Erich Eipert

Born in Germany but reared on an Iowa farm, Erich gave up tractors to obtain a degree in biology, tour South Vietnam on helicopters and armored personnel carriers, and earn a PhD in immunology. Shortly after a research position brought him to the Pacific Northwest from Southern California, he began to spend more time away from the lab and acquired a greater interest in exploring hiking trails and his family history than esoteric aspects of the immune response. A subsequent journalism degree, the stories he’d collected from his parents and others, and multiple trips to Europe in pursuit of interviews, records, and history propelled him to piece together the nonfiction narrative he found himself charged with. When not writing, Erich spends time with his grandsons, coaches vision-impaired athletes in the sport of goalball, plays bocce, travels abroad, and still pounds out a few miles hiking the mountains and deserts of the great American West.