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Friday, September 25, 2015
Book bound: Engineer starting selfsustaining publisher in Haiti
Open your closets? Mainstream Boutique opens in Forest Lake this month. P20
Counting counties Washington raises levy 3.5 percent, Chisago stays level. P18
Submitted photo BY MICHELLE MIRON Editor
Funeral funding Community helps with expenses for slain woman. P18
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During Ron Moore's adventures as a traveling engineer, he's met the natives of some 60 countries. None have touched him as much as the people he met in Haiti, now considered the world's poorest country. These days he's spending what might normally be retirement years trying to improve Haitian lives through his nonprofit Haitian Advanced Learning Opportunities, or HALO. But the longtime Forest Lake resident, 72, wants more than just a Band-aid solution. The engineering firm owner envisions Halo as a way to employ 350 Haitians throughout the country in the next 10 years via a self-sustaining publishing
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company that will distribute educational and spiritual books in the most common native language, Creole. Such books are sorely needed by those trying to improve themselves in the country still devastated by the effects of the massive 2010 earthquake, he noted. These days Haiti faces a 55 percent illiteracy rate and 79 percent unemployment. “I’ve traveled all over the world, but never in my life seen anyplace like Haiti,” he explained. “I’ve spent years studying and trying to figure out what the answer is. Education is just a small step in the right direction … this gives them jobs. We want to give them security.” His 30-page business plan
calls for raising $30,000 for printing equipment to be installed in a rented building in Port au Prince. There, a threeperson staff will begin printing four initial books being translated, and a commissioned sales force will sell the books to private schools and to individuals at village marketplaces Moore hopes to find out in November whether he'll get financial backing from his home church Eagle Brook through its annual Micah Project fundraiser, which last year raised $750,000. If he does, the Haiti business could be up and running in January. “This is no pie in the sky — this is the real deal,” Moore said of his plan. “It’s been an incred-
ible learning process. I’ve read more stuff than I’ve read in my whole life in the last year.” The Indianapolis, Indiana native started his international travel career by spending three years in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corp. following graduate school at Purdue University. Afterward he spent two years in Bolivia via a USAID program, then worked 20 years with Johnson Filtration Systems designing and installing sanitary systems worldwide. His affinity for Latin American countries soon landed him a six-figure job as director of Latin American operations.
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