Better known on the ezine circuit as the "prairie pontificator" Diane is a graduate of the University of Minnesota before it became PC--U offering degrees in hairy legged feminism and the cultural high lights of Rostafer - ianism. She has a degree in political science and economics and grad work in international economics and Eastern European studies. She also received a single credit for a course in writing articles under 10,000 words -- she hopes to accomplish that feat within her lifetime.

Mark Edward Vande Pol is a second-generation environmentalist and fourth-generation Californian. He has multinational experience with engineering project management, including regulatory compliance for design control systems, environmental and construction permits, and supply-chain development. He has been awarded international patents. He has created manufacturing processes, hybrid microelectronic packaging, medical devices, and built the processes machinery to make them.

Mark has developed habitat restoration techniques as a hobby for 11 years around the home he built in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. He was a participating author of the local Santa Cruz County Local Agenda 21 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management Plan. That did it. He quit his job to write this book.

John Fund is a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Fund joined the Journal in April 1984 as deputy editorial features editor. He became an editorial page writer specializing in politics and government in October 1986 and was named a member of the Journal's editorial board in December 1995.

Mr. Fund worked as a research analyst for the California State Legislature in Sacramento before beginning his journalism career in 1982 as a reporter for the syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. In 1993, he received the Warren Brookes Award for journalistic excellence from the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Rep. Samuel E. Rhorer, Pennsylvania House of Representatives: A long-time advocate of parental rights and a leader in education refore, Representative Sam Rohrer learned at an early age about the importance of family. The experience he brings to the public policy arena is deeply rooted in his family life and years in private business.

A product of modest upbringing, Sam spent his formative years working on the family farm in rural Ohio. His father, a union member, labored in a nearby steel mill. After graduating from high school, Sam studied management at Bob Jones University. He spent his summers working construction jobs to pay for his education. it was during these years that he learned to fully appreciate the blessings of family and the rewards of hard work and persistence.

Now in his fifth term in office, Sam persists with his work on the Education and Appropriations Committees where he has earned his reputation as a tireless advocate for parents and children. Rohrer believes that education is one of the most important investments a parent makes in their child's life.

Kent Snyder is the executive director of The Liberty Committee. Prior to joining the committee, Kent managed the San Francisco office of Unifi Communications - a telecommunications company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Kent graduated with a B.A. in political science from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. In 1988, Kent worked for Congressman Ron Paul, the founder and honorary chairman of The Liberty Committee, when Dr. Paul ran for president. Kent was born and raised in Kansas City.

Howard Hutchinson has lived in Glenwood, New Mexico for 26 years. For the past 11 years, he has been the Executive Director, technical writer and media liaison for the Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties (17 counties in the two states).

He has served as Commissioner, New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission; Chair, San Francisco Soil and Water Conservation District; Chair, San Francisco River Basin Water Advisory Board; Chair, Catron County Water Advisory Board; Vice-Chairman, Catron County Land Planning Committee; Speaker for the National Federal Lands Conference; Participant, Upper Gila Mexican spotted owl recovery working group; Chair, San Francisco River Local Working Group and Member, Board of Directors Upper Gila Watershed Restoration Project (Multi-Multi/Gila Monster); Participant, Catron County Citizens Group; Participant, New Mexico Water Dialogue for the development the State Water Plan Template; Member, Southwest New Mexico Regional Water Planning Task Force; Member, Public Participation Group for the Upper Gila River Water Supply Study; Participant, Implementation Subgroup for input into the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher Recovery Plan.

Dave Winckler is the project director for county empowerment for the Washington State Farm Bureau. He has been involved with the county empowerment program, since it was developed in December of 1999. Prior to and during 2000, he served on the Washington State Farm Bureau board of directors and the executive board. In February of 2001, Dave was hired by the Washington Farm Bureau to work with county governments to empower them to work with federal agencies on natural resource issues.

He has served in various capacities with the state and county Farm Bureaus, other farm groups, his church, and is currently chair of the water resources sub-committee for Franklin county.

Dave and his wife Marji also run a small apple and pear orchard with Marji's father in the Columbia Basin north of Pasco, WA. He is a third generation farmer/cattleman from the Yakima Valley in south central Washington. He and Marji have three children, Matt, Barb and Emma.

Special Workbook: Bringing People Together

The Bringing People Together workbook is a compilation of legal citations, sample petitions, sample letters to federal agencies, sample ordinances that can be enacted in the county and samples of how other counties have used the county empowerment process to affect change in the decision making process.

The workbook contains a flow chart and decision making process to help county government officials and local citizens work their way through the empowerment process. Examples of how to write a petition for redress of grievances or how to send a letter to a federal agency asking to be involved in decisions the agency will be making in the future.

It also contains samples of successful land use plans that are currently in use. The workbook is a tremendous reference guide for your local officials to have, not only to understand why this process is totally legal (Walla Walla and Columbia counties in Washington have had their ordinances challenged in the legal system and won all challenges through the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals), but to have a sequence of where to begin and where to go next.

Bringing People Together is a three-ring binder with 196 pages of information useful to anyone with a desire to preserve the custom, culture and economy of their county.

Karen Budd-Falen is an attorney, and with her husband Frank Falen is the owner of the Budd-Falen Law Offices, P.C. located in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Before moving back to Wyoming, Karen served for three years in the Reagan Administration, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington D.C., as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management and as a staff attorney to the Assistant Solicitor for Water and Power. While at Interior, she assisted with the oversight of the Bureau of Land Management, the minerals Management Service and the Office of Surface Mining. Karen has also worked as an attorney at Mountain States Lgal Foundation, a conservative public interest legal foundation located in Denver, Co.

