NO KIDDING: THERE'S NO
FINDER'S FEE HERE!

Former P.I. has found
237 missing children

Daily Times-Call Special Section
March 31, 1996

Donna Davis

LONGMONT- David Rogers just can't say no when it comes to finding missing children.

The former private investigator now serves as president and director of the Vector Foundation (MCTF), a Longmont-based non-profit organization that helps find missing children in Colorado.

Rogers' searches for missing children have taken him to all 48 contiguous states plus Puerto Rico, England, Germany, Costa Rica, Belize, Canada and Mexico.

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He's had a father threaten to blow him up, answered numerous obscene phone calls and been stared down by angry men in a Louisiana bayou town. But in 10 years, he's found 237 missing children in Minnesota and Colorado.

A telephone call from a private investigator colleague in 1986 got him into the child-finding arena.

"A non-custodial father had taken a child out of the country," said Rogers, who was living in

Minnesota at the time, "It sounded interesting. Things were slow and I didn't have a whole lot to do."

He ended up "doing something that had never been done," by recovering a child who had been taken across international borders, in this case to Germany. The news coverage that Rogers received prompted 1,000 to 2,000 phone calls in the next few weeks from parents looking for their own missing children.

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"I started looking for kids at that point," Rogers said.

But many of Rogers' clients could not pay him.

"Eighty percent of my work I did for free," he said. "The 20 percent who paid me, paid me enough to find the other 80 percent."

"But I never did make money, because I just couldn't say no."

Being in the private sector, Rogers said, was breaking his family's budget and his heart. "It's hard to be a businessman on one hand and a caring person on the other."

Rogers sought another career as a police officer, but despite testing well, the one-time military police officer could not find a job. He returned to college and "ran into" the Vector Foundation while researching a feasibility study on starting a nonprofit organization.

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They liked my research and offered me a job," said Rogers who joined Vector Foundation (MCTF) in February 1995.

Working with the foundation has solved the problem he faced in the private sector. Vector "accepts any and all cases" and does not charge for its services. Rogers typically has up to 10 cases under investigation at one time.

Carol Clark, coordinator of the Colorado Missing Children's Project, said she has referred some families to Vector and plans to continue.

"We've had a couple of families that have had problems getting assistance with children that have run away because there is very little help in that area," she said.

More than 19,640 children were reported missing in Colorado in 1994. About half were runaways; the other half were taken by non-custodial parents or relatives. Only about 2 percent of the missing children were abducted by strangers.

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When Vector is asked to find a child, Rogers interviews anyone who may have information on the child's whereabouts, examines court records and credit card use, and sets up surveillance of the place where the child may be.

Vector works with local law enforcement agencies, and once the child is found, authorities are asked to pick the child up, Rogers said.

The foundation, established by a group of Denver men in 1994, is still in its fledgling stage, Rogers said. Last year's budget was only about $40,000, and Rogers relies on volunteers to help with administrative and investigative

work. Part of Rogers' job is to make Coloradans aware of the foundation and find funding from grants, businesses and individuals.

He visits schools to teach children how to stay safe. And Vector has teamed with businesses to promote child safety. Target gives parents passport-like identification booklets for their children, and Child Safe International of Boulder is donating 10 percent of the proceeds from the sale its safety belt adjuster to Vector.

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Child Safe owner Paul Gerstenberger learned about Vector while shopping at Target, said Child Safe co-owner Tana Gerstenberger.

"He saw one of Dave's Fliers," she said. "He had been looking for a company that was really effective and hands-on to donate money to and Dave is that. He's very good at what he does."

Vector plans to sponsor a fundraising golf tournament in June in Denver as well.

Rogers hopes to have enough funding soon to hire three or four paid staff members to help investigate cases.

In pushing Vector forward, Rogers falls back on the motto he learned from the investigator who trained him: "The difficult you do right away and the impossible just takes a day or two longer."

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