Craig Childs is writer who focuses on natural sciences, archaeology, and mind-blowing journeys into the wilderness. He has published more than a dozen critically acclaimed books on nature, science, and adventure. He is a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, Outside and Orion. His subjects range from pre-Columbian archaeology to US border issues to the last free-flowing rivers of Tibet.

The expeditions Childs goes on often last weeks or months, informing his writing with a hard-earned sense of landscape and culture. The New York Times says "Childs's feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he's a modern-day desert father. He has been called a born storyteller by the New York Sun, and the LA Times says his writing is like pure oxygen, and "stings like a slap in the face." He has won several key awards including the 2008 Galen Rowell Art of Adventure Award, the 2007 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and the 2003 Spirit of the West Award for his body of work, an honor he shares with Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams and N. Scott Momaday. Childs is an Arizona native, and grew up back and forth between there and Colorado. With a mother hooked on outdoor adventure, and a father who liked whiskey, guns, and Thoreau, his life was rigged from the start. In his teens, Childs began working as a river guide, and since then has held numerous jobs to support his field time, from gas station attendant to journalist to beer bottler. Now making a living as a writer, Childs lives off the grid with his wife and two young sons at the foot of the West Elk Mountains in Colorado.

Michael F. Anderson, Ph.D., earned his doctoral degree in history from Northern Arizona University in 1999. He has been a researcher and writer of Grand Canyon history since 1990, a teacher and guide for the Grand Canyon Field Institute since 1993, and Grand Canyon National Park's trails archeologist and cultural resource specialist since 2001. Mike is the author of three canyon histories, all published by Grand Canyon Association: Living at the Edge: Explorers, Exploiters and Settlers of the Grand Canyon Region, Polishing the Jewel: An Administrative History of Grand Canyon National Park, and Along the Rim: A Guide to Grand Canyon's South Rim from Hermits Rest to Desert View.

Mike served as project director for Grand Canyon's first history symposium in January 2002, and compiled and edited the proceedings for publication by Grand Canyon Association, entitled A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians. His work also includes nominations of Grand Canyon's trails to the National Register of Historic Places, Historic American Engineering reports of the canyon's historic roads (available at the Library of Congress), and articles in Grand Canyon Nature Notes and the GCA newsletter, Canyon Views.

When not exploring Grand Canyon's roads and trails, Mike is often teaching history to park interpreters and other park staff, and NAU and Yavapai College Elderhostel groups. In 2005 the Grand Canyon Historical Society honored him for his contributions to canyon historiography with the society's pioneer award. He was recently elected president of the historical society for the year 2006.

Deon Ben is Navajo and originally from Tohatchi, NM, but he grow up in a traditional Navajo homestead in Arizona and New Mexico. He is of the Many House People Clan, born for the Salt People Clan; his maternal grandfather is of the Weaver People Clan, and his paternal grandfather is of the Red House People Clan. He was raised to believe in the natural powers of the natural world that surrounds us and grew up hearing the stories of his ancestors and how they suffered to ensure a future survival for the children and grandchildren.

In May of 2009, Deon graduated from Northern Arizona University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Environmental Studies He now works for the Grand Canyon Trust in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Thomas C. Hanks is Research Geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, where he investigates the causes and effects of earthquakes as part of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).

During the summers of 1927 and 1928, when both were undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin, his father James J. Hanks accompanied Clyde Kluckhohn to the American Southwest. Kluckhohn was then beginning his career as the pre-eminent anthropologist of the Navajo and one of the great anthropologists of the 20th Century. Across a domain of thousands of square miles between Red Lake, Arizona, and the southeastern end of the Kaiparowits Plateau, J.J. Hanks took almost 500 photographs, most of which may be viewed on-line at the Cline Library of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Hanks, along with D.E. Boyer, D. Oldershaw, and R.H. Webb, located and re-occupied approximately 150 of the 1927 and 1928 camera stations. A number of these repeat photography pairs show remarkable ecologic, geologic, geomorphic, and/or hydrologic change in a human lifetime that forms the basis of T.C. Hanks’ presentation at this Powell Symposium, and the exhibit currently on display at the John Wesley Powell Museum in Page, and the repeat photography site at Cline Library.

Steve Hayden is a Volunteer Interpretive Ranger for the National Park Service at Navajo National Monument. He is the son of Julian Hayden who was on the 1934 CWA Expedition to Navajo National Monument.

Harvey Leake is the great-grandson of Louisa and John Wetherill. He began researching the history of the Four Corners Country more than twenty-five years ago, focusing on the explorations and activities the Wetherill family from whom he is descended. His investigations have taken him into many of the Colorado plateau's remote canyons as well as into archives, libraries, and family historical collections. He assists in the interpretation of historical documents and photographs for the Wetherill Archive at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colorado and is employed as an electrical engineer in Phoenix. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Arizona State University and a Master of Arts degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Park Ranger Allen Malmquist feels that he has an historian’s dream job. As the historic structures repair specialist at the Lees Ferry and Lonely Dell Ranch National Historic District he researches the history, recommends repair and rehabilitation, facilitates consultation with agencies concerned, and then actually gets to do the repairs himself.

“There is great satisfaction in seeing one of these special buildings repaired and open to the public.” He also maintains the orchard and historic garden and shares the history with visitors.

Allen studied geology and history at Stanford University, traveled extensively throughout the Southwest, and spent three seasons as a historian at Pipe Spring National Monument. He earned an education degree from the University of Arizona and taught school in Page for twenty-two years. He is best known in the Page community for the outrageous field-trip/back-pack geology classes he taught for Yavapai College throughout the 1980s. 

While teaching, Allen worked summers as a seasonal interpreter at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in the late 1990s. After retiring from the school in 2000 he has dedicated his “retirement” to preserving the history of Lees Ferry. 

Park Ranger Chuck Smith is the Sub-District Interpreter at Rainbow Bridge National Monument where he spends his days engaging the monument's visitors with the geology and history of Rainbow Bridge.

Mark Squillace is a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, where he teachs environmental, water, and advanced natural resources law; he is also the Director of the Natural Resources Law Center. Before coming to Colorado, Professor Squillace taught at the University of Toledo College of Law where he was the Charles Fornoff Professor of Law and Values, and at the University of Wyoming College of Law where he served a three-year term as the Winston S. Howard Professor of Law.

In 2000, Professor Squillace took a leave from law teaching to serve as Special Assistant to the Solicitor at the U.S. Department of the Interior. In that capacity he worked directly with the Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, on variety of legal and policy issues. Professor Squillace also was former Director of Litigation for the Environmental Policy Institute in Washington, DC and for three years was Attorney Advisor for the Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior. He is a former Fulbright scholar and the author or co-author of numerous articles and books on natural resources and environmental law.