Daniel Carl Olson

Daniel Carl Olson, 83, Aledo, died Monday, Jan. 29, at Silverado Memory Care Community in Fort Worth.Memorial service: 2 pm, Fri., Feb. 2, Parker County Cowboy Church, 5050 FM 5, Aledo, TX 76008. Dress is casual. A reception will follow at the church.Dan was born in 1934 to Daniel and Edith Olson in Stamford, CT. Dan’s brother, Pete, was born four years later. The family then moved to Annapolis, MD, where the boys grew up. Dan was very proud of his family legacy. His parents were first-generation Americans. All his grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Scandinavia.Dan graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with a B.S. in marine engineering. Shortly after graduation, he married his first wife, Martha, and they had two children, Mark in 1957 and Kim in 1958.Dan served as a commissioned officer in the Coast Guard for 16 years.  While in the Coast Guard, Dan served in a number of places, including Oakland, CA; Miami, FL; and Sai Pan. He was executive officer of a Coast Guard cutter, the 254-foot Owasco. While an officer, he earned a civil engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.After leaving the Coast Guard in 1966, he joined Caterpillar Inc., where he worked for 23 years.  After a year at the training center in East Peoria, IL, he was transferred to Texas. He served as the liaison between the company and Caterpillar dealers throughout the state.Caterpillar then moved Dan to the company headquarters in Peoria, IL. While there, he earned his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.His last 13 years with Caterpillar were spent at the European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. He traveled to dealerships throughout Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. He loved Switzerland, became fluent in French, and loved hiking, snow skiing, and 100-mile bike rides in the French Alps.Dan retired from Caterpillar in 1989 at the age of 55 and moved back to the states to Charlottesville, VAThere he met his wife, Claire, and they began their 23 years of life together. In 1999, they welcomed their son, Alex, into the family.In Charlottesville, he was an Advanced Life Support EMT with the Albemarle County Volunteer Rescue Squad. He was a pro bono counselor for the University of Virginia Small Business Development Center. An avid hiker, he was the volunteer trail master for a feeder trail to the Appalachian Trail. He went out frequently with his chain saw to clear the trail of fallen trees and branches to keep it safe for hikers.In 1996, Claire’s company transferred them to Richmond, VA. In Richmond, Dan signed on with a large volunteer rescue squad that served a rural county west of Richmond. This squad also provided all the firefighting for the county, so Dan decided he wanted to be a firefighter. He went through months of demanding professional firefighting school conducted by the fire department in Richmond, and he was certified as a firefighter.When Dan turned 70, he retired from rescue work to spend more time as a stay-at-home Dad for Alex. He volunteered many hours at Alex’s elementary school, and he taught English as a second language to children at the school who had immigrated from Egypt. He also worked as a hospice volunteer, going to homes and staying with patients to give family members a respite.In 2010 Claire retired from her company in Richmond, and they moved to Texas to be close to her family. They settled in Aledo, TX, and he often said that he loved Texas, he loved their home, and he loved being near Claire’s family.Dan is survived by his wife, Claire, Aledo; his brother, Pete Olson and his wife, Phyllis, Pinehurst, NC; his older son, Mark Olson and his daughter, Lindsay, Cincinnati, OH; his daughter, Kim Olson and her husband, Glenn Courtney, Kansas City, MO; his son, Alex Olson, Aledo; nieces and nephews and many other family members and friends.In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Alzheimer’s Association, North Central Texas Chapter, https://www.alz.org/northcentraltexas/; the Ken Anderson Alliance, Cincinnati, OH, a nonprofit that creates live, work, play opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities, www.kenandersonalliance.org; or your favorite charity. Dan’s family expresses heartfelt gratitude for donations made in Dan’s memory.