Patrick May is an award-winning staff writer with The Mercury News in San Jose, California, currently assigned to the Business Desk as a General Assignment reporter. Over his 34 years in daily newspapers, Pat has traveled overseas and around the nation, covering wars and natural disasters, writing both breaking news stories as well as longer pieces that examine how larger events or trends shape communities or subcultures. He has won numerous national and regional writing awards during his years as a reporter, 15 of them spent at the Miami Herald. In 1993, Pat shared with his colleagues a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the Herald staff's coverage of Hurricane Andrew and its aftermath. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Pat attended the University of California at Davis. After two years, he took a leave to roam the world, traveling through 30 countries for eight years, teaching English in Paris as well as in Iran and Turkey. Upon his return to the States, Pat received his bachelor's degree in journalism from San Francisco State University in 1981 before beginning his newspaper career in Florida.
