Gregg Coodley grew up in Philadelphia. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. He graduated from the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine in 1985. He did a residency in primary care internal medicine at Cambridge City Hospital in Massachusetts. In 1990 he moved to Portland, Oregon to become first an Assistant and then an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Oregon Health Sciences University. He became the Chief, University Section, Division of General Internal Medicine. He won awards for teaching and humanism and published research, particularly on HIV and nutrition. In 1997 he left the University to found the Fanno Creek Clinic, an independent primary care clinic in Southwest Portland. The Clinic now includes almost twenty physicians and recently saw its 50,000th patient. The Clinic received the Small Business of the Year award in Portland and pioneered innovations such as being the first medical clinic in Oregon to add solar power. Coodley continues a busy primary care practice while managing the Clinic.. Coodley is married, with four children and one step-child. He previously wrote and published "A Curious Journey" and the sequel "Return of the Cat", two fantasy adventures. He has had a lifelong passion for history, but "The Magnificent Losers" is his first historical writing.