Bryan BarrerasBryan Barreras had no intention of becoming an author. He studied mechanical engineering (University of Houston, '89), received his MBA (UofH, '94) at night while working at a petrochemical plant just outside Houston and eventually found his way to Nw York and law school (NYU, '97). Bryan spent most of the past 19 years working as a lawyer, with the typical big-law start for 4 years (which included a couple of years abroad, in London and Frankfurt) followed by various in-house lawyer positions. He was lured away from law to a tech start-up in mid-2015, but that ended poorly (and quickly) and he found himself in a bad job market in late 2015. Luckily Hamilton came along. Bryan saw the show with his family in January 2016 and they all absolutely loved it, listening to the cast album literally every day for three months. Bryan read Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton shortly (but not too shortly, given the book's size) thereafter and then, since he had plenty of time, started visiting Hamilton-related sites around NYC and researching the history of each site. The idea for his first book was born. The technical writing skills that Bryan developed as an engineer and a lawyer, as well as his research, layout and editing experience at NYU (Bryan was an Executive Editor on the NYU Law Review), served him well in researching and compiling the info and presenting it in a book. And his ignorance let him get too far along to quit before realizing that there's more to writing a book than just writing a book. Bryan lives on the Upper West Side in Manhattan with his wife of 25+ years, their two kids and their Jack Russell terrier, and he serves on the board of the nearby Bloomingdale School of Music, which has been providing open access to music education for more than 50 years. Read More Read Less