Carl grew up at 43rd Street and 9th Avenue in Rock Island.  He attended Longfellow Elementary and Central Jr. High schools and says he had a "relatively uneventful" life.  He recalls sports as something that didn't work very well for him, but at the high school he got involved in acting and drama classes.  He has fond memories of class plays and other Dramatic Club activities.  

High school graduation was one of the bigger events in Carl's life.  The transition from his high school schedule to that of a college student was a giant step.  He enrolled at Black Hawk College and realized that he had to learn to schedule his time.  Carl says that, if he had gone to a four-year university at that point, he wouldn't have survived the first semester.  He squeaked through his first year at Black Hawk with a "C”"average.  "Through the grace of God and a good professor," he was able to earn an associate's degree in 1964.

That summer, Carl was married and began working for the City of Rock Island Water Department. He hoped to go back to school in Rock Island but realized that wasn't going to happen.  A high school friend, Doug Benoit, was attending Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.  Carl's family visited Doug's family in DeKalb, and the Dahlens decided to move there so that Carl could attend NIU.  Carl found a night job so that he could attend daytime classes.  That's when he learned the meaning of the word 'bureaucracy.'  He could work days and go to school at night without a problem.  However, to work at night and be a daytime student would present a much more complicated, time-consuming process, so he changed jobs and began working days, first at GE and later on at Ideal Industries, and going to school at night.

Before his last year of school, Carl left his job, and he and his wife became house parents for one of the campus fraternities.  This in his words was quite an experience.  The fraternity members were students like him, only a little younger, and the Dahlens had some interesting experiences while trying to herd the brothers in positive ways.  Carl worked at WNIU Radio and enrolled full time in classes until he graduated from NIU in August 1969 with a bachelor's degree in education with a major in history and a minor in philosophy.

The summers before and after his senior year of high school, Carl worked at a church summer camp.  While working and going to school in DeKalb, he was involved with the First Baptist Church and the Judson Baptist Fellowship at NIU.

Then, drawn to the church, he felt called to enter the seminary and found himself at the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois.  After two years at the seminary, Carl became a pastor at a small church in Elkhorn, Wisconsin and earned a Master of Divinity degree in 1973.

When he returned home full time, Carl and his wife realized things weren't working as they had hoped, and they separated, maintaining a very cordial relationship for the sake of their two daughters.  Carl says this time in his life wasn't easy but was part of the reality of life.  He looked into getting a divorce in Wisconsin and discovered it was an onerous process.  Told he could get a divorce in Nevada in six weeks, he drove to Nevada in a 1963 Volkswagen planning to get the divorce and leave.

Carl says it was the best move he ever made.  He ended up staying in Nevada, got married again and divorced again - not a pleasant experience - but part of the reality of life again.  In Nevada, he worked at Bently Nevada Corporation before going to work for Carson Regional Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, first as a counselor and later as executive director.  This took him back into human services but not back into the church.  At Carson Regional, he helped people help themselves but, as is the case with all non-profits, meeting expenses was always a challenge.  After about five years, he went to work in the Nevada Office for Community Services overseeing programs to assist low-income residents.  He later became the director of Community Programs to help businesses and residents in rural Nevada improve quality-of-life issues.  Here Carl found a broad range of duties that provided new experiences for him.

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