DANIEL L. WARE--Biography
Daniel L. Ware is president of Toto Tours located in Chicago,
Illinois. Founded in October 1990, Toto Tours provides small-group
adventure travel experiences to members of the gay community around
the world. As director of this corporation, Dan Ware coordinates Toto
Tours daily management, including orchestrating program development,
maintaining operations, and conducting marketing efforts. Ware additionally
supervises a staff including an office manager, creative director,
communications consultant and fifteen tour escort associates.
Always the avid traveler, Dan Ware established Toto Tours
in 1990 with the fervent desire to share his passion for embarking
on thrilling adventures to exotic destinations with other gay men.
This unique tour company took its name from Dorothy's dog, Toto, in
the motion picture classic, "The Wizard of Oz." Historically, the phrase
'friend of Dorothy' has been utilized in the gay community as a discrete
code so that gay men and lesbians could more readily identify themselves.
Toto Tours was conceived to encourage gay travelers to
find personal enrichment through adventure travel. This pioneering
endeavor, created by Dan Ware, mirrored the quest of the fictional
characters in "The Wizard of Oz," who embarked upon a shared journey
in the hopes of finding courage, heart, and more worldly knowledge.
In addition, Dan Ware incorporated an 'earth is one community,' prejudice-free
higher understanding gained through his own literal and spiritual journeys.
These aforementioned elements have contributed to Toto Tours welcoming
and compassionate environment that encourages tour participants to
flourish.
In June 1991 Dan Ware led six of his friends on Toto Tours'
maiden voyage, a seven day excursion through the National Parks of
Southeast Utah. In the more than ten years since then, Toto Tours has
expanded to offer new adventures for more than one thousand travelers
on close to twenty small-group tours annually. Among the exotic locales
and exciting destinations visited by Dan Ware and Toto are New Zealand,
Tanzania, Costa Rica, the Greek Isles, Tuscany, the Galapagos Islands,
Nepal, Chile and countless other spots the world over.
Dan Ware served in a variety of management positions in
non-profit training and development, creative writing and marketing
for Chicago area organizations before founding Toto Tours. These jobs
afforded Ware the opportunity to travel throughout the United States
and encouraged him to see the rest of the world. Ironically, years
later he is doing just that, but in the company of groups of gay men
from around the world.
A native of Walla Walla, Washington, Dan Ware earned a
bachelor's degree in business administration from Washington State
University, located in Pullman, Washington. Dan resides in Chicago
with his partner, film critic Jonathan Lewis. They enjoy being long
distance dads to Dan's son Anton, twenty-five, who is presently pursuing
a law degree at Columbia University in New York City, and his daughter
Alexis, twenty-four, who is currently in her Sophomore year at Beloit
College in Beloit, Wisconsin.
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