About the Author
Fred Rosen was born 1926 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He and his wife, Gertrude, are the parents of a son, Robert, who has been diagnosed as having Down's Syndrome. Fred has been active in helping persons with disabilities, serving on various boards and committees for over thirty years. As a Board Member and as Chairman of the Legal Guardianship Committee of the Missouri Association for Retarded Citizens. As a Board Member and on the Recreation Committee of the St. Louis Association for Retarded Citizens for twenty-seven years. As a Board Member of the Kirkwood Disabled Advisory and Awareness Commission, City of Kirkwood, Missouri, from 1984 to 1991. As an Assistant Scoutmaster for a troop of mentally retarded Boy Scouts, St. Louis Special School District. After retiring from the wholesale shoe business in 1991, Fred decided to become a travel agent with the goal of developing a travel program for persons with disabilities. He earned an Associate Degree in Tourism from Forest Park Community College in 1993 and worked with Hausler Travel Associates as a travel consultant before starting his own travel consulting company, Accessible Travel, In January, 1998 Fred was a contributing editor for The Independence, Saint Charles, Missouri, a newspaper for persons with a disability, and contributed articles to The Montage, the campus newspaper of Meramec Community College. Fred also wrote HOW TO TRAVEL - A Guidebook for Persons with a Disability dealing primarily with travel within the United States.