I'm sure there are a lot of Daniels out there. (The combination of "Nebraska" and "2003" tells me that there's at least one more, since Daniel Stenberg (a.k.a. Mr cURL) is living in Sweden.)
And I agree - we all owe him a lot. I'm sending him $5 every month via github sponsorship. That itself will not make him rich, but if all users of cURL did.. ;-)
Really, my advice is to start holding the node ecosystem hostage until you get properly compensated. Leftpad 'em.