For the last twenty-three years, Curtis Schaeffer has worked as an executive for international organizations in Latin America, Asia and the United States. For ten of those years he worked for CARE-the international relief and development organization in both New York and Atlanta in a variety of senior positions including Chief of Staff. While overseas, he directed projects in health and nutrition, food distribution and urban development. Schaeffer was the CARE Deputy Regional Manager for Latin American Operations at the time of the crash. The author is currently the Director of a democratic initiatives project in Bolivia.

Schaeffer has an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Pitzer College in Claremont, California; an Education degree from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon and a Masters degree in international administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. He is bilingual in English and Spanish and is an experienced and trained public speaker.

Escape With One's Life-Learning to Live With Survival is Schaeffer's first book.

It was published and presented in La Paz, Bolivia in Spanish in December 2005 and has sold very well in a non-literary market. The Spanish version of 'Escape' is being marketed in Central America and eventually to the Hispanic population in the United States. Other writing experience includes numerous articles on a variety of international issues for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Business to Business magazine and the webpage Global Envision.