Don Casteel spent over twenty years in the Foreign Service of the United States, retiring with the rank of Consul General. Raised in a totally monolingual environment in Wyoming, Don achieved during his career full professional proficiency in five languages, including Spanish, as tested by the State Department’s Foreign Service institute. He spent much of his career in Latin America, and is a graduate of the Foreign Service Institute in Finnish and German (as well as Spanish). He also served as Deputy Director of Professional Development at the Foreign Service Institute. His experience in Latin America includes tours of duty at the American Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as at the American Consulates in Monterrey, Mexico and Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he held the office of Consul General. He also served as Director of Counter-terrorism programs for the whole U.S. Government, with responsibility for all of Latin America. Don has tried to bring both his language learning experience and his experience with the Latin culture to both Platiquemos’s students and those who use reference works (such as Ensenemos). Among his innovations are using authentic historic illustrations to give a cultural and historical flavor to Platiquemos’s works. He considers his work with Platiquemos as a continuation of a lifetime of public service.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.