About The Author

Andrew D. Gadtke was born and raised in the suburbs of Minneapolis, MN. As a student at Wayzata High School, he participated in many extracurricular athletic and academic activities, including playing football and leading the competitive math team as a co-captain. Outside of school he was a member of a Police Explorers team that won first place in the state competition in the category of crime prevention.

After graduating high school in 1999 ranked number one in his class with a perfect 4.0 GPA, he headed west to Pasadena, CA to attend the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as an undergraduate student. As a freshman he played on Caltech’s baseball team. Sometime during Andrew’s sophomore year at Caltech, the insidious onset of paranoid schizophrenia began. Slowly his symptoms increased, and Andrew left Caltech during his junior year.

Since leaving Caltech, Andrew has studied at several universities, including studying psychology at the University of Minnesota. He is involved in nonprofit work and serves on the board of directors of the Barbara Schneider Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates better law enforcement response to mental health crises. Andrew also gives regular speeches to the public on mental health. He lives independently and resides in Edina, MN.