In addition to representing local governments and private citizens, Karen currently serves as legal counsel to the Arizona/New Mexico Coalition of Counties for Stable Economic Growth. Karen, along with County Attorney Jim Catron, also represents Catron County, New Mexico, the first local government to recognize it's right to full participation as a decision maker in federal agency decision making processes.

Karen's most recent publications include, How to Survive the Bureaucratic Maze-A Guide to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management Appeals Process. 1989; Ecosystem Management: Will National Forests be "Managed" Into National Parks? 1991; The Right to Graze Livestock on the Federal Lands: The Historical Development of Western Grazing Rights, Idaho Law Review, Spring, 1994 and Protecting Community Stability and Local Economies: Opportunities for County Government Influence in Federal Decision and Policy Making Processes, Whitman College, 1996.

Karen has been featured in Newsweek Magazine's "Who's Who: 20 for the Future" for her work on property rights issues (September 30, 1991). Karen has also presented testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Forest Health, Washington D.C., April 8, 1997, and Committee on Resources, October 26, 1998.

Jay Zane Walley has become one of the most widely read writers in the country on property rights and resource use issues. He does much more than write great articles. He is a robust speaker with a distinct western flare, and he speaks with the authority of personal experience.

Ray Cunio and his wife, Carol, reside on their 680-acre cattle ranch in Franklin County Missouri. Ray is the president and chairman of Citizens for Private Property Rights (CPPR). He got his start in the property rights movement as an original co-founder of CPPR, in 1989, when the group organized to oppose the "Natural Streams Act," a statewide land grab referendum on the Missouri ballot in 1990.

Jene L. Robinson is an independent contractor providing environmental consulting services since February 2000. Prior to that, he was the Manager of the Environmental Resources Department of Illinois Power Company from 1978 to 2000.

He has a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He has also taken advanced courses in various business, electrical engineering, and nuclear engineering University of Illinois graduate programs. He is a registered professional engineer in Illinois.

He is now a member of the State of Illinois' Task Force on Global Climate Change, the Illinois Board of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Illinois Low Level Radioactive Waste Siting Task Group. He is the past President of the Board of Trustees of the Macon County Conservation District and he has served on the Advisory Panel to Illinois Conservation Congress.

He has a long involvement with the national and international aspects of the climate change issue. He has represented members of the Global Climate Coalition and the Climate Council since their inceptions. He has been a member of and now chairs the Edison Electric Institute's Climate Change Subcommittee. In these capacities he has helped shape industry positions regarding voluntary greenhouse gas emission reductions, trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanisms. In carrying out these responsibilities he has also developed relationships with many of the US government actors working on the issue (White House, DOE, USEPA, Congressional staff).

He attended the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as a non-government observer (NGO). During these international meetings and while conducting his domestic responsibilities he developed a familiarity with many of the players involved with the negotiations. At COP2 he worked with the US delegates from the State Department, DOE, and USPEPA and business and environmental NGOs to encourage Joint Implementation in the protocol. At subsidiary body (SB) meetings between COP's 2 and 3 he worked with international industry NGOs to not limit the means of compliance and to agree to emissions trading as a compliance mechanism. At COP3 he was a spokesperson calling for emissions trading being allowed as a compliance alternative under the protocol.

At COP4 he continued to press for the unfettered use of emissions trading as a compliance mechanism and for mechanisms that adequately protect the buyers of emission credits. At COP5 he worked primarily behind the scenes to further the concepts of unfettered and workable emissions trading mechanisms - or no mechanisms at all. At the first phase of SB 13 he worked hard to protect companies getting full credit for sequestration accomplished through planting of trees (particularly those planted domestically) and the need to begin establishing the means to determine baselines and to quantify the emission credit values of qualifying international projects. Much of the sequestration "lobbying" was with environmental NGOs that he has known over the years. He will attend COP6 to encourage unlimited trading, development of meaningful (or no) mechanisms and awarding full credit for domestic sinks.

He is now chairing the Edison Electric Institute's Climate Change Subcommittee. He has chaired the following:

• Executive Committee of the Illinois Environmental Consensus Forum
  
• Illinois Environmental Regulatory Group (now Chairman Emeritus)
  
• Utility Acid Precipitation Study Program
  
• Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Environment and Energy Committee
  
• EEI Air Quality Subcommittee
  
• EEI Superfund Subcommittee
  
• Central Illinois Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Environmental Dialogue Group of the Executive Advisory Committee Superfund Subcommittee of the Environment and Energy Committee of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI)

Fred Grant is a native of Nampa, Idaho. He attained his B.A. from the College of Idaho in 1958, majoring in History; with specialization in Constitutional History and Law. He then attended the University of Chicago School of Law. He served as Law Clerk to Chief Judge Brune, in the Maryland Court of Appeals.

He first worked as an associate at Lord, Bissell, and Brook; a Chicago law firm representing Lloyd's of London. He continued to practice law in the District of Maryland, where he was an Assistant United States Attorney.

He later became Assistant State Attorney of Baltimore, and then Chief of the Organized Crime Unit, State's Attorney of Baltimore. He spent his remaining time in Baltimore involved in criminal defense.

Grant has since returned to Idaho where he is an expert on land use issues. He is the owner of Fred Kelly Grant Ltd., providing consulting services in personnel and land use, and legal research. He is also consultant to Owyhee County Natural Resource Committee and to the Board of County Commissioners regarding Land Use Planning for the federally managed lands in the county.