Alan George Swan, 75, a resident of The Orchard for the past four years, died on December 1 at Habersham Medical Center, following a heroic battle with cancer and pneumonia.
Alan was born in Buffalo, New York on May 8, 1943. He attended Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and graduated from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, with a degree in political science. He later attended Georgetown University majoring in Latin American area studies.
Alan was a retired Foreign Service officer with USAID, Department of State. His first tour overseas was to Saigon during the war. He was accompanied by his wife and two daughters to assignments in Quito, Ecuador; Cairo, Egypt; and Monrovia, Liberia. During his thirty year career, he worked with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance where he was widely respected for his thoughtful, fact based opinions and compassionate work for the victims of disasters. In 1996, he was awarded the Distinguished Career Service Award by the USAID Administrator.
Prior to coming to live in Clarkesville, Alan resided in Reston, Virginia and on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Alan was a friend of Bill W. for more than thirty years.
Alan was an adventurer who explored many parts of the world including Mongolia, the Congo, Kenya, Cambodia, the Shetland Islands, the Outer Hebrides, and the Falkland Islands. A fan of cruising, he and his wife sailed across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, down the Amazon to Manaus. They sailed twice around Cape Horn and to within seven hundred miles of the North Pole to Svalbard, Norway.
Alan was the son of the late Arlene Dobmeier and Bernard Swan of East Aurora, New York.
Alan is survived by his wife of more than 51 years, June, two daughters: Lizzy Johnson and her husband Dirk of Demorest; Nicole Gore and her husband Glenn of Reston, Virginia, and one grandson Jack Johnson.
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