Gerald Burke Leonard began writing in 2000 as he was concluding a 40 year professional career in the field of transportation. During that time he headed the transit planning programs for the Chicago region following by a similar role in Los Angeles where he supervised a large staff in the regional transportation planning process. At the height of that process he was hired away to the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County for the purpose of planning and finding a means by which to actually create rail transit system in Los Angeles County. Working to implement the vision of L.A. County Supervisor Baxter Ward, Mr. Leonard conducted all the planning, pre- preliminary engineering, marketing studies and community involvement that led to the passage of his ballot measure in November 1980 (after the regional transit agency and their consultants had failed in three prior efforts).
Following this success Mr. Leonard went into transportation consulting, first for several of the large national firms, before creating his own practice which he operated for nearly 30 years – the latter stages of which dealt exclusively with solving the parking and transportation problems of college and university campuses around the country.
By 2000 climbing onto planes for last minute travel to “put out the proverbial fires” for clients, he downscoped his practice and then retired from it to begin writing. The impact of such outstanding authors as Lee Child, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Stephen Hunter inspired two of his first efforts – Out of the Shadows (originally titled, An Irish Debacle; and, Der Schlussel – Hitler’s Key. His sense of humor led to a series of books that have depicted some of the painful pitfalls in the lives of women but with a flair for anecdotes to lighten the mood.
The proverbial 900# Gorilla of his work is yet to see the light of day: U.S. Army Installations – World War II: A Research Reference. This encyclo-pedic effort contains 4 volumes: Army Ground Forces, Army Air Forces, Army Service Forces, and Prisoner of War Camps. A thorough documen-tation of the facility from the war period is accompanied by current photography based on extensive travel about the country. The U.S. Army through the Center for Military History at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. and provided a set of data in recognition of the value of this series of books – the series will include as well as be accompanied by a database program that identifies every U.S. Army unit stationed at one post or another during the war period.