Every story starts somewhere. For Patrick, it started on the deck of a Navy destroyer, somewhere between the Pacific and the unknown, a young man with a lot of ambition, a strong sense of duty, and no idea that decades later he’d be writing the stories he once lived.

Growing up with an eye toward service, Patrick answered the call and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, beginning six years that would quietly shape everything that followed. He served aboard some of the most storied ships in the fleet — USS Towers DDG-9, USS Hewitt DD-966, and USS Mt. Whitney LCC-20 — learning the rhythms of life underway, the weight of responsibility, and the unspoken bond that forms between men and women who depend on one another in the middle of the ocean. He traveled the world, saw things most people only read about, and came home with a perspective that couldn’t be found in any classroom.

When his service ended, Patrick didn’t leave the Navy behind — he carried it with him. He transitioned into the technology sector, where a 30-plus-year career working across diverse platforms and cutting-edge systems gave him yet another lens through which to see the world. The precision of technology. The complexity of systems. The human element that makes both of them matter. It was a second education, one that would eventually find its way onto the page.

The writing began with a question Patrick had been sitting on for years: What really happens out there? Not the movies, not the headlines — the real texture of service life. The moral ambiguity. The loyalty that gets tested. The deceptions, large and small, that people carry. The answer became Deception Underway, his debut novel, a thriller rooted in the world he knew intimately. It was not just a first book — it was a first accounting.

The story didn’t end there. Targeting Underway followed, carrying the same world forward with sharper edges and higher stakes, proving that Patrick’s debut was not a one-time act of storytelling but the opening chapter of a much larger mission.

Beyond the novels, Patrick turned his attention to two projects that meant something deeply personal. The GreyJackets’ Manual emerged from his respect for the community of veterans and service members who shaped him — a resource, a tribute, and a record of a culture worth preserving. And My Fasting Journey stepped entirely off the ship and into something just as demanding: the hard, honest work of physical transformation. After discovering the power of intermittent fasting, Patrick documented his own experience not as an expert dispensing advice, but as someone who struggled, committed, and changed — because he believed that kind of honesty is more useful than any polished program.

The World’s Finest Strike Podcast is where all of it comes together out loud. Military life. Veteran stories. Wellness. The culture surrounding service. The conversations Patrick has always wanted to have — and believes the world needs to hear.

Today, Patrick lives in the southern suburbs of Denver, Colorado, with the Rockies at his doorstep and plenty of stories still to tell. He skis with his sons, rides motorcycles on open roads, fishes when the season allows, and travels whenever the world offers an invitation. He is a veteran, a technologist, an author, a podcaster, and — most of all — a storyteller who believes that the experiences of those who serve deserve more than a footnote.

This is Underway Books. And this story is just getting started.