Michael J. Merry

Michael J. Merry was educated at the Royal Liberty School, Essex, United Kingdom and attended the Commercial Cable Telecommunications Training School in London in 1957. He was transferred to the Republic of Panama In 1959 as an instructor to assist the ITT Latin American region update its service. In 1964, at 24, he became Assistant Manager of ITT Standard Electric (Caribbean). On the evening of October 11th, 1968, the Panama National Guard overthrew the elected Government. That night Merry drove the President, his Chief of Staff (Merrys father-in-law) and two Ministers of State, to safety in the Canal Zone, some seven miles away. During this time, heavily armed military patrols were searching the city to arrest the Head of State and his Ministers. When Merry's actions were discovered, he was immediately dismissed by ITT. However, apart from his family relationship, he had no political affiliations and was and was immediately recruited by a Panamanian consortium to run a new private national telecommunications company. After six years he negotiated the sale of the company to the Military Government and was transferred to Puerto Rico, taking over as General Manager (Caribbean) for a joint venture between Cable and Wireless and Western Union International. While there he was asked to host the Early Show for WOSO the Islands' only English radio station. Returning to Panama, in 1987 he became Division Vice President of a major, U.S. based, international financial and political news operation, and in 1988, moved the company headquarters to Miami after the Noriega regime made it difficult to fund operations in Panama. In 1995. Later, in Miami he was contracted to write two, nationally televised financial programs weekly, and to edit a popular monthly financial report. His first book "The Golden Altar", was released in 2008. In January 2021, a new collection of short stories became available. Entitled "Waters of the Chagres (and five other tales). The book relates the story of a cache of arms the US Army left behind in Panama when they finally handed over the last the US assets there on December 31st, 1999. Mr. Merry has written nine earlier books. These days he writes, and along with his wife, lives in Miami Shores, Florida.

In October 2017, Mill City Press announced that Michael J. Merry had been honored with an award in the "Action/Adventure" category of their annual authors writing competition for his work, "Galleon, and seven other tales".