Biography
Born October 14, 1968 in New Haven, Connecticut as Douglas Andrew Hanks. He added the umlaut at the age of 14, to reflect his maternal German heritage that has been officially recorded as far back as 1235 AD through no less than two coats of arms.
Moved to Charlotte, North Carolina (official hometown) in 1984, and graduated from North Mecklenburg High School in 1986 with an award in art, and a "Who's Who Among American High School Students" award in 1985, and a "Who's Who Among American High School Students Second Year Award" in 1986.
He applied to the US Secret Service in 1991 and passed all tests with flying colors. In fact, his interview took less than seven minutes. It was later discovered, however, that his vision had been surgically corrected via radial keratotomy, to 20/13, which while being beyond superb (it's the bottom line on the eye chart), officially disqualified him according to USSS specs (no surgeries). To this day, D.A. Hänks has proudly retained his letter of dismissal, stating "I still made it a hell of a lot further than any one of you (hecklers) could have."
On May 20th 1995, D.A. Hänks created the Crescent Ridge Dawn Redwoods Preserve; the only eastern redwood forest in America, and the sole wild dawn redwood forest outside of China. This unique project revolves around the reforestation of the dawn redwood to this country, where it has not grown for some 30+ million years. Dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) were believed extinct, until around 1,000 trees were discovered alive in the Sichuan Province in China, in 1941. The CRDRP project will allow silviculturalists to study the dawn redwood in a native North American environment. He is currently recognized as one of the leading authorities in the world, on the critically-endangered dawn redwood.
During the summer of 2004, he was engaged to country music singer and songwriter, Angel "American Angel" Butler. The song, "American Angel" was written about the two of them; composed on the back of his motorcycle while returning home from dinner one night, at their favorite Italian restaurant. The relationship ended when she deployed without an official marriage. In 2012, Angel contacted D.A. through a smuggled cell phone, that she was being held against her will at Dorn VA Medical Hospital in Columbia, SC. D.A. was able to get her released, via political and "other" connections, and this prompted the investigation of the Veteran's Administration's abhorrent treatment of our US veterans. It predated the infamous AZ complaint by several months. Angel posted her recount of the ordeal, via her birth name of Angel Carlisle, on YouTube.
In 2007, D.A. retired as a general contractor and switched to acting as a new career, landing a recurring role on Atlanta Homicide - AKA Atlanta Investigations: HD (Homicide Division) as Detective Tom Berncliff, which would lead to not only a series regular role in Season 2, but also as the new writer for the show as well. During a roundtable interview during Season 1, he revealed this was only his second speaking role, to a round of applause from the rest of the cast and crew.
In 2012, he ran for Mecklenburg County Soil and Water District Supervisor, winning 109,053 votes (the third highest number for any office in the county) despite a huge wave of political attacks against him that were blatantly false.
