With thirty-plus years in K-12 education and management consulting, David Kavanaugh has learned that serving his clients is about communication and empathy. In fact, it's all about storytelling, whether by sharing a vision or illuminating someone's potential to executives and watching them thrive.

Dave has come to realize that he's been a character himself in his family's greatest journey, one taken by many but not often shared: an odyssey of pediatric cancer. His beloved wife and two grown sons made the daily, harrowing Barents Sea crossing of physical, mental, and emotional challenges for several years. They are his greatest joy, the ones who laughed at his stories and encouraged him to put them to paper for his grandchildren to read someday.

Inspiration and strength, he now knows, can come from the youngest and most vulnerable among us, and that no matter how short our time together, we are indelibly changed by those who enter our lives, even strangers who smile at us, or others who just take the time to listen. Dave's goal is to leave people a little better than he found them-a lesson he learned from an extraordinary young man and a wise donkey that we lovingly call Dinky Donkey Doo.