Robert F. Ashcraft, PhD, is director of the Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management and an associate professor in the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University. He has nearly 30 years of experience working in nonprofit leadership and management roles and in teaching students the theory and practical elements behind that work. Ashcraft served for 10 years on the national board of the YMCA of the USA and served as the youngest executive director of a local chapter in the American Red Cross. Ashcraft serves on the board of trustees of the NRPA and is a board member of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. He has served as director and in many other capacities for American Humanics, Inc., an undergraduate nonprofit management education program based in Kansas City.

Lynn A. Barnett, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where her research has focused on the play of children and young adults and the contribution of play to development. Barnett is the author of numerous theoretical and empirical chapters and articles about play as an essential quality of human experience, learning, and development. She has translated this research into the design of toys and play structures and programs. For many years she has been teaching an upper-division course called Leisure and Human Development, which chronicles the course of play and leisure across the life span. Barnett is the author of numerous chapters and articles theorizing about play. She is a member of Play Research International and the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA).

John Byl, PhD, is a professor of physical education at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario. Byl has taught recreation and physical education and has coached for more than 25 years. He has authored, coauthored, or edited 10 books related to recreation, physical education, and games. He has a keen interest in understanding the impact of faith on one's daily life. Byl is president of CIRA Ontario and of Ontario's Active Living Rewards online program.

Gaylene Carpenter, EdD, is an associate professor and director of the Arts & Administration Program at the University of Oregon. She has taught leisure program theory for nearly 30 years at five different universities and has written numerous journal articles about arts and cultural programs for the past seven years. An active advocate of arts and cultural programs, she is the academic coordinator for the Festival & Event Management Certificate Program at the University of Oregon. Carpenter received an Ovation Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Oregon Festivals and Events Association, and has also received awards for teaching innovation and excellence from the Society of Park & Recreation Educators. She is a member of the NRPA and the International Festivals & Events Association (IFEA).

Frances Stavola Daly, EdD, CTRS, CPRP, is an associate professor at Kean University in New Jersey, where she coordinates the recreation administration program and the gerontology certificate program. A past president of the National Therapeutic Recreation Society (NTRS), Daly is on the board of trustees of the NRPA and has served on the NTRS board for since 1998. She has presented at more than 30 national, state, and local conferences on various topics. She has been president of the Metropolitan New York Recreation and Park Association, the public policy chair for the New Jersey Therapeutic Recreation section, and a cochair of the New Jersey Governor's Advisory Commission on Recreation for Individuals with Disabilities. Daly was selected as the 2004 Distinguished Professional of the Year by the New York State Therapeutic Recreation Association and 2003 Supervisor of the Year by the New Jersey Recreation and Park Society.

Paul F.J. Eagles, PhD, is a professor specializing in environmental planning at the University of Waterloo in Canada. His primary appointment is in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. He is also cross-appointed to the School of Planning. Over the last 30 years Eagles has worked on a variety of planning projects with an emphasis on the planning and management of parks and protected areas. He has undertaken work in nature-based tourism in more than 25 countries. Since 1996 he has been chair of the Task Force on Tourism and Protected Areas for the World Commission on Protected Areas and of the World Conservation Union, based in Switzerland. Eagles has authored more than 300 publications in tourism, planning, management, and related areas, including coauthoring the book, Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: Guidelines for Planning and Management.

M. Rebecca Genoe, MA, is a PhD student in recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo. She received her master's degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where her focus was on older men's leisure across the life span. Genoe has served as a research assistant at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, where she has explored rural Canada's supportiveness to seniors. Her interests are in leisure, aging and gender, and she hopes to pursue research in this area.

Maureen Glancy, PhD, has worked and taught in the field of recreation since she was a teenager. She received her doctorate in parks and recreation from Penn State University. Glancy has worked in nonprofit agencies, private organizations, and universities doing general programming, environmental education and adventure camping, management and marketing, and teaching all aspects of undergraduate and graduate education. As a professor, Maureen's special interest in research revolves around understanding how people organize their recreation and share the deeper meanings of the common leisure experience with others. Now retired, Maureen lives on the California coast building gardens, publishing the club newsletter for the Northern California Norwich and Norfolk Terrier Club, and training and showing Scarlett and Arlie (her two Norwich terriers) in breed shows, Agility, Earthdog, and obedience trials. Because of her love of teaching, she continues to mentor graduate students and faculty, and she volunteers as a curriculum accreditation visitor for the NRPA.

