He also served as the chairman of the board for Our Generation Speaks, a fellowship program and startup incubator whose mission is to bring together young Israeli and Palestinian leaders through entrepreneurship.

[10] Patrick was born on July 31, 1956, in the South Side of Chicago, where his family resided in a two-bedroom apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes' housing projects.

[14] He graduated from Harvard College, where he was a member of the Fly Club, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude,[14] in English and American literature, in 1978.

Working with employees at all levels, Patrick and his Task Force examined and reformed Texaco's complex corporate employment culture, and created a model for fostering an equitable workplace.

[24] In 1999, partly because of his work on the Equality and Fairness Task Force, Patrick was offered the job as General Counsel of Texaco, responsible for all of the company's legal affairs.

Patrick pushed for a thorough review of allegations that some workers at bottlers of Coke products in Colombia had been abused or even killed by paramilitary groups as a result of union organizing activity.

Before taking office, Patrick assembled a transition team headed by lawyer Michael Angelini, bank executive Ronald Homer, and Weld administration economic affairs secretary Gloria Cordes Larson.

[32] In honor of his heritage, he took his oath of office on the Mendi Bible, which was given to then-Congressman John Quincy Adams by the freed American slaves from the ship La Amistad.

[35] In the general election, Patrick faced Republican lieutenant governor Kerry Healey and Independent Massachusetts Turnpike Commission member Christy Mihos.

[36] Patrick faced criticism for having once written letters to the parole board describing correspondence from Benjamin LaGuer, a man convicted of a brutal eight-hour rape, as "thoughtful, insightful, eloquent, [and] humane".

[41] Patrick was opposed for the Democratic nomination by Grace Ross, the 2006 Green-Rainbow nominee for governor, but she withdrew when she could not garner the number of signatures needed to run.

As the bill was being voted down, Patrick was in New York City on personal business, finalizing a $1.35-million deal with Broadway Books, an imprint of Random House, to publish his autobiography.

[65] In 2010, Patrick pushed for legislation to limit the purchase of firearms, citing a series of gun violence incidents and violent crime in Boston.

[69] Patrick also committed a historic amount of public funds to Massachusetts schools, introduced legislation to tackle a persistent education gap among minority students, and won the national Race to the Top competition.

[87] In response to the influx of children from Central America crossing the US border in the summer of 2014, Patrick proposed taking 1,000 migrants to be housed at various sites in Massachusetts, until they can be processed at immigration centers.

[89] On January 30, 2013, Patrick chose his former chief-of-staff Mo Cowan to serve as interim U.S. senator until a special election to fill the seat left vacant by Secretary of State designate John Kerry.

[94] In June 2015, the Boston Herald reported that Patrick's administration secretly diverted nearly $27 million in government funds to off-budget accounts that paid for trade junkets tab, advertising contracts, and a deal with a federally subsidized tourism venture backed by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.

[97] In 2014, Patrick signed a law requiring health insurers to extend coverage to people struggling with drug addiction by covering up to two weeks of inpatient treatment.

The bill was seen in the broader context of state government battling the soaring opioid drug abuse rates, following a $20 million package introduced in June consisting of proposals targeting the problem.

Patrick generated controversy when he took a position that directly opposed that of the campaign,[103] defending the business practices of the Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee.

In March 2016, Patrick was named by USA Today as a possible Obama nominee to fill the U.S. Supreme Court associate justice seat, vacated by the February 2016 death of Antonin Scalia.

Patrick claimed that such businesses were focused on in order to, "generate both a private-equity-style return —a financial return— and measurable impact in one of three areas: sustainability, health and wellness, and what we’re describing as community building."

[111] Patrick became the chairman of the board for Our Generation Speaks, a fellowship program and startup incubator whose mission is to bring together young Israeli and Palestinian leaders through entrepreneurship.

[112] In April 2021, Patrick launched the Future of Tech Commission with Common Sense Media founder Jim Steyer and former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

The commission's goal is to compile solutions for a comprehensive tech policy agenda under President Biden and Congress on topics as privacy, antitrust, digital dequity, and content moderation/platform accountability.

On February 28, 2018, in response to reports that David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett wanted him to run for president in 2020, Patrick stated on public radio that it was "on my radar screen".

[120][121] On December 6, 2018, Patrick formally stated via Facebook that he would not be running for president in 2020, writing, "I’ve been overwhelmed by advice and encouragement from people from all over the country, known and unknown.

But knowing that the cruelty of our elections process would ultimately splash back on people whom Diane and I love, but who hadn't signed up for the journey, was more than I could ask.

[126] Patrick's second scheduled public event since announcing his candidacy, a speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia on November 20, 2019, was cancelled when only two people showed up.

In July 2008, Katherine publicly announced that she is lesbian, and mentioned that her father did not know this while he was fighting against a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have banned same-sex marriage.