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ALUMNI NEWS
st. george’s school
A TRAVELER OF MANY ROADS a desire to see the world led chad macarthur ’70 on a meandering journey to his life’s work in public health
// SUMMER 2019
Chad MacArthur ’70 has lived and/or worked in more than 30 countries and, after decades in the public health field, is now considered one of the world’s experts in preventing the spread of an infectious disease called trachoma, which causes blindness. If you happened to come across him in 1980, however, you may have seen him juggling in a West Berlin circus. MacArthur has taken a serendipitous journey to his current career — mostly the result of his desire to explore the world. “To me it was just wanting to see new vistas and to look at different ways of life — culturally, socially. I was also drawn to the physical beauty of a lot of different countries,” he said. “[Travel] just kind of infected me and grew — and eventually it helped me make career choices.” MacArthur had his first overseas travel experience as a sixth-former at SG, when he and classmate Stuart Ross ’70 studied abroad in Belgium with the Experiment in International Living program. After SG, MacArthur went to Bucknell University and majored in English and history. Then he “ended up just kind of wandering for probably 10 years,” he said. Taken by the theater, he set off for New York, where he studied acting, “but mostly ended up driving a taxi.” So he headed to South Paris, Maine, where he studied mime, juggling, and clowning at the Celebration Barn Theatre.
It was during a subsequent monthslong trip to Mexico and Guatemala when he got the idea for his next job. The weather was very, very hot, he recalled, and one of his travel companions told him about her experiences working in Alaska. “I looked at a road map I had and Alaska looked all so bright and cool and everything, so I said ‘I think I'll just go up there.’” Within weeks he had made his way to Seattle, where dozens of commercial fishing boats were getting ready for the season. For the next four years, MacArthur worked many 20-hour days fishing for salmon out of Ketchikan, Alaska. “And those four months of the fishing season … provided me with sufficient funds just to go travel around and explore the world,” said MacArthur, who used the downtime to journey to Central and South America as well as Europe. Sometimes, he would do street theatre to earn some extra cash and for two hunting seasons he worked as a cook in a camp outside Yellowstone National Park. In 1980, MacArthur moved to West Berlin, Germany, where for two years he was a juggler and clown in a circus tent next to the Berlin Wall and on the streets of the city. He also taught circus skills at a local theater school. “When all of that ended, I decided it was time to find a profession that allowed me to be overseas and abroad and traveling, but that didn't force me to keep running away to get another visa,”
