Damien Patton he is known for being a founder of the American software company Banjo and as a NASCAR mechanic. He is also a Navy veteran and an adventurer. He stepped down from Banjo in May 2020.
Biography
Patton was born July 11, 1972. In April 2020, Matt Stroud of OneZero uncovered CEO Patton's involvement with the Nashville, Tennessee-based Dixie Knights chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Patton says he lived under the freeway in Los Angeles from age fifteen on. He shaved his head and affiliated with white supremacist Skinheads. Texas KKK member Jesse Albert Johnson took him to Tennessee; Johnson wanted to move the James O. Pace organization there and open a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Patton has confirmed his membership in the KKK, Aryan Nations, and involvement with the white power skinheads, which he called "the foot soldiers for groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations", and admitted to painting swastikas and "KKK" on buildings, as well as impersonating an FBI agent. OneZero republished a picture printed in The Tennessean of Patton at an Aryan Nations meeting where he and other members are giving the Nazi salute. He also built a house for Christan music producerJonathan David Brown, and worked as a "maintenance man" at an apartment complex, where he purchased weapons for Brown. After attending an Aryan Nations meeting with Brown, Patton was involved in a drive-by shooting of a synagogue as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. When Patton was 17, he drove Grand KnightLeonard William Armstrong during a drive-by shooting with a TEC-9 on the West End Synagogue. Police arrested Patton and confiscated an AK-47. He was then released to the custody of Christian music producer Jonathan David Brown. Patton and his girlfriend Lynn Battistelli then fled the state with the assistance of Brown. The two went to Texas, Arizona, and then stayed in Las Vegas for a few weeks, then went to Los Angeles for a few months. In November 1990 he returned to Tennessee, staying on Brown's farm. In December he moved to east Tennessee with Leonard Armstrong. Patton married Lynn Battistelli on June 14, 1991 and had one child at the time of his grand jury testimony in September 1991. Patton had met Battistelli at the Aryan Nations meeting the day of the drive-by shooting, and identified her as "a skinhead from Memphis, Tennessee" in Brown's 1992 trial. After reconnecting with his estranged father after Christmas 1990, Patton spent January 1991 in Hawaii, working construction with his father. He then joined the U.S. Navy in February 1991. By 1992 he was on the USS America. He admitted to fraternizing with Skinheads in the Navy during Brown's 1992 trial over the KKK shooting. In the trial he indicated he pled guilty to a juvenile offense in exchange for providing testimony. In a 2015 Inc. profile, he said he wanted to enlist after seeing the 1990 Gulf War on TV. He said he rose up the ranks on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, leaving after two tours, ending up in San Diego, California. Patton said he had a "building and construction company I started as a kid", and sold it when in his mid-20s. After starting on a NASCAR pit crew in 1993, he became the chief mechanic on a NASCAR team sponsored by Lowe's. His NASCAR career was eight years and was a job he dreamed about while in the Gulf War a year before starting. Patton told Inc. that he got his degree from University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Bryant School of Business in three years while working for NASCAR, graduating magna cum laude. He then was a crime scene investigator for Davidson, North Carolina Police Department while still working full-time. Later a profile said he moved to Hawaii and got into wood flooring, including manufacturing, selling it in 2006. By 2009 Patton was taking graduate classes at MIT, commuting from Las Vegas to Boston. By 2015 Patton was married to Jennifer Peck, who also worked at Banjo. Patton bought a Trophy Truck in 2016, and Damen Jeffries raced it in the Mint 400 in 2017.
Banjo
After hackathons in 2010 and 2011, Patton founded Banjo, then called Peer Compass, as a localized friend-finding app. By 2014 Banjo had pivoted to AI event detection of surveillance video for public safety, gaining a $20 million contract for the State of Utah in 2019 and attention from privacy advocates. When Patton's ties to the KKK were uncovered in April 2020, the company experienced significant negative publicity, and their contracts with Utah and Indiana were suspended. On May 8, 2020, Patton resigned from the board and as CEO of Banjo, removing all his decision making authority.
