Bio:David Wayne Hillery

David Wayne Hillery was born on June 28, 1957 in Goliad, Texas. His parents were Robert Daniel Hillery from Ohio and Ernestine Emelia (Budewig) Hillery from Texas. David Hillery was the third of three children, the first 2 being Mark Vincent Hillery and Sharon Eva Hillery. Robert Hillery died on June 8, 2007, but Ernestine, Mark and Sharon all live in Texas. Hillery's parents moved the family to Findlay, Ohio when he was 2 years old, but in 1968, when he was 11, they moved to Houston, Texas for 5 years. In 1973 they moved back to Findlay, where Hillery attended Findlay High School and graduated in the class of 1975.

He began attending the University of Texas at Austin in 1975, but his college education was interrupted when he and his brother Mark had a car accident on the way from Findlay, where his Parents lived, to Texas where they were both attending the University. They had been home for the Christmas break and were driving at night through a severe blizzard in southern Ohio and Kentucky. Their car, a white Ford Maverick, went off the Interstate highway while being driven by Mark Hillery, and collided with a tree in north Kentucky. This collision caused severe injuries to David Hillery, who woke up in a hospital in Elizabethtown, Kentucky with no memory of the accident.

Hillery recovered from his injuries and returned to the University of Texas, but after twice dropping out of college and moving into and out of various jobs to keep himself occupied, he settled for a life as a draftsman and laboratory technician in Austin, Texas.

He married Nancy Alkier in 1985, and he returned to college at the University of Texas again in about 1988. This time he stayed in college while also working full time at his job and eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering in August 1991, at the age of 34. He and his wife moved to Houston when he got his first job as an Engineer.

Hillery's career had him moving from job to job, serving various amounts of time from 9 months to several years at a time, but his marriage to Nancy ended with separation in 1992, and they were divorced in 1993. He remarried in 1994 to Teresa Deatherage in Houston. The second marriage also ended in divorce in 2010.

Starting in September 1997, Hillery began classes in the Korean martial art of Taekwon-Do, in a new school started by William R. Howard. In January of 2000, Hillery was promoted to First Degree Black Belt, and has presently acheived the rank of Fifth Degree Black Belt (September 25, 2010). He acts as a senior Taekwon-Do instructor under Mr. Howard in Houston, Texas.

In August 2006, Hillery began writing what would become his first published novel, The First Degree. The manuscript was finished in March 2007, but he did not sign a publishing contract until 2008, when Dorrance Publishing Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania agreed to publish the book. The book was first printed in May of 2010, and released with the publisher's promotion in July of that year. Hillery has expressed an interest in publishing a sequel entitled The Second Degree. The website suggests that the book is the first in a series of books.

The book is Science Fiction work, fitting into the literary genre known as Speculative Fiction, but Hillery suggests that the genres of Christian Fiction and Martial Arts Fiction also apply.

Hillery presently works as a Bridge Inspector in Texas, and is a member of the Structural Engineers Association of Texas.