Patrick Gallaway describes himself simply: a prison guard from Attica. Yet behind those words is a lifetime of service—as a Correction Officer, Honor Guard member, critical-incident responder, historian, firefighter, CPOF representative and National Director. At every stage, Patrick has made the same choice: when people, history or the profession needed someone to step forward, he chose to be part of it.

The first time Patrick Gallaway attended PROJECT 2000, he stood toward the back and watched.

It was 2010, and PROJECT had come to Buffalo, New York. Patrick was there as a member of the Attica Honor Guard.

At that point, he had already spent 16 years working in corrections. He had walked the yard, managed cell blocks, responded to emergencies and stood beside partners during difficult days.

Like many correctional professionals, Patrick had come to believe that few people outside the profession truly understood what the job required.

He was not certain anyone really cared.

Then he saw CPOF.

He saw the families.

He saw Honor Guard teams from across the country standing together.

He saw an organization that did not appear for a ceremony and then disappear. It remained in the lives of surviving spouses and children, supporting them not only in the immediate aftermath of tragedy, but for years afterward.

Patrick was in awe.

In that moment, he made a decision.

He did not want merely to attend PROJECT.

He wanted to be part of it.

A Career Defined by the Work

Before entering corrections, Patrick completed a four-year apprenticeship with the Rochester Carpenters Union and worked in commercial construction.

The work taught him how to build, lead small crews and take responsibility for whether a job was completed safely and correctly.

In 1994, Patrick began his career with the New York State Department of Corrections.

Over the next 27 years, he served in five maximum- and medium-security facilities before retiring from Attica Correctional Facility in 2021.

Patrick’s career was not defined by a succession of promotional titles.

New York’s staffing practices often required employees seeking promotion to relocate to institutions six or eight hours from their homes. Patrick chose to remain close to his family and community while continuing to serve from the front line.

That decision did not limit the breadth of his experience.

He served in mounted patrol, managed cell blocks and joined specialized teams. He concluded his career as a security locksmith, a position carrying enormous responsibility within a correctional institution.

Locks, keys and security systems form part of an institution’s most fundamental defenses. The people entrusted with them must be dependable, methodical and deeply familiar with the facility.

Patrick earned that trust.

Throughout his career, he remained what he still proudly calls himself today:

A prison guard.

Standing Beside Officers After the Crisis

Patrick understood that the effects of correctional work did not always end when an incident was over.

In 2001, he completed training through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation to assist correctional employees following traumatic events.

He later became Assistant Western Hub Coordinator for New York’s Critical Incident Stress Management Team.

The work required Patrick to enter facilities after serious incidents and support the people who had responded. These were officers who had witnessed violence, faced danger or made split-second decisions under extraordinary pressure.

Correctional professionals are trained to respond.

They are not always given permission to acknowledge what those responses cost them.

Patrick helped create that space.

He listened to people who had experienced events that could not simply be left at the gate after a shift. He helped them understand that asking for support did not diminish their strength or professionalism.

Even after retirement, Patrick continued receiving requests to assist with major incidents across New York.

The calls continued because the trust remained.

Honor Through Action

Patrick also served for 19 years with the Attica Honor Guard.

Honor Guard service demands discipline, precision and reverence. It requires members to step into moments of profound grief and represent the correctional profession with dignity.

Patrick understood that ceremonial service was never merely about appearance.

Every movement had meaning.

Every detail communicated respect.

Every ceremony was an opportunity to tell a family that their loved one’s service mattered and would not be forgotten.

His participation in the Attica Honor Guard ultimately brought him to PROJECT 2000 in Buffalo in 2010.

After that first experience, Patrick helped facilitate Attica’s participation in PROJECT for the next 11 years.

There was only one year when he could not attend.

In 2015, Patrick was involved in the statewide manhunt following the escape of two convicted murderers from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.

The assignment placed him back in the terrain, searching for individuals determined not to be found.

It was another reminder of the realities correctional professionals face—and how quickly work that begins inside an institution can affect entire communities.

