Minneapolis resident and North Dakota native Patrick John Atkinson earned two undergraduate degrees at Minnesota State University Moorhead, a Masters in Nonprofit Management at Regis University, and post-graduate studies at Harvard University and the University of Oxford. After graduation from MSUM in 1981, Patrick turned down lucrative corporate job offers to work with runaways, prostitutes, and gang members in New York City. Two years later, Patrick moved to Central America where he began a life-long international career in war-zone reconciliation and post-war reconstruction. He is the recipient of numerous human rights awards (including the Guatemalan Congressional Medal) and the subject of the biography, The Dream Maker, by Monica Hannan. He is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Trafficked, Exploited & Missing Persons (ITEMP.org), The Atkinson Center (AtkinsonCenter.org), The GOD'S CHILD Project (GodsChild.org), and several other charities worldwide. He is the author / co-author of eight books including the international selling Message for My Child and The Powerful You!, both of which are available in over a dozen languages. He has finished book nine: BANANITO - The Lost Boy The Toughest Streets Couldn't Kill (anticipating a 2026 national release), and is currently working on book ten. When not being shot at, knifed, caught in car-bombings, or traveling worldwide advocating on behalf of abused, abandoned, or human-trafficking victims, Patrick resides in Central America and at Hippo Wallow Pond, his family home outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota.