40 AMERICANWAY
JULY 1 2007
C U L T I V A T I O N
throughNativeAmerican sites in thedesert
ofNewMexico. Later, heworked inMicro-
nesiaas a teacher, and thenhedid environ-
mental impact studies there.He even spent
time working for a nightclub, encouraging
customers toget on thedancefloor.
A desire to live and raise a family in the
tropics eventually led King and his wife to
Panama, where his daughter was born and
where they are now expecting their second
child. With the help of Kroeger and an-
other college friend of theirs, he first built
an eco-lodge and later got into real estate.
“I thought it would be a short-lived thing,”
he says. But with a combination of empty
beaches, an opportunity towork in off-the-
grid rain forests, and inconceivably low real
estate prices (King was able to purchase
300 feetofbeachfrontproperty for less than
$50,000whenhefirstarrived in2003), the
citywassizzling. “BocasdelTorowent, from
four years ago, from almost not known,
except as a backpacker’s place, to being in
the
Wall Street Journal
and in every island
magazineon theplanet,” saysKing. “People
are just pouring in.”
King and his colleagues quickly estab-
lished a reputation for honesty, and people
started to flock to them. “It snowballed.
Herewewere, thinkingwewere just going
todoa littlebit ofwork,”he recalls. “Itwent
the otherway around. Suddenly, we had so
many people coming in, we didn’t know
what todo.”
What King has done is to continue to
work at his real estate business, because he
understands that its success iswhat enables
him tohelp thepeopleaswell as theareahe
now calls home. “The real estate company
allows us to do our dream,” he says. But
there’s not a simple split between the real
estate company and King’s humanitarian
projects— they’re interconnected. For one
DonKing
