Pat was the person who first taught me how to compare fingerprints. I was one of his students at the Defense Forensic Science Center; after such a short, intense training period, I had considered Pat to be my fingerprint mentor. Even after I moved back to Texas, I still kept in touch with him. Not too often, just a few emails every couple of years ranging from giving him updates about different career milestones to telling him that the Texas Bluebonnets were blooming. It was always nice to hear from him and hear how he was doing, and I know I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. I think my dad put it best when he told me last week, “Sometimes we are blessed to have a rare relationship with an exceptional person.”