About the Author

 Marshall McGaw started his life journey on Fairview Drive on the last leg of a route called The Z in Mount Pleasant Tennessee. He attended Haylong Elementary a couple of blocks away until the sixth grade. It was not uphill both ways as schools were in his father’s time.

Marshall then headed to Columbia Military Academy in Columbia Tennessee and spent the next six years there, graduating in 1975 in the top ten in his class.

From there he headed to Vanderbilt University School of Engineering. While home one summer from Vanderbilt, he told his parents he wanted to take a year off from school to ‘find himself’. It was the 70’s after all. He found himself alright…he found himself digging ditches for minimum wage in the hot Tennessee sun. 

In 1977, he met his future wife Jean Bond at the Lion’s Club Haunted House in Mount Pleasant Tennessee as Halloween approached. She had recently moved to Columbia Tennessee from Wiggins Mississippi, a town about 30 miles north of the Mississippi gulf coast (Gulfport area). She had just entered her senior year at Columbia Central High School in Columbia Tennessee. They married in 1979.

Meanwhile, Marshall stretched his one year hiatus from college until 1991 when he decided to go back to school. He enrolled at Columbia State Community College in Columbia Tennessee and while there grew to love the sciences (thankyou BI Naddy and Monte Bayless). He graduated in 1993 in the top ten in his class with an Associate of Science degree and also received the CSCC Biology Award, an award given to only one student each year.

Since he graduated in the top ten, he was awarded a Presidential Scholarship to any state school and headed to Middle Tennessee State University. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry in 1997.

After graduating from college, Marshall was promoted into the management ranks in the logistics division of Dana Corporation, a Fortune 500 auto parts manufacturing company. Over the next 10 years he would transfer with this company to Dandridge Tennessee (lived in Jefferson City), Paris Tennessee (lived in McKenzie), Fort Wayne Indiana, and finally to Pensacola Florida.

Once arriving in Pensacola, Marshall enrolled in the MBA program at The University of West Florida and graduated in 2008. He currently works for a large chemical company and is Finance Manager for the company's compounding operations in the US and the Netherlands.

Through the years Marshall and Jean have been blessed with three children and eleven grandchildren (5 in East Tennessee and 6 in Alaska). The McGaws still reside in Pensacola with their son Jacob and the ruler of the house Toby (their precious dog).