Patrick Cook-Deegan

Wayfinder was born out of Patrick’s experience teaching character development courses at a public high school in Oakland, CA. Unable to find a curriculum that engaged students over his five years there, he began developing his own.In 2015, he was awarded an education innovation fellowship at the Stanford Institute of Design K12 Lab (d.school). He spent the next two years working closely with Bill Damon’s Center on Adolescence and leading a team that piloted, prototyped, and developed Wayfinder’s first offering: a year-long high school purpose learning curriculum. Now serving over 1.2 million students, Wayfinder provides future-focused solutions for school districts nationwide and beyond. Patrick remains involved in Wayfinder curriculum development around leadership and entrepreneurship, mental health + resilience for athletes, and 21st century skills. Since his adolescence in Annapolis, MD, Patrick has been interested in how people live purposeful lives. After graduating from Annapolis High School, he followed community connections to the Naval Academy to complete the Officer Candidate School for the Marines in Quantico, VA, while earning his bachelor’s degree at Brown University.Patrick has always been interested in public service. Human rights advocacy took him to Burma early in his career, where he worked on a bipartisan effort to bring the Burmese junta to the ICC and establish democratic leadership. Throughout subsequent human rights advocacy work and in his roles as co-founder of a youth development program and a classroom teacher, he remained driven by a purpose grounded in service.Patrick has spoken at more than 300 schools and K-12 conferences, including the NAIS, AVID National Conference, Learning & the Brain Conference, and COSA Leadership Conference. His work has been featured in The Washington Post, NPR, and other publications.