David Jonathan Everhart – The Architect of Survival

Full Name: David Jonathan Everhart

Date of Birth: March 22, 2032

Place of Birth: New York City, New York, United States

Education:

B.S. in Civil Engineering: Columbia University, Class of 2054

M.S. in Structural Engineering: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Class of 2058

MBA in Corporate Strategy: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2060

Position: Director of Operations for Minos Corporation, Martian Division. Oversees the entirety of Minos Corporation's Martian activities, including resource mining, infrastructure development, and inter-settlement logistics.

David Everhart

Before he was the Director of Operations for Minos Corporation’s Martian Division, before the sea walls and the exile, David Everhart was just another boy in a modest New York apartment. Born into a middle-class family on the East Side, he grew up in the shadows of skyscrapers and the roar of subways. His parents were practical people—teachers and clerks, not visionaries—but David learned early to love the rhythm of design, the silent strength of structures.

He was just a young, anonymous engineering student at Columbia when he met Emily.

Emily came from a world of wealth and marble-fronted estates in Maine. Her family name traced back to early colonial settlers—a lineage that wore its Republican values like a tailored suit. To them, Emily was a golden girl, destined to marry into another old-money family. She was supposed to build a life of tradition. Instead, she fell for a fresh-faced, penniless civil engineer with an earnest mind and calloused hands.

David Everhart and his girlfriend Emily at Columbia University

She brought him home one summer. Her parents saw an upstart, a name with no history, no connections. David saw only her—and the life they could build far from the carefully scripted drama of intergenerational wealth.

David's early career took flight when he joined Minos Corporation as a structural engineer. Even among rising talents, his brilliance stood out. Project after project, he was assigned to high-stakes sustainability initiatives across North America. The turning point came in Maine.

David led a pioneering renewable energy project that transformed a stagnating region into an energy hub—and incidentally, revitalized Emily's family's business holdings. Though her father never openly acknowledged the shift, his actions spoke volumes. A high-rise apartment in Manhattan was suddenly "available" for Emily, and no resistance followed when she and David moved in together.

The silent approval became affection the moment Ian was born. A grandson. A namesake. From that point on, the young couple received full family support, as though the dynasty had always planned it so. And when David later saved New York from the rising Atlantic, even Emily's aging father was overheard telling guests that the engineer who rebuilt the coast was "his son-in-law—a fine young man he had recognized early on."

They returned to New York. Side by side, they built dreams of glass and steel.

But success breeds discomfort in the corridors of power. The New York Dam Project was David's masterpiece—an engineering marvel that protected the Eastern Seaboard from devastation. It should have cemented his status as a national hero. Instead, it made him dangerous.

David refused to let others take credit. He challenged PR narratives, corrected executives in boardrooms, and openly criticized Minos Corporation's handling of the post-project spin. His insistence on facts over flattery, substance over spectacle, earned him quiet enemies in high places. He didn’t play the political game. And Minos never forgave him for it.

So they sent him to Mars. Officially: to lead and revitalize the Martian operations. Unofficially: to disappear.

He came to the Minos Settlement with no illusions. The outpost was in decline—a relic of corporate dreams grown stale. Supplies dwindled. Machinery outdated. The once-glorious Martian venture, now little more than an afterthought in the boardrooms of Earth, overshadowed by cheaper ventures and global unrest. Where others saw a dead end, David saw blueprints.

He understood quickly: if he played by the book, he would fail. So, he rewrote the rules.

Against strict corporate protocol and a backdrop of rising geopolitical tension, Everhart quietly began to forge new pathways between rival settlements. Russian, Chinese, European—names that bristled in Earthside meetings but, on Mars, became survival partners. From scraps and cast-offs, he and his engineers built a network of relay outposts and caravan shelters. Logistics hubs hidden in plain sight. Unapproved, unauthorized—and absolutely vital.

Among the crew, David is part myth, part method. The young engineers call him "The Iron Compass." To them, he's the man who makes the impossible look inevitable. To Susan Morgan, his capable and quietly loyal deputy, he is something more—though no one dares to say it aloud.

And yet, for all his calm brilliance and steel-clad discipline, David Everhart is not without ghosts. Each night, as the station dims and the dust settles over solar domes, his thoughts turn homeward. To Emily. To Manhattan. To the life that paused for a mission that was never meant to last this long. In the silence between system reports, he holds on to the idea that this exile can be rewritten into a legacy—one last feat of engineering that will carry his name not just into Martian soil, but back to Earth with honor.

He is not a dreamer. He leaves that to others.

David Everhart builds what dreamers depend on.

Read more character stories and Martian chronicles at www.themarschronicles.com

New to the Mars Chronicles? Start with Icarus — the dramatic story of the first Mars settlements, including the one led by David Everhart.👉 Read the novel here