Pat Hawk, who founded Hawk’s
Enterprises, was born in Austin, Texas and attended the University of
Texas. After four years in the Air Force in California & Germany, he
returned to the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area of Texas to work in the Aerospace
Industry. There he remained for most of his career, except for a six year
stay at Cape Kennedy during the height of the U.S. Space Program. Most of
the last twenty years of his career were spent in Project/Program
Management.
Pat has always been an avid reader and
book lover. That love grew into book collecting in the 1980s. Pat soon
discovered that most libraries and even many of the book dealers he dealt
with did not have adequate resources to answer all his questions. So, he
started to accumulate the results of his research and author interviews.
Several reference librarians and book dealers became aware of the
information he was gathering, and they encouraged him to organize and
publish his data in book form.
In 1992, Pat published the first edition
of Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms for Book Collectors attributing over
17, 000 pseudonyms. The
publication of that book created considerable interest by both users and
authors alike. Other bibliophiles provided the results of their efforts
quickly expanding the knowledge available. Authors provided input to both
grow the data and improve the accuracy. Two examples - when he wanted to
verify the information had on the pseudonyms of Dean R. Koontz and Robert
Silverberg, he wrote the authors sending the information he had asking
for their confirmation. Both responded providing the necessary corrections
and additions. Pat has continued to follow the practice of contacting
authors whenever possible. What better source than the author?
Upon retirement, Pat & Mary Jo moved near
Greenville, Texas to be close to their youngest daughter and her family. A
prime requisite of the new location was a separate secure building to
house the thousands of books he had collected. A nice home with an almost
new metal building was found near Greenville, and three van loads of books
found their new home.
By the completion of Hawk’s Authors’
Pseudonyms III, Librarians and Book Dealers had made known the
pressing need for genre series references. Since Westerns were Pat’s first
love, he decided to tackle that book first. With tremendous help from the
authors of the Western Writers Association, the Hawk’s Western Series &
Sequels was published in 1999. Two others soon followed and the
Mystery Series book is well underway.
Pat has really enjoyed retirement. He now
has the time to research, interview authors, compile and publish valuable
references in an easy to use format.