Preserving the History of Attica

Patrick’s life and service are deeply connected to Attica.

Attica Correctional Facility is known throughout the world because of the 1971 uprising and retaking of the prison. Yet much of the public history has overlooked the correctional employees who were taken hostage, those who lost their lives and the families and survivors who carried the effects of those four days for decades.

Patrick believed their experiences deserved to be preserved.

During the early 2010s, he became part of the effort to purchase and completely renovate a deteriorating building near the prison. With countless hours of volunteer labor and support from people who believed in the project, the building was transformed into the Attica Prison Preservation Foundation and museum.

CPOF Founding Director Glenn Mueller consistently supported Patrick and the preservation effort.

Glenn understood the importance of telling correctional history through the voices of the people who lived it. He worked alongside Patrick as the project developed, encouraging what he simply called a museum.

Patrick now serves as president of the Attica Prison Preservation Foundation.

Together with his wife, Kathy, fellow preservation leaders and countless volunteers, he has helped protect artifacts, photographs, documents and firsthand accounts that might otherwise have disappeared.

The museum is more than a collection.

It is a place where survivors can be heard.

It is a place where the names and experiences of correctional employees remain part of Attica’s history.

And it is a place where future generations can learn that history is not preserved by accident.

Someone must choose to carry it.

Patrick did.

Remembering Those Who Carried It

Through the museum and annual Attica remembrance, Patrick has spent years listening to survivors and families.

He has sat with people who experienced events most could never fully understand.

He has heard how a single moment can remain with someone for the rest of a lifetime.

Those conversations influenced how Patrick understood both corrections and CPOF.

He recognized that support cannot be limited to the day of an incident, a funeral or a memorial ceremony.

People carry these experiences long afterward.

Families do too.

Preserving history, supporting survivors and standing beside families are different expressions of the same promise:

What happened to you matters.

The people we lost matter.

You will not be forgotten.

Joining the National Honor Guard

In 2021, the same year he retired from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Patrick joined the CPOF National Honor Guard Team.

The role allowed him to represent the Foundation across the country, honoring fallen correctional professionals and supporting their families.

He brought nearly two decades of Honor Guard experience and a deep understanding of what ceremonial service means to those left behind.

Patrick traveled to memorials, funerals and CPOF events, standing alongside correctional Honor Guard members from many different agencies and states.

The uniforms differed.

The promise did not.

Each time the team answered a call, it reminded a family and an agency that the national correctional community stood beside them.

For Patrick, that service was personal.

He had seen the effect CPOF’s presence had on families when he first attended PROJECT in 2010. As a member of the National Honor Guard, he became one of the people responsible for creating that same sense of support for others.

Taking CPOF Across New York

In 2023, Patrick became CPOF’s New York State Representative.

He traveled throughout the state, speaking with correctional employees, increasing awareness of CPOF and explaining the resources available to staff and their families.

Once again, Patrick’s credibility came from lived experience.

He was not speaking about correctional work from a distance.

He had performed it for 27 years.

He knew what it was like to work a cell block, answer a radio call, search difficult terrain and stand beside a partner when circumstances went wrong.

He also knew what it felt like to believe that the profession’s voice was not always heard or understood.

Patrick could meet officers where they were because he had been there himself.

He did not ask them to trust CPOF only because he represented it.

He explained why he had chosen to trust it.

Service Beyond Corrections

Patrick’s commitment to public service extends throughout his community.

In 2015, he became a volunteer firefighter with the East Pembroke Fire Department. He also serves as an EMS provider and, in 2025, became the department’s Vice President.

Fire and emergency response require many of the same qualities Patrick carried throughout his correctional career: composure, teamwork, preparation and a willingness to move toward someone else’s crisis.

Patrick’s family has a long tradition of community involvement, including fundraising, coaching and supporting neighbors in need.

He has continued that tradition through corrections, critical-incident response, the Honor Guard, historical preservation and emergency services.

Even after retiring from corrections, Patrick did not step away from hard work. He established Gallaway Drywall and Interior Systems, drawing upon the construction experience with which his working life began.

