About Us

Mark Prado started the adoption tracing service in 2003 and had directed it continuously since that time. Mark originally came to Thailand in 1994 due to his work with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and has lived and worked in Thailand continuously from 1994 to date. Mark is originally from the state of Arkansas, the son of a Ph.D. psychologist who extensively mentored Mark in human psychology. Mark lived and worked in Washington, D.C., from 1985-1994, until his relocation to Thailand. Mark speaks Thai and can read Thai to a fair extent. From 1995 onward, Mark has spent all his years in Thailand living in Bangkok's outer suburbs and surrounding provinces, and has traveled extensively in Thailand. Thai is his fourth language to learn.

Mark co-founded Export Quality (EQ) Services Co., Ltd., which in 2002 was located in Pakkred and was translating Thai adoption paperwork for US adoption when we received some requests to trace some biological parents, whereby we decided to start our systematic adoption tracing service. As our EQ company has expanded over the years, we created another company, Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd., to start handling our adoption tracing services and private investigations, separately from the translation services and other work of Export Quality Services Co., Ltd.

Ms. Kanta Prado (Mark's wife), nickname "Na", is the manager of the adoption tracing service, and often joins field staff for adoption tracing cases or else just does them herself with Mark. Khun Kanta is from Ayuthaya province in Thailand (the ancient capital). Before joining Mark, Kanta was a senior manager in a large company, overseeing customer care, hiring and training staff, and quality control.

We have a longer history about our company Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd., on another website of ours on DNA testing, so I would prefer not to repeat that here, and just refer people to this link.

Some inquiries have asked us whether adoption tracing is the only thing we do. No, it is not. We have fulltime employed staff who do our adoption tracing cases, but the adoption tracing demand is not constant enough to employ or support staff fulltime, so these staff do other work for our company when adoption tracing work has been completed. I believe that no company could survive and charge reasonable rates while providing good service if it was focused only on adoption tracing work, so we provide employment continuity with other kinds of work, too. For adoption tracing staff, it is office and field research work for our other divisions, including private investigations, and DNA testing.

We are a financially secure company, so in our work we generally do not cut corners on such an important mission as adoption tracing, and adoption tracing staff are not worried about whether we lose money on a case once in a while. We have helped some very young people who couldn't pay for free (at our expense), and we have been charitable, though we can continue to afford to be so only with the support of some good families.

Field work always starts out with many unknowns, in that we don't know what we will find out in the field, and whereby we often must pursue additional steps and follow alternative leads we stumble upon. Staff have the green light to do what is needed. Field staff don't even know the price to you, and the Director knows that profit is an average across many cases. It is common for small entities to try to cut costs to make money, and to underestimate risk and "overhead" and unpaid time. That can limit their ability and willingness. Our company will do a complete job, will always have staff reachable, and will provide continuity into the future. After all, we've been doing this since 2002, and have no plans to stop.

Other divisions and companies of ours are listed below.

Other websites of our company:

www.ThaiEnglish.com - Thai English Translation is a separate division with different employees but based in the same office, just a separate area, under the company Export Quality Services Co., Ltd. We work with this division on vital and official translations, as well as personal translations and proofreading for accuracy, but some of our adoption tracing agents have good English and handle translations on the fly for the cases they work on for expediency and efficiency.

www.ThailandPI.com - Thailand Private Investigations (PI) is the most relevant division to our adoption tracing service, sharing some of the same staff. However, we do some other kinds of private investigations, too.

www.ThailandGuru.com - Thailand Guru is a guide to living and working in Thailand, created by the founder of our adoption tracing service.

www.kkBkk.com - Prado Property Co., Ltd., finds homes for expats in Thailand to rent or buy.

We also have a small exports sideline, and some of our customer contract work is confidential.

For a visitor to Thailand, all Thais may look similar. However, Thais are as individually diverse as people in any other country. The same goes for service providers. You should get to know who you are dealing with.

Our company has been developing appropriate people as staff and team players for many years now, each with their own special talents, complimentary skills, and experiences. We are a diverse group ourselves, and our imperfect lives and situations together help us understand and relate to the situations we encounter in the field. We work together as a respectfully diverse team, in mutually supportive ways, and to provide continuity in supporting the company for the longterm future.

Personally, I, the Director, do good things for others not because I selfishly want to go to Heaven, nor do I believe good things will come back to me somehow if I do good things for others and the world (look at people in history...), but simply so that I help make the world out there a better place. The spirit of giving and love. I don't expect anything in return, though I believe that a universal entity always knows the truth and there is a nonmaterialistic karma to everything we do and think.

On a local level, I support my staff and their families, and we support our customers by the longterm continuity of our company and team. My core staff likewise support the company and everybody else in the team for the longterm good of the team, our families, and our customers. Sustainable development.

My psychologist father taught me at a very young age that talk is easy, so you don't just listen to what people say, you watch what they actually do -- behavior, not words.

On a global level, I have both volunteered for not-for-profit organizations as well as chosen to do less well paid work for international development agencies, both officially and unofficially. (This kind of work first brought me to Thailand, associated with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is a part of the U.S. government.)

On a grander scale, there are human species survival as well as quality of life issues which will affect our children, both mine and yours, and life originating on our unique planet Earth (which we seem to be trashing unsustainably in just a few generations out of all geologic time). I do what I can on those, too, e.g., two more of my websites, both obviously entirely not for profit:

www.GAINextinction.com -- the top 3 threats of how future technology can potentially destroy us -- genetics/biotechnology, AI, and nanotechnology

www.PERMANENT.com -- the future for our children, believe it or not

The world has always fascinated me, and living in Thai culture, which is so different from my American culture, has been a great experience in learning about both cultures, by comparisons and contrasts. I seek to understand as much about our species, both our individual psychologies and our cultural sociologies, as I can while our species still exists. Na and I have also traveled to other countries very economically mainly just to experience the different cultures.

What we do in this world defines the kind of life we live, the kind of person we are, and the kind of leadership example we present to influence others in our community. Life is not just about ourself, it is about the good of our community, local or virtual, and in turn the greater whole.

Adoptive parents make great sacrifices out of pure love, truly exceptional people in this world, to go to all that work and sacrifice to reach all the way around the planet into a different race, to bring a child back into their own locality, give the special support needed for the child, and constantly maintain a good example in their community.

I have always been fascinated with people who work in international humanitarian organizations, and who do things such as adopt children who are not their biological children nor even ethnically related to themselves. These are exceptional humans in our times, very beautiful to me, and exemplify what good things our species is capable of. They keep me going because I have seen a whole lot of big bad things in this world from some of my other professional work, as well as just reading the news and having some other ordinary experiences in society well outside of ivory towers.

As our EQ website's motto states, "Synthesizing the best from east and west."

Adoption tracing is an experience which can start with finding biological roots, and usually continues with a much more diverse understanding and expansion into the realm of Thai and eastern culture.

As an expat originally from western civilization who has lived in Thailand since 1994, it is normal for me to both help western people understand Thai/eastern ways, as well as help my Thai employees and everybody we meet to understand western viewpoints and outlooks. Both ends are normally "all eyes and ears" to this opportunity, with me in between.

See also our link about our company Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd., on another website of ours on DNA testing.

> About Us

You can reach us any way you wish -- the contact form on this website, by email, by phone, or by office walk-in (preferably with an appointment in advance, for your sake in order to make sure I'm there at the moment, the native English speaker and the Director).

You can reach this website at any of the following addresses. They all come to this same site.