B.J. Grosvenor, MS, is a lecturer and undergraduate coordinator in the department of recreation and leisure studies at San Jose State University in San Jose, California. As the primary instructor for the department's introductory course, she is well versed in the breadth and depth of material that needs to be covered in an introductory course and has developed strategies to facilitate knowledge acquisition in the classroom. Grosvenor has served on various boards for the California Park and Recreation Society and the California Board of Recreation and Park Certification. She has presented more than 35 various topics at regional and national conferences. Grosvenor received the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Therapeutic Section of the California Park and Recreation Society and the 2003 Distinguished Alumni Award from the department of recreation and leisure studies of the College of Applied Sciences and Arts at San Jose State University. She received a citation in 1998 for passage of SB 1347 State of California, Therapeutic Recreation Title Protection Act, awarded by the Therapeutic Section of the California Park and Recreation Society.

Mark E. Havitz, PhD, is a professor in the department of recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He has more than 30 years of professional and academic experience with some of the top municipal recreation agencies in the United States and universities in the United States and Canada. He is a coauthor of The Diverse Worlds of Unemployed Adults: Consequences for Leisure, Lifestyles, and Well-Being, the first systematic exploration of leisure and unemployment in north America. Havitz is a member of the NPRA, the Society of Park and Recreation Educators (SPRE), and the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies (CALS). He is an elected fellow in the Academy of Leisure Sciences (ALS).

Sara Hensley, MSA, is director for the department of parks, recreation and neighborhood services for San Jose, California. She has served in similar positions in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Champaign, Illinois, and has spearheaded numerous projects in various cities to enhance more than 300 neighborhood parks and facilities. She also directed the development of national training facilities for the US Field Hockey Association and led the efforts for Virginia Beach in being selected as a Magnet Center for Sports Strategy by the NRPA. She has received multiple honors from the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (AAPRA) and many other honors from local and state associations, most recently the David E. Clark Distinguished Professional Award. A member of the NRPA since 1988, she has held numerous positions in various park and recreation organizations at the regional, state, and national levels, and has served as coeditor of various publications for the NRPA.

Jane Hodgkinson, MS, is the executive director of the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association, which has won two National Gold Medal Awards for its special recreation programs. She has spent more than 24 years heading special recreation associations in Illinois, and for two years she was the head of the Southern Illinois Special Olympics. Hodgkinson has also taught for two years at Southern Illinois University. She is the author of Guide for Running a Local Special Olympics Program, which explains how to run a local event. She is a recipient of the 1999 Robert Artz Award, the 1989 Illinois Park and Recreation Association's Professional of the Year Award, the Outstanding Woman Leader Award from DuPage County. Hodgkinson is a founding board member of the Illinois Special Olympics and past president of the Illinois Park and Recreation Association. She is a member of the Illinois Park and Recreation Association, the NRPA, and the AAPRA.

Stephen M. Holland, PhD, is an associate professor and department chair in the department of tourism, recreation and sport management at the University of Florida. He has worked as a National Park Service ranger and has taught undergraduate and graduate classes on outdoor recreation and ecotourism for 20 years. Holland has conducted more than $1 million of funded research on parks, beaches, and outdoor recreation behavior activities. He is a 17-year leader of the National Outdoor Recreation and Rural Tourism Consortium held at Smoky Mountain National Park each September. Holland is a board member for the National Society for Park Resources and a member of the NRPA. He has published numerous articles and conducted research in five national park service areas, nine state parks, two national wildlife refuges, and public beach access locations. He has been awarded the William Penn Mott, Jr. Award for Excellence and a Service Award for board of director service by the National Society for Park Resources.

