Thomas McKenzie (Mac to his friends) graduated from Milton Hershey School as a journeyman printer before enlisting in the U.S. Navy as a Mineman at the end of the Cold War, where he specialized in underwater weapons systems and received a free cultural education in Scotland, Sicily, and Spain. 

He later enlisted in the Coast Guard, graduating as a Public Affairs Specialist from the Defense Information School. His first major case came in Dutch Harbor, Alaska (Selendang Ayu, 2004), and he quickly earned a place in the Service’s national disaster response community. He deployed for Hurricane Katrina, the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, and numerous other crises before landing his dream assignment with the Public Information Assist Team (PIAT) — a four-person, rapid-response communications unit within the National Strike Force. There, he earned his ICS Type 1 PIO qualification. 

Over four intense years, Mac responded to major disasters including Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, the Refugio Beach oil spill, a magnesium fire, a shipwreck, a railcar explosion in Mount Carbon, WV, and an Ebola threat aboard a cruise ship. He trained industry reps from oil, pipeline, and cruise sectors, as well as FEMA, EPA, NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife representatives, and law enforcement. 

He’s logged over 100 hours teaching emergency and risk communications, media engagement, and the ICS Joint Information Center model to the national response community and DOD public affairs personnel. 

Somewhere along the way, he self-published a science fiction novel. After retiring from the military in 2018, he joined Amazon Web Services as a product launch team training specialist for machine learning and AI, then pivoted full-time into writing. He’s currently completing a BFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University while working on several novel and novella projects and seeking agent representation. 

Mac has played Dungeons & Dragons with the same party since 2018, and survived Tomb of Annihilation, Curse of Strahd, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden, Call of the Netherdeep, and Wild Beyond the Witchlight. 

He’s lived in nine states, three countries, worked as a bartender, been a telemarketer for Highlights for Children, the lead photographer for the Department of Homeland Security, and quoted verbatim in newspapers nationwide.