DONALD N. PEARCE

He is a quiet, affable, unassuming man, one that might fit in well with any group without attracting undue notice. When lounging at home, he relaxes completely and is able quickly to put his visitor at ease.

But when standing, he draws himself up to his full 6'2" height with a straightness that gives indication of a military bearing and resoluteness of purpose. His stance is a true indication of his background.

He is Donald N. Pearce of Mannford, who in his slightly more than five decades, has worn the Seven League Boots of a career military man and later of an international security consultant, investigator and polygraph examiner.

Pearce began life on the south side of Chicago. By the time high school graduation rolled around, like most young people, he was ready for adventure and a chance to see the world. The Korean War provided the opportunity and he joined the Marines.

After completing his 3-year-hitch in the Marines, he returned to the south side of Chicago, but finding there wasn't much there to interest him, he re-enlisted in 1957 and in 1959 he was sent to Okinawa. Upon his return to the states, he was put to driving a truck.

But the qualities that had attracted him into the Marine Corps apparently stood out -- astuteness, forthrightness and ability to take action. He was summarily told one day that he was being sent to a school in Henderson Hall near Arlington outside Washington, D.C. for embassy duty training. About this time Khruschev was to meet President Eisenhower at a summit in Paris and he was sent there for 30 days. After he returned he was assigned to Ben Ghazi in Libya, one of today's trouble spots. There he served as a 5-member Marine Guard for the American Embassy for one year.

Next, he was transferred to Bombay, India as a Marine guard for the American consulate also serving one year before coming back to the states in 1962. At Camp Pendleton he was selected for training as a Marine investigator and went through criminal investigation school plus an additional 13 weeks of Army Criminal investigation and the Department of Defense Polygraph School.

After completing his schooling, he received a call from the Marines asking him to go to Grand Rapids, Mich., to help start a military police company as an investigator. This he did, but this was during the Vietnam era and he soon found his job not to his liking. Although his duties ostensibly were to teach young Marine recruits how to become military police, his time was pre-empted in notifying families of dead sons and husbands, informing them of their military benefits, making military arrangements during their burial service for honor guards and standing over the grave and firing rifle salutes. At the completion of the service he presented the flag to the mother or wife.

"I did that three times in one day," he recalls, "and it was getting to me. I finally went to the office and told them I was trained as an investigator, not for what I was doing, and wanted a transfer. I was told 'No'." So I left the service, being released one day as a Marine staff sergeant in 1968 and becoming an Army warrant officer the next day. I was sent to Fort Sill where I took a 4-week 'charm school,' where they try to indoctrinate those from other branches of service into the Army."

At Fort Sill he worked as a polygraph examiner and criminal investigator. Then he was sent by the Army to Korea as a criminal investigator. In Korea, as elsewhere, his job was to track down and get evidence to convict rapists, murderers, thieves and every other type of felony. His investigative work also led him to Okinawa and Thailand.

Back in California in 1974, he went to work as a civilian assistant investigator for the San Diego district attorney. The brunt of his work involved locating persons in violation of court ordered family support.

In 1975 his career took a new turn when he took a job with American Express Co. (domestic) in Los Angeles as a special agent for the investigation of fraud, theft and the misuse of corporate funds.

The same company later sent him back to the Orient where he worked in 20 countries with as many cultures, investigating thievery from small to monumental proportions.

He recalls in once instance looking for 84 missing air conditioners that had been "lifted" by thieves. He noticed an ad in one of the newspapers offering for sale 84 air conditioners of the identical brand missing from his company and he went to their warehouse to investigate. After methodically checking all 84 of them, he found only one in which the serial number had been overlooked and left intact. It matched one on the list of those missing from his company.

He told the government officials these were his air conditioners as they matched the description, number and brand, including the one correct serial number.

He was informed that to the contrary, only one air conditioner was his -- the one with the serial number -- and that all the others were theirs since he oculd not prove otherwise.

Many of the overseas thefts, he indicated, are done with the connivance of local officials who not only wink at stealing from Americans but also aid and abet in the thefts.

His investigation of thefts, fraud, company embezzlement and similar crimes involved travels throughout the Orient, Pacific, and into Australia. His earlier years as an embassy guard and his knowledge of the countries and their customs enabled him to do his job far better than if he had never been in service.

An interesting sidelight is that despite his lengthy travels and years of living abroad, he speaks no foreign language, at least not fluently. His first action, when on the trail of a suspect is some foreign town or state, is to hire a good interpreter, one he can trust.

"How do you know you can trust him?" he was queried.

The interpreter is checked out by later having his interpretations to messages doubled checked by other interpreters. If the test is passed, then he proceeds.

The work from all appearances could be dangerous, since it involves tracking down men wanted for all types of felonies, including trafficking in drugs and large scale embezzlements and frauds. Was he ever put in a tough situation?

"Yes," he can remember a few. On one occasion, the men he was after tried to corner him inside a public place but he broke away and ran into the street. In that place the police never went inside the buildings. Outside, he knew he could find help. He was not followed outside.

He has found his work fulfilling and it has provided an education to the world and its ways that can seldom be equalled. Among his interests, outside his vocation, are the delving into histories of ancient peoples such as the Greeks and Romans. His travels have enabled him to do this.

While serving as an American Travelers Cheque Company investigator in Thialand, the black market was rampant, with shipments for Vietnam coming in from the U.S. Narcotics smuggling and the sale of heroine were widespread.

"Every merchant ship that came in had at least one merchantman who died of a drug overdose," he remembers.

After returning to San Diego, following much time spent in Hong Kong and other crowded metropolises of the world, he decided he wanted to live in a quieter place, away from the hustle and bustle of big city life. His wife, Gloria, had a sister and her husband, Phil Smith, who lived in Mannford. Don and Gloria decided to buy property here and settle near them, which they did. Gloria, of Portuguese-Indian descent, was born in Bombay. The couple has two daughters, the youngest, Donna, a student at Mannford High, and the older, Lisa, of California.

Pearce finds Lake Keystone a quiet locale now but he believes that Tulsa is waiting to bloom again, with its second time around less dependent on oil.

"In a few years, Tulsa is going to diversify, quit looking provincial and start looking overseas for markets. And if some of those companies need a special investigator, I may be ready," he predicts.