About Patrick A. Merritt
Born in Silicon Valley and raised in the Silicon Forest (before either of those were a thing), Patrick grew up on a small property in the heart of Willamette Valley wine country in Oregon.
Patrick graduated from Yamhill-Carlton High School with a graduating class of around 60 students. During his high school years he was a photographer, journalist, and editor for the YC Expression, a high school produced community newspaper that was distributed to all the residents of Yamill and Carlton, Oregon. He continues to have a love for journalism and is often ranting about how: a) journalism should be a required course in schools, and b) poor examples of journalism that he stumbles upon.
Attending Oregon State University, Patrick earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in nuclear engineering. After graduating with his masters, (which he could tell you a whole story about that you would find fun and interesting but his editor said it would make his “about me” too long) he decided to pursue a career in the world of software and started as a technical support representative at a software company in Beaverton, Oregon. In his 25+ year career in high-tech Patrick had many roles, including technical consulting, selling consulting services, business development, merger and acquisition due diligence, technical marketing, product management, product marketing, and sales enablement. In his sales enablement capacity he managed and produced over a dozen annual company and sales kickoff events. In addition to having accomplished a number of interesting things during his tech career Patrick served as one of the founding members of the eclipse.org project (now the Eclipse Foundation).
Throughout his life, and to this day, Patrick reads constantly and writes occasionally. He’s been fascinated by science fiction since an early age, but has also read classics, literature, horror, fantasy, murder mystery, poetry, psychology, philosophy, history, historical fiction, and yes, even a romance novel. (Just one. That was enough for me. For now. Maybe.)
“I’ve always loved reading and when I make the time for it, writing. Being able to help people bring their story to the written page by publishing their books is a dream job for me. Being able to do that with the best partner in the world, Angela, makes it a dream—a happy, joyous dream that is my day-to-day reality. Yes, it’s pretty amazing.”