Captain Jim Kosmo is a national award-winning journalist and author, a US Coast Guard-licensed Mississippi riverboat pilot, and former partner of Padelford Riverboat Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before joining the family riverboat business, he was a newspaper editor in Nevada and Minnesota and a corporate public relations executive in Minnesota and Illinois. Kosmo’s newest book, Monsters in the Hallway, is an award-winning mystery novel based largely on his childhood in Eau Claire, WI. His previous book, Still Standing: The Story of Staff Sergeant John Kriesel, is a nonfiction account of a soldier who lost his legs and two buddies in an IED explosion near Fallujah, Iraq. The best-selling motivational book won eight national book awards and is in its eleventh printing. Kosmo served as president of the Rotary Club of St. Paul (2013-14), founded the Minnesota Valley Branch YMCA, was chair of the Rivers Region of the Passenger Vessel Association, and was mayor of the city of Bayport, MN. He also is business representative on the Minnesota National Guard Senior Advisory Task Force and sits on several health care and education boards. Kosmo and wife Shelley have a blended family with eight adult children and twelve grandchildren.