James A. Hawkins spent more than eleven years as a U.S. Marine and was a veteran of the Vietnam War. Upon returning to civilian life, he became an international educator, author, and business executive whose career spanned more than three decades and brought cutting-edge training technology to more than one hundred international countries. He was the chairman and chief executive officer of The Autumn Group, LLC, a humanitarian and ecologically-sensitive land development company located in Honolulu, HI, prior to his death in 2015. "A Common Virtue" was his first novel.