The background of David McDonald Yawn in regard to international studies and writing:

Yawn has a university degree in print journalism. He worked for a daily newspaper for four years before accepting employment at Memphis Business Journal in 1985, where he is now senior staff writer.

His current assignment areas are international business, real estate, small business and distribution. Yawn is the author of the 14-page, 6,000-word study called International Investment Potential in Memphis, the only one of its kind on the topic. He is a member of the Memphis International Council.

Over a period of time, he has interviewed a number of dignitaries, including a consul general of Britain, the chairman of the Korean Foreign Trade Association, the German ambassador, the commissioner of the French Trade Commission, a department head of the Deutsche Bundesbank, a consul general of Switzerland, the prime minister of the Netherlands, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, the economic counselor for the British Embassy, the director general of the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration, the German ambassador to the United Nations, and the ambassador-at-large special representative of France for international investment.

Yawn participated in roundtable discussions with diplomats during the J. William Fulbright ambassadors event in Memphis conducted by the Mid-South International Trade Association. He attended a workshop on overseas business practices conducted by the chief of protocol for AT&T at Christian Brothers University and a primer on the dynamics of international negotiating at the University of Memphis. In addition, he attended the Air Cargo Shippers Conference, the East-West '96 Conference on international trade and the Memphis in May ambassadors' reception. The writer addressed a 30-member delegation of the Dutch Association of Travel Managers in Industry and Commerce during the association's visit to Memphis in 1995. The same year, he addressed the English Speaking Union.

He made three business trips to Europe during 1995. In February, he traveled to The Netherlands and Belgium to report on mutual business opportunities in view of the direct Northwest/KLM service between Memphis and Amsterdam, for which he won a Society of Professional Journalist's Award of Excellence. In April, he made a business and economic tour of six cities in Germany, attending the Hannover Messe industrial products exposition in the process. In June, he took a business and institutional tour of Lyon, France, which included interviewing a panel of officials at the world headquarters for Interpol. The Dutch government took him on a one-week business tour within Holland in 1997, which included a visit with the prime minister.