B.L. BARKEY was born in Colorado Springs CO into a military family on 22 September 1990. He was raised with two families, his parents divorced and both remarried. This essentially meant two furnished bedrooms and two Christmases, so it wasn’t a bad gig. He has three siblings in either family, making him the eldest of seven children. He loves his family and strives to be an example to his six siblings. Both his families served our awesome country in the United States military. Throughout his childhood, he called many different places home, including Colorado, Illinois, Florida, Guam (still U.S. territory), North Dakota, Las Vegas Nevada, Idaho, Utah, California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Since he was a child, he always had a passion for reading, fiction movies, adventure, and school. He always loved school, particularly math. He was the kid that would sleep in Algebra class, then wake up to ace the test. Yeah, no one likes that kid. Oh well. He has recorded songs and lyrics of his own, and ran in multiple marathons, triathlons, duathlons, and shorter races. He ran the Boston Marathon in 2012 with a time of 3:03:00 in 103 degree-F weather. He completed his first full Ironman triathlon in July 2018. Also after high school, he attended Colorado State University to acquire two degrees in Civil Engineering (BS and MS). Soon after graduation in Dec 2015, he was hired with J-U-B ENGINEERS in Idaho, and then transferred to Utah. He is a single dad to two children (of the “canine” persuasion) named Toby (blue heeler mix) and Nala (husky wolf mix). Oh, and he has a cat named Lucy. She is cool too. Brandon still loves reading, running, and math which is pretty much all he does now. He also loves traveling around the U.S. and other countries when given the chance. He hopes to publish his books, continue to contribute to society through engineering, and travel the world.