Lynn M. Jamieson, ReD, is chair and full professor in the department of recreation and park administration at Indiana University. Previously she served as curriculum coordinator of the recreation administration program at California Polytechnic State University and spent 12 years in administrative positions as a recreation administrator, with special emphasis on recreational sport management. She has coauthored four texts and more than 50 articles about various aspects of management in leisure services. Her special interests include sport and leisure policy development and violence in sports.

Andrew T. Kaczynski, MSc, is a PhD candidate in the department of recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. His academic and professional interests focus on the marketing, financing, and management of park and recreation services and particularly on the use of these techniques and resources to facilitate social and economic benefits for communities and the individuals therein. His research has been published in the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, Managing Leisure, and Leisure Sciences. Kaczynski is a member of the NRPA, the Society of Park and Recreation Educators (SPRE), the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies, the American Association for Leisure and Recreation (AALR), and Parks and Recreation Ontario.

Douglas Kennedy, EdD, CPRP, is professor and chair of the department of recreation and leisure studies and associate dean of campus recreation at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Virginia. He has taught a course on history, philosophy, and trends of recreation and leisure for 17 years. He has spoken at numerous professional events nationally and internationally, addressing the critical events in the development of the recreation profession. Kennedy is a past chair of the NRPA/AALR Council on Accreditation, a past president of the Virginia Recreation and Park Society, and a delegation leader of the Uzbekistan National Youth Democracy Education Project. As part of that project, Kennedy wrote a series of documents that facilitated democracy education in Uzbekistan though work with local teachers on integrating principles of democracy in grade-school curricula. He is a member of SPRE and the Virginia Recreation and Park Society.

Robin Kunstler, ReD, CTRS, is a professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York. She has been a professor of therapeutic recreation for 24 years and has been in the field for more than 30 years. She wrote some of the first articles in therapeutic recreation on entrepreneurship (1983), the homeless (1991), the naturally occurring retirement community (2001), and hepatitis C (2004). Kunstler has taught therapeutic recreation courses on every population and aspect of therapeutic recreation. She is coeditor of the Practice Perspectives section of the Therapeutic Recreation Journal. Kunstler is a member of the Society of Park and Recreation Educators, National Therapeutic Recreation Society, and the American Therapeutic Recreation Association.

Susan Markham-Starr, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Recreation Management and Kinesiology at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. She has experience as a researcher about the history of the development of recreation and parks services in Canada and as a practitioner and consultant in recreation and parks planning. She is the former president of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies (CALS) and served as chair for both the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA) editorial committee and the Wolfville Recreation Commission. Markham-Starr wrote the CPRA Research Policy and coedited its 50th-anniversary publication. She also wrote the first City of Halifax Recreation Master Plan and is a member of CALS and World Leisure.

Donald J. McLean, PhD, is an associate professor in the department of recreation, park, and tourism administration at Western Illinois University–Quad Cities in Moline, Illinois. He has been teaching ethics classes since 1989. His interest in this area was spurred by practical experience gained through 12 years of coaching competitive rowing and founding rowing programs and clubs at the varsity, campus recreation, and community levels. He has presented papers on applied ethics at national conferences and served as guest editor for a special issue on applied ethics of the Journal of Applied Recreation Research. In his own leisure time, he enjoys golfing, traveling, and boating.

Robin Mittelstaedt, PhD, joined the recreation studies program faculty at Ohio University in 1991. She has served as coordinator of both the undergraduate and graduate recreation studies programs since 2001. Her research interests include the social psychology of leisure behavior, leisure research methods, and topics related to women's leisure. She has served as a reviewer for eight scholarly journals and as associate editor of Leisure/Loisir for six years. She has worked in numerous recreation positions, including being codirector of Summit Expedition, a mountaineering school in California; director of Parks and Recreation in California; naturalist for Los Angeles County Outdoor School; program director of a private summer camp in the San Juan Islands; director of summer day camps in California; and director of Camp Adventure in Yokosuka, Japan, at the Navy base.

Ellen Montague, EdM, is a communications manager at the Willamette Education Service District in Salem, Oregon. She has been involved in the field of community education since graduating from the University of Oregon in 1980. Montague has held leadership positions at the local, state, and national level and has written successful grants that brought on new programs and further developed existing community education programs in Oregon and Alaska. She is a member of the Oregon Community Education Association and the National Community Education Association.

