Thomas E Heckenkamp is a Vietnam War veteran and was a team leader of a special ops unit—Lurps (LRRP), and 75th Army Rangers. He taught high school sciences and worked in home construction in Australia for nine years. He also spent time in the Andes Mountains of Colombia, South America, part time over a recent ten-year period. He enjoys windsurfing sports, and snowboarding, which he teaches at a ski resort in the UP of Michigan. The story Three Candles for Tiny the Fawn developed as the result of the trust and friendship that formed between him and a baby deer while living in a log cabin in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.