A product of Catholic schools growing up in the Midwest, Steve Mitchell joined the U.S. Navy in 1969 and served in Vietnam aboard an antiquated tender anchored in the Saigon River. After his honorable discharge in 1975, Steve earned a journalism degree at Iowa State University and moved to Estes Park, Colorado where he wrote for a solar newspaper and worked as a reference librarian at the Estes Park Public Library. Today Steve and his wife Lori live in Muscatine, Iowa where they babysit their grandson Jackson a couple days a week and enjoy an occasional craft beer.