Don Furtado's practice includes real estate, finance, and economic development practice. His career includes broad experience as an attorney, businessman, and public official. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was student government president, a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the recipient of the University’s Senior Leadership Award.

After serving as a Navy Underwater Demolition (now, SEALS) officer and attending the University of Sydney, Australia Law School as a Rotary International Fellow, he graduated from Yale Law School. Don practiced law in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Hilton Head Island, S.C. and has been “of counsel” to law firms in New York and Washington, D C. He has also been a senior executive and general counsel of Atlanta, Tampa, and South Carolina-based real estate development, brokerage, and consulting firms, involved in both operational and legal aspects. He served as a White House Fellow and Assistant to the Special Counsel to the President of the United States, Assistant to the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Senior Vice President of the U. S. Export-Import Bank, Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade at the U. S. Department of Commerce, and a member of the Hilton Head Island Planning Commission. Don has been actively involved in many community service programs.