Laurie Ogilvie, MA, is a national recreation and youth services manager with the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency, where she manages the policy and strategic implementation of recreational services in the Canadian forces.

Ellen O'Sullivan, PhD, CPRP, is president of Leisure Lifestyle Consulting and professor emeritus at Southern Connecticut State University, where she was a professor in recreation and leisure studies and in public health. She has written two books on parks and recreation topics and coauthored another book. She also has developed curriculum for the NRPA and served as the first chair of the Wellness Coalition at Southern Connecticut State University. She is a member of the American Academy for Park and Recreation and of the NRPA, from whom she received a National Distinguished Professional Award. She also served as lead trainer for Hearts N' Parks, a project that she helped develop in North Carolina that led to a nationwide program for the National Institutes of Health.

Mary G. Parr, PhD, is an associate professor in leisure studies at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Her scholarship is focused on the link between knowledge of leisure, leisure services practice, and the professional identity of leisure services. She has published numerous articles in the Journal of Leisure Research, Leisure Sciences, and Schole and is a regular presenter at NRPA's Leisure Research Symposium, the Canadian Congress for Leisure Research, and the Society of Park and Recreation Educators' Teaching Institute. She is a member of the NRPA, the Society of Park and Recreation Educators (SPRE), and the Ohio Parks and Recreation Association.

Laura L. Payne, PhD, is an assistant professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois. She is also the director of the Illinois Rural Recreation Development Project, which helps rural communities develop sustainable local parks and recreation programs and services that have a positive effect on the quality of rural life. Payne has worked in community recreation, nonprofit association management, resort recreation, and public relations. She has taught courses in leadership and group dynamics, recreation programming, leisure service administration, leisure and aging, introduction to leisure, and leisure and human development. She also has examined the role of recreation and leisure services in community development and the relationship between leisure lifestyle and health of older adults with chronic conditions. Other areas of research include the role of local parks and recreation agencies in the promotion and maintenance of health and the relationship between nature-based leisure experiences and health.

Brenda Robertson, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Recreation Management and Kinesiology at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. She has studied youth crime and correctional recreation for the last 15 years and focused her PhD research on why youths commit crime for fun. Her research and teaching focus on the leisure behavior, marginalized populations, and leisure education. She has presented her work on youth crime throughout Canada and the United States as well as in Europe and Africa, and she has produced 25 publications on leisure and youth crime and related topics. She published The Interface Between Leisure Education Delivery Models and Youth Justice Renewal, a report that examines the role of leisure education in correctional settings. She has served on the Board of the National Correctional Recreation Association and the Canadian Association of Leisure Studies, and as director of the Centre of Leisure Studies. She currently serves as a Citizens Advisory Committee Chair for Correctional Services of Canada.

Craig M. Ross, ReD, is an associate professor in the department of recreation and park administration at Indiana University. He has written 60 professional articles, including nearly 40 refereed articles, many of them published in the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association journal. He has received nearly two dozen awards for his writing, teaching, research, and service. In addition, he has coauthored three editions of Recreational Sport Management for Human Kinetics and has served as associate director at Indiana University with primary responsibilities in the campus intramural sports program. Ross has given presentations at the local, state, national, and international levels in recreational sport management.

Kelly Russell, CTRS, is the senior recreation specialist at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office in Golden, Colorado, where she has expanded the program at the facility to serve more than 1,300 inmates, hired a second recreation specialist, and improved the overall quality of the recreation facilities and the programs that are provided. She was a member of the National Correctional Recreation Association and is currently a member of the National Recreation and Parks Association and the Colorado Parks and Recreation Association. Russell is a certified therapeutic recreation specialist.

Jerome Singleton, PhD, has been employed by the School of Health and Human Performance at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, since 1981. Singleton is cross-appointed to the School of Nursing, Sociology and Anthropology at Dalhousie and to the école de Kinésiologie et Récréologie, Université de Moncton. Singleton has also been cross-appointed to the department of community health and epidemiology and the School of Social Work, both at the University of Toronto. He has been involved with Therapeutic Recreation and Older Adults for the past 24 years. Singleton has published articles in numerous journals and has presented at various professional conferences. He also has coproduced a video titled “Therapeutic Recreation Assessment of Persons With Alzheimer's.”