Whether building walls, preserving history or supporting people after catastrophe, Patrick has continued finding ways to serve.

A Historic Weekend at Attica

In September 2026, several parts of Patrick’s life came together during the 55th anniversary of the Attica tragedy.

CPOF’s National Honor Guard hosted regional training at the East Pembroke Fire House—the department where Patrick serves his community.

Honor Guard teams from across the country gathered to train, exchange knowledge and prepare to honor the fallen with consistency and dignity.

The following day, members of the Attica Honor Guard began at the Attica Prison Preservation Foundation and carried photographs of the correctional employees who lost their lives as a result of the 1971 uprising across the street to the memorial at Attica Correctional Facility.

The procession connected the museum Patrick helped build, the Honor Guard community he served and the history he had spent years protecting.

Different uniforms stood together.

Survivors and families watched.

A new generation carried the photographs.

The moment represented everything Patrick had worked to preserve: history passed carefully from one generation to the next, with the dignity the victims and survivors deserved.

From the Back of the Room to the Board

In August 2025, Patrick was selected to serve as a National Director on CPOF’s Board of Directors.

The appointment was the continuation of a journey that began 15 years earlier when he stood toward the back of PROJECT 2000 in Buffalo.

Patrick did not seek Board service because he wanted to distance himself from frontline officers.

He sought it because he wanted to represent them.

In applying for the Board, Patrick explained that he believed he could bridge the gap between the officers performing the work and the administrators responsible for organizational leadership.

That perspective matters.

CPOF was founded by correctional officers who recognized that their profession needed something more. They understood the job because they lived it.

Patrick brings that same frontline understanding to the Board.

He knows the weight of the uniform.

He knows the frustration of feeling questioned or unheard.

He knows what it means to do everything possible to keep partners safe and still find decisions examined by people far removed from the circumstances.

And he knows how powerful it can be when an organization finally makes correctional professionals feel seen.

“I Stand Here as One of You”

At PROJECT 2000 XXXVII in Salt Lake City, Patrick hosted the Memorial Luncheon as a National Director.

He stood on the same stage where leaders he had admired once stood.

But he made something clear to the correctional professionals and surviving families gathered before him.

He did not stand there only as a Director.

He stood there as one of them.

Someone who had worked the yard.

Someone who had responded when things went wrong.

Someone who still carried the experiences of the profession.

Someone who continued to believe in the people who perform its difficult and often misunderstood work.

Patrick told the room that corrections is more than a uniform.

It is sacrifice.

It is brotherhood.

It is family.

Those words were not written from a distance.

They came from 27 years behind the walls, decades of Honor Guard service and countless hours spent with survivors, families and officers who continued carrying experiences long after the moment had passed.

The Prison Guard Who Chose to Be Part of It

Today, we recognize Patrick Gallaway:

A Correction Officer who served for 27 years in New York’s maximum- and medium-security facilities.

An Attica officer trusted with mounted patrol, cell blocks and institutional security.

A Critical Incident Stress Management leader who stood beside correctional professionals following traumatic events.

An Honor Guard member who represented the profession with dignity for decades.

A responder who participated in the Dannemora escapee manhunt.

A historian who helped build a place where Attica’s correctional employees, victims and survivors would not be forgotten.

A volunteer firefighter and EMS provider who continues answering calls within his community.

A CPOF representative who traveled throughout New York to support correctional staff.

A National Director who remains committed to representing the officers working on the front line.

And, in his own words, a prison guard from Attica.

Patrick’s legacy is not defined by how far he moved away from the yard.

It is defined by how faithfully he carried the people and lessons of the yard with him.

In 2010, he saw CPOF taking care of correctional families and decided he did not want merely to watch.

He wanted to be part of it.

He has been part of it ever since.

If you served with Patrick in New York corrections, stood beside him on an Honor Guard, worked with him through the Attica Prison Preservation Foundation, East Pembroke Fire Department or CPOF—or have a photograph or memory to share—we would be honored to help preserve it as part of his living legacy.