Patrick spearheaded the company’s entry into the New York electricity market during that time. After working in the finance department for two years, he joined the newly formed Retail Power team, where over the next ten years, he held a variety of roles and eventually managed the company’s retail power marketing operations. Patrick Asare began his career at UGI Energy Services in 2003 as a financial analyst.

Readers will constantly find themselves amazed at Asare’s unflagging persistence in trying to rise up and live the life he envisions for himself.” A large part of the story involves historical details and incidents that Asare lived through, and to which he offers an insider’s perspective. His account is scattered with piquant, often outright funny, incidents which lend the narrative a buoyancy amid all the strife. There is nothing stereotypical about the way Asare portrays the various villages and cities through which his life passes. Lovers of international stories of perseverance, history, and politics will enjoy this memoir, which is as illuminating as it is inspiring.'Ī review from Book Life said ”Right off the bat, Asare throws readers into a compellingly drawn world replete with rampant poverty, hunger and illiteracy. Publisher’s Weekly declared that “ sharp, engaging prose will keep readers hooked. Teaching in inner-city high schools alerted him to the particular challenges faced by America's urban Black youth.”

He was raised by loving and supportive parents and lived in a society where race was not an issue. Patrick's travels and adventures taught him that, regardless of his hardscrabble childhood, he was a lucky man. Finding his way to the United States, he taught Russian and math and eventually obtained a superb education from top American universities. He graduated from an elite secondary school and earned his engineering degree in the Soviet Union during the perestroika era. Despite major setbacks, he kept his eye on the prize. During school vacations, he toiled in a jungle farm teeming with poisonous snakes and insects.ĭedicating every stolen moment to study, Patrick passed the common entrance exam with flying colors. Numerous obstacles stood in the way of Patrick's yearning for higher knowledge, including gnawing hunger, lack of sleep, and backbreaking daily chores. No one in the village aspired to be educated beyond middle school. His family was so large and impoverished that not even the earnings from crushing hard work could buy enough food to fill their bellies.

Patrick Asare’s memoir, The Boy from Boadua: One African's Journey of Hunger and Sacrifice in Pursuit of a Dream, was published this past December, can be found on Amazon, and is now seen on desks all over the UGIES offices.įrom the Publisher: “Patrick Asare was born and raised by illiterate parents in the remote Ghanaian village of Boadua.

The Boy from Boadua by Patrick Asare