EXCEL! BE THE BEST!
Those themes have echoed throughout Pat Winton’s life. Leaving behind a childhood of poverty and hardship in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, he excelled academically at the General Motors Institute, became, a mechanical engineer, and climbed automotive industry ladders, eventually becoming co-owner and CEO of an international manufacturing company.
For decades, Pat spent weekdays as CEO and weekends with his wife Elaine on increasingly larger boats berthed on Lake Erie. When his retirement loomed, he turned his attention to an even greater challenge: earn his master captain’s license and launch his second career as captain of large ships, with Elaine as first mate. In 2004, they traded corporate life for their new career navigating the waters and exploring the secrets of the Great Lakes and beyond. Pat’s second book, CHASING WAVES, is a new version of a coming-of-age tale, chronicling one man’s post-retirement quest to chart a second course for excellence: to become the best captain on the Great Lakes.
When his wife’s health began failing, Pat launched his third career at the age of 82: creative writing. His riveting coming-of-age memoir, Farmed Out in Ontonagon County (Pat’s first book), chronicles his difficult youth in a remote and impoverished tough-as-nails Finnish community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