Kathy Spangler, CPRP, joined the NRPA as the Northeast regional director in 1987 and has served in a variety of capacities for that association, including fitness and wellness director, American Park and Recreation Society staff liaison, and marketing director. In her current role she is national partnerships director. She spearheaded the creation of a national programs department in 1998 and has been responsible for advancing NRPA's external partnership and public visibility profile including the landmark campaign Healthy Lifestyles, Livable Communities . . . It Starts in Parks!, which was featured in Sports Illustrated and Fitness magazine. Recently, Spangler was appointed to serve on the National Park Service Advisory Board Committee for Recreation and Health. As a certified park and recreation professional, Spangler has made numerous presentations and contributed many articles and publications in a variety of areas related to health, wellness, and recreation. She has received many awards from state and national organizations. The University of Maine at Presque Isle, which recognized her as Alumni of the Year in 1998, conferred on her an honorary doctorate in 2004.

Jeff Temple is a 25-year veteran of Armed Forces Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) and has been an active-duty sailor, a military family member, and an MWR civilian employee with both the Navy and the Army. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a BA in business management, Temple worked with the Navy and held several positions in Italy before becoming the first MWR director at the Naval Support Activity in Souda Bay, Crete. Temple also spent several years at Pt. Mugu, California, and in the Northwest as the leisure service director at SUBASE Bangor before accepting a position with Army Europe as the recreation chief in Giessen, Germany. He then served for three years as the MWR director in Schweinfurt, Germany, and as the chief of community recreation and business programs at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. He is presently the Liaison Officer, Quality of Life Programs, U.S. Army Europe in Heidelberg, Germany. He has served as an officer of the Armed Forces Recreation Society (AFRS) Board of Directors for more than 12 years. Jeff was appointed to the board in 1992 as a regional representative serving in that capacity in both the Northwest and in Europe and was then elected as president in 1998. Jeff currently serves the military recreation community as the AFRS representative to the NRPA National Forum.

Betty van der Smissen, ReD, JD, is professor emeritus of recreation and parks at Michigan State University and visiting professor in the Division of Leisure, Youth, and Human Services at the University of Northern Iowa. Van der Smissen has maintained memberships in many organizations and has been active in the fields of recreation, camping, environmental education, and adventure and challenge for nearly 50 years. The national organizations in these and several related fields have recognized van der Smissen's professional contributions by honoring her with their highest awards for service as well as naming certain awards in recognition of her service. These include a leadership award, a research grant, and a conference scholarship. Van der Smissen is noted for her extensive work, beginning in the early 1960s and continuing to date, in the development, implementation, and revision of the four major accreditation programs in her fields: academic curriculum, organized camping, adventure and challenge programs, and recreation and park agencies. She has served more than one term on the national accreditation body (council commission board) of each of these four programs.

Randy J. Virden, PhD, is an associate professor and the director of the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University. Dr. Virden teaches courses related to the management of outdoor recreation resources and research methods. He earned a PhD in recreation resource management from the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University in 1986. His primary areas of academic interest are the application of social science knowledge to natural resource planning and policy, recreation and tourism behavior, and visitor management. Research projects include grants with the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Arizona State Parks, and Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department. Dr. Virden currently serves on the ASU Center for Environmental Studies Faculty Advisory Council and on the board for the ASU Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management. He is chairman of the Maricopa County Parks & Recreation Commission.

Daniel G. Yoder, PhD, is a professor in the recreation, park and tourism department at Western Illinois University in Macomb. In his research and teaching his focus is on leisure and sociology. In his position as a parks and recreation director in Colorado, he observed and organized activities for a diverse group of people and faced practical leisure and sociological issues on a daily basis. He coauthored Issues in Recreation and Leisure: Ethical Decision Making with Don McLean for Human Kinetics, and he was presented an Outstanding Teacher Award in 2004 for his teaching at Western Illinois. Yoder is a member of the NRPA and the Illinois Parks and Recreation Association.