey was an adventure unlike any of the others.

“In 1975 I married a lovely girl I had met from the Mohawk Legal Secretary program at a College pub night,” Daniel said. “[That] tops my list of gifts that Mohawk College afforded me. Today, we remain happily married for 48 years.”

After getting married, Daniel settled down in Stoney Creek, Ontario for six years working with Shell Canada at Oakville refinery. That refinery was closing but Shell offered almost everyone a paid transfer to a new facility north of Edmonton, Alberta,” Daniel said. “Ontario was deep in a recession at the time and almost everyone, including my young family, accepted the transfer.”

Daniel spent the next 30 years working with Shell in Alberta and announced his retirement in 2007, though it seemed to be short-lived.

“I didn’t even get out the door when fantastic job offers started pouring in,” Daniel said. “I started my own one-man corporation and accepted a six-month contract in Florence, Italy, inspecting new machinery for a Shell expansion.”

Running his own small, profitable business wasn’t the last step in Daniel’s impressive career story, however, and he found himself traveling across the globe in order to help less fortunate people in developing countries.

“Myself and other team members completed several great and practical missions,” Daniel said. “One to Juarez, Mexico and one to Watoto Children Villages near Kampala, Uganda. We built dining halls and teachers’ residences so the teachers could live in the villages and continue to teach the orphaned children there. There are eight orphaned children and a house mother in this village home, among many others, who are now well nourished, have education and medical care and, most importantly, a family to call their own.”

After all his adventures, skiing for the first time in a local competition, moving to the west of this beautiful country, visiting Italy and the USA and even spending time in Uganda helping the less fortunate, Daniel settled down after over 40 years working in the field.

“After five years of contracting, work slowed down and I retired for good in 2013,” he said. “My wife and I are now both retired, pretty healthy for 70-somethings, and remain living in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. We consider ourselves the most blessed people living in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.”