I’m Gary Rodrigues. I grew up in Stoughton, Massachusetts — known as the “Birthplace of American Liberty” — exploring its woods, paths, and ponds without knowing how much history lay along the routes I followed. I’ve spent the years since trying to recover it.
My narrative nonfiction manuscript What the Island Asked of Me examines Anguilla’s 1967 Revolution and the unresolved question of independence that followed—a story I’ve been part of for more than four decades, built from archives, firsthand testimony, and a trust placed in me by the revolution’s leader, James Ronald Webster, before he died. I had written a screenplay about the revolution when the late Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough stopped me: “Books always come before movies. You need to write the book.” I wrote it over twelve years while working full-time and finished it in May 2026. I am actively querying agents.
That same instinct led to Before They Were Patriots — a two-part reconstruction of seven men’s lives and the households they left behind, beginning with four names on a veterans memorial in my hometown. Part One is a narrative account accessible to any reader; Part Two is a full evidentiary dossier with primary sources, confidence levels, and a version-by-version research record. I also built an interactive research tool to accompany it. In October 2026 I presented the platform to the Stoughton Historical Society and offered my findings to the town in celebration of its upcoming Tricentennial.
The work is also the foundation for a historical novel now taking shape, The Grace of Old Stoughton, centered on a mother who lost three sons to the Revolution in a single year and was left to chase their wages: petitioning the Massachusetts General Court for the son who died of smallpox in Boston, then claiming from the regimental paymaster what was owed for the two who died in New York.
I have written throughout my career — published across technical and trade periodicals over four decades — alongside senior leadership and consulting roles with Willis Towers Watson, Marsh, and Arthur Andersen, work rooted in enterprise risk, organizational resilience, and human reliability. I began in the U.S. Navy, where I was named Honorman of my training company before entering the nuclear power program. I remain active in nuclear energy today.
My essays are here. Welcome!