How It All Began
From the President, Dana Garrison
My brother Hugh and I are the two youngest sons in a family of seven children. We grew up in South Pasadena California, and like our older siblings before us, graduated from South Pasadena High School, 1983 for Hugh and 1985 for myself.
After graduating from high school, Hugh went on to attend Pasadena City College for his Associate Arts degree and then on to California State University at Los Angeles were he received his Bachelor of Arts degree. During his time in college he was involved in many on campus and student activities such as debate, leadership, government and youth ministries. Also at that time he was involved in tutoring other students and helping to council inner city kids on ways to attend and pay for college. His efforts in this latter subject caused him to use his limited Spanish and understand the necessity for improvement. The Spanish that he had taken since he was a junior in high school was not enough to allow him to fully communicate. He needed to improve his ability to speak the language and thus the seeds of studying abroad were planted.
Upon my graduation from high school I immediately reported to Highland Falls, New York where I was to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. I attended West Point for two years, during which time I came to understand that the military was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I left school and returned to California with no real idea as to where I wanted my life to go. Over the next couple of years I took classes at PCC (Pasadena City College) and worked at odd jobs, such as construction, waiting tables, cashier at a grocery store and night managing a local deli. During this period I was pretty much bored and going nowhere.
A close friend from high school told me about a job in the law firm where she was working and I decided to apply for it. I got the job and my carrier as a paralegal was off and running. After four years of this, I was again bored and going nowhere and decided that it was time to go back to school. It was at this time that Hugh approached me with the idea of going to Costa Rica.
At first I was not that excited about the idea and told him so, but Hugh kept after me until finally he uttered the two words that changed our lives; "I'll pay". Needless to say, that changed my whole perspective about the trip and we immediately started to plan. Since Hugh's goal was to become proficient in Spanish, he was going to stay for three months. I was only looking for a break before I started school in Boston at BU. In order to accomplish both our objectives we decided to travel around Costa Rica for the month that I had and then Hugh would attend school for the final two months. Sounded like a good plan, but as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men". Things ended up working out a bit differently then both of us could ever have imagined.
Just before we were to take off to the tropical shores of Costa Rica I started to experience discomfort in my abdominal region and went to see a doctor. After an examination I was told that I had an infection and that with Motrin and some antibiotics, I would be good to go. The doctor still wanted to run a few more test to make sure, so I told him of our plans. He said that they were not a problem and that if anything were wrong, the results would be back before I left. The departure date came and no news was good news, so we left for Central America and promptly miss our plane. We should have known then that something was up.
The next day we caught the first flight out heading in the right direction and were off, again. This time we succeed in catching the plane and when we arrived in San Jose were met at the airport by the uncle of a friend of Hugh's from CSULA. We spend the first few days looking around San Jose and becoming aquatinted with the new culture. On the fifth day we received a phone call at the house of our new friend Ted and it ended up being our family calling to say that the results of the test had come back and that they were not good. I needed to fly back because they were fairly positive that I had cancer.
Hugh and I spoke and decided that there was no reason for him to also fly back considering how little we really knew. Upon my arrival back in California I was told that I did in fact have cancer and that surgery was necessary immediately. To cut this part of a long story short, the surgery was successful, the tumor was removed and I have had no reoccurrence since. At the time though, the doctors were not so sure and it was decided that it would be best if I stayed in California in order to monitor the situation. That pretty much ended my plans to return to college at Boston University.
Meanwhile, Hugh was still in Costa Rica, enjoying himself, learning the language, meeting the people and falling in love. Yes, that's right, falling in love. None of us in the States had any idea about that last part.
Hugh arrived home at the end of his three-month trip as the concurring hero from down south. He walked through our parents house, out into the back yard and stood before me as I was sitting in the pool. He said: "Dana, I've fallen in love and I want to start a business so that I can live down in Costa Rica and I want you to be my partner. What do you think?" No hello, no how's the cancer, nothing. Naturally I said, "Okay". And the rest, as they say, is history.
Hugh now is married and living full time in Costa Rica and I too am married and living in San Diego, California. ISLS has now been in business for almost 12 years, sending over 800 Spanish students a year from around the world to Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Ecuador and Spain. We now have offices in San Jose, Costa Rica and Los Angeles and San Diego, California and College Station Texas. We are in the process of opening up a new office Berkeley, California as well. We have a student guesthouse and tour office in San Jose, Costa Rica for our students attending schools in that country.
We are currently working with sixteen Spanish language immersion schools in Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Ecuador and Spain. We work with the travel agency Ole Travel for discount airline tickets to our students. We look forward to continuing on in this new millennium and making the next decade as enjoyable and successful as the first. We hope that you will join us.
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