The author was born in Jane, Missouri, a small town in the Ozark Mountains, into a family of nine children. He traveled the world for forty-five years as both a civil and a mechanical engineer and rocket design consultant and later as a construction manager. After completing two full careers as depicted in his autobiography, he moved back to Republic, Missouri, in the Ozarks to retire. He lost his wife of forty years in 2003. She died of bone cancer. He still travels extensively to the United Kingdom and to the Continent, as he has a stepdaughter in England and good friends in Germany and Holland. He now sits in front of his fireplace, reads a lot, and writes a little. This is his first book.